David’s Non-Prayer
Do not hide Your face from me on the day of my distress; Incline Your ear to me;
On the day when I call answer me quickly. Psalm 102:2 NASB
Do not hide – In his book The Prophets, Abraham Heschel wrote: “To be able to pray, one must alter the course of consciousness, one must go through moments of disengagement, one must enter another course of thinking, one must face in a different direction. The course one must take in order to arrive at prayer is on the way to God. For the focus of prayer is not the self. . . Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which one forgets oneself and becomes aware of God.”[1]
Do you think Heschel is right? If he is, then it seems that far too often our vocalizations before God are not really prayer at all. They are wish lists. They are focused on us; what we want, what we need, how we would like the world to act. If Heschel is right, prayer begins when all that self-centeredness is left behind; when the complete focus of our attention is God Himself. If Heschel is right, we don’t actually pray very often. Most of the time we end up with this psalmist, voicing religiously-cloaked demands.
Of course, it’s just possible that the lack of nuances in the translation throws us off. Here the word for “do not hide” is al-taster from the verb sātar. Of course, the negative particle is attached to the verb (al), but we should notice right away that this is the conditional negative. It’s not the same as the “no” in the Ten Commandments (lo). It means that this particular situation isn’t permanent. It depends on other circumstances. The psalmist is not saying that God had departed forever. He is saying that at this particular time it is as if God’s face is concealed. This idea is further expanded by the wider meaning of the verb. Note the following:
The root in its basic meaning “hide” is common to West, Southwest, and Southeast Semitic. The subordinate thought of protection involved in the root, which helps to distinguish it from its synonyms ʿālam “conceal” and ḥābāʾ “withdraw,” “hide,” is reflected in such Amorite names as Sitř-Baḫlum, “Baal is my protection.”[2]
Perhaps its most significant use is in the idiom to “hide the face,” symbolizing broken communion, such as between God and sinful Israel (Isa 59:2). [3]
The psalmist is not simply pleading for an audience. He is implying that he no longer feels God’s protection. Something has happened in the relationship, and at this moment of distress, he feels abandoned. Where is the God who promised to watch over him? At this moment he needs more than some long-ago promise. He needs some sort of personal assurance. And because this song is focused on his need, it turns out to be a prayer that isn’t quite a prayer, despite his claim that this is his tĕpillâ. You’ll remember that only five psalms bear this title. Perhaps now we know why. They aren’t really prayers. They are sort of proto-prayers, the steps a man takes while he is struggling to let go of his personal agenda so that he can actually pray. We still call them prayers today. In fact, I would guess that most of our “prayers” are really tĕpillâ in this proto sense of the word. We’re on our way to real prayer, but first we need to express our personal distress before we can lay it aside. “Do not hide” isn’t a request. It’s a recognition that we are still stuck in our world.
Topical Index: do not hide, al-taster, sātar, protect, personal, prayer, Psalm 102:2
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets: Two Volumes in One (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol. 2, p. 221.
[2] Patterson, R. D. (1999). 1551 סָתַר. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 636). Chicago: Moody Press.
[3] Ibid.
