City Sights
Surely Your servants take pleasure in her stones, and feel pity for her dust. Psalm 102:14 NASB
Take pleasure/ feel pity – Taken out of the context of metonym, this verse doesn’t make much sense. Consider its surface meaning. When you walk through the City of David (Zion), would you find favor in the stones and show compassion for the dust? The stones might be architecturally inspiring. They might be aesthetically delightful. You might even snap a few photos as I did when I first saw them. But would they elicit ki-rāṣu? Would your feelings for the stones turn toward ritual cleanliness? Probably not. The stones don’t do homage. They don’t sacrifice. Furthermore, it seems impossible to feel pity for dust, especially when this verb is the same one we just saw in the previous verse (ḥannûn). How do you show heartfelt benevolence toward dust? No, something else is happening here; something that is described in poetic license. It all depends on the pronoun, her stones and her dust.
Clearly the pronoun has gender. The psalmist doesn’t write “Its stones/ its dust” although that is probably how we would express it today. The feminine pronoun refers to ṣîyôn (Zion). Zion is viewed as a woman, a damsel in the wilderness. She is worthy of admiration. Why? The verb tells us. rāṣâ is used thirteen times in the Psalms “in the special sense ‘to be favorably received’ as to the ritual cleanliness of offerings.”[1] Ah, it’s not about stones at all. It’s about the fact that God’s servants are pleased with Zion’s ritual offerings. Stripped of poetic flourish, we might read this as, “The priests of the Lord delight in Zion’s ritual cleanliness.” Zion follows proper worship protocol. Of course, it isn’t Zion, the city, that is the subject here. It’s the author. The priests find delight in his ritual cleanliness. David’s city reflects David’s character. He has faithfully obeyed the rules of ritual worship.
But there’s another side. The dust. The priests of the Lord “feel pity” for the dust. Of course, the surface meaning is nonsense. Once again the verb tells us the real story. This verb is ḥannûn, to act on the basis of heartfelt benevolence. The priests of the Lord show compassion for the dust. What does this mean? Well, we’ve already encountered a synonym, ʾēper, in verse 9. The word here is ʿāpār. It has a particularly important reference: Genesis 2:7. This is the real meaning of the poet’s choice. The servants of the Lord show compassion for the man who is but dust.
What’s the message? “YHVH, Your priests are delighted in my ritual cleanliness. And they have compassion for the fact that I am really nothing but dust.” What’s the implication? “If Your priests feel this way, how much more must You feel?”
It’s important to notice that this verse opens with a verb (rāṣâ) and closes with a verb (ḥannûn). The literal syntax is, “Find pleasure Your servants in stones and in dust feel compassion.” Action at the beginning; action at the end. In between, stones and dust—descriptions of the highest and the lowest forms of human existence. Is this simply poetic arrangement? I don’t think so. I think that the poet is making a point. We are stones and dust, the best and the least, what is honorable and what is inconsequential. We aren’t pure, granite-like fortresses of unblemished faithfulness. There’s dust in us all. But that doesn’t stop God’s servants from recognizing the pure and having compassion on the dross. And if His servants feel both of these actionable emotions, should not God feel the same even more so?
Topical Index: stones, dust, rāṣâ, feel pleasure, ḥannûn, have pity, Psalm 102:14
[1] White, W. (1999). 2207 רָצָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 859).
