Self-Help Talk
Why are you in despair, my soul? And why are you restless within me? Wait for God, for I will again praise Him for the help of His presence, my God. Psalm 42:11 NASB
In despair – What a great verse! The perfect response to Psalm 88, that dark and deary account of life when God seems absent. Here the psalmist exults in God’s faithfulness, the perfect counter to that dark hole space. He talks himself into faith and trust. There’s just one problem. The text might not actually say this. Let’s look at the Hebrew text.
מַה-תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי נַפְשִׁי וּמַה-תֶּהֱמִי עָלָי
הוֹחִילִי לֵאלֹהִים כִּי-עוֹד אוֹדֶנּוּ יְשׁוּעֹת פָּנַי וֵאלֹהָי
The opening word, מַה-תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי, is the combination of the interrogative mâ with the verb śîaḥ. “Why + to meditate, speak, complain, muse.” So, how do we get “in despair”? Is it a parallel with “restless within me” (hāmâ – cry aloud, mourn, rage, roar, sound; make noise, tumult; be clamorous, disquieted, loud, moved, troubled, in an uproar)[1] or is it the translator’s flourish; his choice for emotional intensity? Many other versions use “downcast” or “disturbed.” Apparently, “despair” is an acceptable synonym, although I would argue that “despair” is much darker.
But notice how Alter translates these two verses:
11 With murder in my bones, my enemies revile me when they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
12 How bent, my being, how you moan for me! Hope in God, for yet will I acclaim Him, His rescuing presence and my God.
He provides some explanation:
- 11. With murder in my bones. This shocking phrase is what the Hebrew actually appears to say. The King James Version, with no warrant, puts a sword in the bones. Others seek to relate the Hebrew noun to a root that means “crush,” but in fact the verbal stem r-ts-ḥ everywhere means “to murder.” It is best to take this as an arresting expression of the imminent threat of death. The speaker can feel the murder that others wish to perpetrate on him in his very bones at the moment his enemies revile him.
- 12. How bent, my being. This repetition of verse 6 as a concluding refrain shows two small changes: the word “my God” (ʾelohai) is climactically added at the very end, and the Masoretic Text reads “my presence” (panai), which does not make a great deal of sense. Two manuscripts as well as a version of the Aramaic Targum read panaw, “His presence.” This translation takes that as the probably correct reading.
“How bent my being” isn’t really a statement of inner emotions. Like most Hebrew idioms, it’s physical. “I feel bent over from all this,” might be how we would say it. But “in despair” tends to read the text as if it were twentieth-century psychological diagnosis. Perhaps “despair” isn’t really a biblical idea. We know that there is no word for “doubt” in the Tanakh, and if that’s the case, would we be too surprised to find that despair isn’t a biblical idea either? Oh, there are plenty of words for the physical expression of anguish, depression, disconsolateness, or misery, but despair is much darker. It is the total absence of hope, and the biblical man never actually reaches that place. Why? Because God is.
Despair is forbidden, not because it’s not a real emotion but because it excludes God, and as long as God is, no matter how dim the light, hope is possible. Therefore, despair is not possible. To despair is to eliminate God. Despair is, in fact, a form of idolatry.
Topical Index: despair, presence, panaw, hāmâ, cry aloud, Psalm 42:11
[1] Weber, C. P. (1999). 505 הָמָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 219). Chicago: Moody Press.
🙂