Dead End

Your burning anger has passed over me;  Your terrors have destroyed me.  Psalm 88:16  NASB

Destroyed – Not just any trauma.  No, this is trauma of a special kind: bi·ʿûṯ.  “events that cause fear and destruction or death, with some focus on the wrath of the punisher.”^[1]  What is the result?  ṣāmat

The word ṣāmat occurs fourteen times. The verb is a very strong word for destruction or for completely silencing someone (KB; cf. Job 23:17); e.g. friends vanish under stress like snow before the heat (Job 6:15ff.). It describes the intense desire of one to obliterate completely his enemies (cf. Ps 143:12). David was able to vanquish his foes, because God had caused them to turn their backs (Ps 18:40 [H 41]) // māḥaṣ (Ps 18:38 [H 39] as in Ugaritic ʿntII:7f. AisWUS no. 2330). The Psalmist too was attacked by those who wished to eliminate him.^[2]

It’s God anger, God’s terrors, that destroy.  “I’m melting away, Lord.  Like snow in the desert heat.  Disappearing.  No one will even know I was here.”

Evaporating

That morning, the wispy fingers of

Forgotten night terrors –

A cold steam swirling on dark waters,

I stood at the shore’s edge

My soul drawn away from me

Riding the beast of emptiness

Its vaporous existence

Chained to my heart with

As much permanence as the

Wings of a butterfly kiss

Beating against a hurricane

I watched it float, ethereal, silently

Whispering my name in its pain,

Evaporating

And trudge-turning to daylight’s scorching truth

I left myself

Behind

“Perhaps today God will hear the moaning on the water,

And grant me grace,” I thought.

“The night comes soon enough,” was the reply.

11/18/97  (from Broken Bits: Poems from the Wasteland)

Topical Index:  : bi·ʿûṯ, terrors, ṣāmat, destroy, evaporating, Psalm 88:16

^[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

KB L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, 2nd ed., Eng.-Ger., 1958

AisWUS J. Aistleitner, Wöterbuch der ugaritischen Sprache, 4th ed., 1974

^[2] Hartley, J. E. (1999). 1932 צָמַת. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 770). Chicago: Moody Press.