The Other View

We have become a disgrace to our neighbors, scorn and contempt to all round us.  How long, O LORD, will You rage forever, Your fury burn like fire?  Pour out Your wrath on the nations that did not know You and on the kingdoms that did not call on Your name.  Psalm 79:4-6 (Hebrew Bible) Robert Alter

How long, O LORD – What would Asaph write today?  What would he say after another 2000 years of pogroms, the Holocaust, and contemporary violence toward Israel?  If he wrote ʿad mā (“how long”) in 1000 BCE, what expression would he use today?  Perhaps there isn’t a word strong enough.  Will it go on forever?  So it seems.  Why?  Why do You not rescue Your people?

And now we see that Asaph’s view is entirely the opposite of most of us.  He does not consider the evil motives of the enemies.  He does not lay the blame at their doorsteps.  He does not demand justice from them.  His focus—his only focus—is on God’s involvement.  It is God, not the enemies, who controls this situation.  Asaph’s expectation is that God will protect His people.  But that isn’t happening.  The question is not “Why do these blasphemers attack us?”  The question is “Why doesn’t God intervene?”  Something is wrong, and it’s not that God’s enemies seek to destroy His people.  They have always sought that objective.  What’s wrong is that it is happening!  If God is sovereign, and if He loves Israel, then why?  We have the same question today—IN CAPTIAL LETTERS and EXCLAMATION POINTS!!  Maybe even BOLD!

This, or course, is not just Asaph’s concern.  It is the concern of every follower of the God of Israel.  We believe that God is the God of all creation.  That He is the one true God.  That He loves His people.  That He is the one sovereign of all human history.  And so the contradiction.  Is He powerless?  No, impossible!  Then why does He defer, why does He wait, why does He not rescue?  Can it be that we are unworthy?  But, of course we are—and He already knows this.  He has proclaimed His love despite our unworthiness.  That cannot be the reason.  Then what?

You will notice that Asaph considers the scourge of the enemies to be the rage of God.  ʾānēp is the Hebrew.  An angry face toward the people who have sinned (cf. Deuteronomy 1:37).  “ʾap gives specific emphasis to the emotional aspect of anger and wrath.”^[1]  This is not a matter of legal proceedings, not the judgment of a court, even a heavenly court.  This is God being outraged, furious, incensed.  But where is mercy?  Where is compassion, the first characteristic of this Creator God?  “How long will Your anger persist?” asks Asaph, because as long as it does the people suffer and die.  And what is the answer?

Already “too long.”  Thousands of years too long.  Hundreds of days too long for each one of us.  The question of all creation.  “How long?”  “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our body (Romans 8:22-23).  ʿad mā.

Topical Index:  ʿad mā, how long, anger, enemy, Psalm 79:4-6

^[1] (1999). 133 אָנֵף. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 58). Chicago: Moody Press.