What Goes Around

He will turn back against them their wickedness, through their evil He will destroy them, the LORD our God will destroy them.  Psalm 94:23  Robert Alter

Turn back against them – What is the opposite of turning toward God?  Before you answer, consider that the Hebrew verb which means “to return” to God is šûb (pronounced shuv) is the same verb used in this verse, but here it means something entirely different.  The action required in (re)turing to God is the opposite of what will happen in the judgment of the wicked.  Now you can answer our question.  The opposite of turning to God is the absence of God.  It’s not necessarily turning away from God.  No, punishment is the absence of God.  It doesn’t require any deliberate act like turning to God requires.  It is the inevitable consequence of evil—existence without God.  You’ll recall Heschel’s comment: “Man is meaningless without God.”  In this sense, judgment against the wicked occurs as soon as the wicked act begins.  In the biblical world the punishment is concomitant with the verdict.  There’s no “sitting on death row” time.

However (and it’s a big one), God is merciful.  Punishment is delayed in hopes of repentance.  Even though the wicked are removed from the divine, they are rarely aware of it because God forestalls the consequences.  Life appears to continue as usual.  Ontologically it’s over, but existentially it continues.  And because it continues, awareness of the ontological collapse goes undetected.  Even outside observers don’t see the devastating collapse that has occurred, until a prophet comes along and points it out.  Then, perhaps, there might be some awakening to the truth of this horrid condition.  And it is the possibility, no matter how faint, that keeps the existential experience going.  The wicked depend on the grace of God even more than the righteous.  The fact that Adam lived a long life after his refusal to repent only illustrates the mercy and patience of God.  He did die, it just took a long time to expire.

David provides another insight into this ontological reality.  You will note that he reiterates the middah keneged middahprinciple (“measure for measure”).  What the wicked do to others will eventually be done to them.  We have the saying, “What goes around comes around.”  That’s the biblical principle in common parlance.  We might not see it during our lifetimes, but we believe it to be true, and that fact that we believe it to be true only underscores how biblical our common law values really are.  When the day comes that the society no longer believes that the wicked will ever be punished, ethical chaos will ensue—and the civilization will collapse.  While our system of juris prudence may be fatedly flawed, it still reflects the idea that the guilty should get what they deserve, and in biblical terms, what they deserve is determined by exactly what they did.  “Time served” has no bearing on the matter.  A thief must repay.  A slanderer must recant and repair.  And a murderer must pay with his own life.  middah keneged middah.  It’s built into the moral order of the universe.

Why do we need to know these two things: that the wicked will pay and that God delays on purpose?  Because David reminds us:

The Lord looks down from heaven  on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.  All have turned away, all have become corrupt;  there is no one who does good,  not even one.    (Psalm 14:2-3)

Maybe we depend on mercy too.

Topical Index: wicked, middah keneged middah, measure for measure, Psalm 14:2-3, Psalm 94:23