Walk Among the Tombstones

May their encampment be laid waste, and in their tents may no one dwell.  Psalm 69:26 [Hebrew Bible]  Robert Alter

No one dwell – Enough already!  David’s already cursed them.  He’s already wished them trapped, blind, and feeble.  He’s elicited the storm God to scorch them with hot lava.  Why keep the curses going?  Ah, but now we come to thecommunal implication.

The smallest building block of the ancient world is not the individual.  It’s the family unit.  And then the clan, the tribe, the nation, the kingdom.  My enemy, singular, is not my only foe.  He is merely a fraction of something bigger, more lethal.  His relatives.  Once we grasp this essential ancient idea, we can understand why God instructed His people to eliminate everyone in the opposition.  It wasn’t just malice.  It was expedient practicality.  And as we know, when Joshua made the horrible mistake of not exterminating the entire population of the Land, those he left alive eventually corrupted the entire nation of Israel.  You don’t cure cancer by removing a malignant cell.  You have to cut it all away if you’re going to save the patient.  By the way, the Italian Mafia knew this principle, in case you thought it was only ancient Hebrew.

The psalm shifts from individual enemies to the collective they represent: “encampment” and “tents,” that is, everyone associated with these foes.  David certainly has precedent.  Achan and Korah might be individual perpetrators but the punishment extended to their relatives.  No one is all alone, even in sin.

This comes about because of the Hebraic idea of being human.  As I have noted before, the Hebrew word usually translated “man” (אִישׁ ʾîysh, eesh) means nothing like our concept of individual male.  In our world, each one of us stands as a separate entity, unique and responsible.  But in Hebrew, this word really means the collective summary of all the relationships that make us what we are.  That is to say, we are father, husband, son, grandson, tribal, clan, nation, religion, follower, leader, etc. etc.  In Hebrew thought, if any one of these essential components of humanness is removed, the “person” is diminished.  To be human is to be a collective.  Therefore, what I do or don’t do reaches into my past and my future as the collective representative of my line extended from my ancestors to my progeny.  Of course, the same holds true for the female.  David shares this point of view, therefore, he doesn’t want just those particular individuals who opposed him to feel the wrath of God.  He wants all their connections to be eliminated.

However, circumstances can change.  David’s curse is conditional.  The negative particle is ʾal, not lōʾ.  “This particle expresses the negative as either a wish (Gen 13:8; Jud 19:23) or a preference (Prov 17:12), thus indicating its more reserved intent than the very adamant lōʾ.”^[1]  Even now there is the possibility of repentance.  And reflection—as we shall see.

Topical Index: dwell, no, none, ʾal, conditional, man, Psalm 69:26

^[1] Scott, J. B. (1999). 90 אַל. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 40). Chicago: Moody Press.