The Silent Majority

I will meditate on Your precepts and ^[f]regard Your ways.  Psalm 119:15  NASB

Meditate – I think we’ve thoroughly modernized this one.  Even Alter writes, “Let me dwell on Your decrees.”  Both terms (meditate and dwell) move the thought from verbalization to contemplation.  Both ignore the oral culture of the 10^th Century B.C.E.  Notice Cohen’s remark about the verb:

2255    שִׂיַח (śîaḥ) I, meditate, muse, commune, speak, complain

The basic meaning of this verb seems to be “rehearse,” “repent,” or “go over a matter in one’s mind.” This meditation or contemplation may be done either inwardly or outwardly. Since English differentiates these two notions, the word is usually rendered “meditate,” or “talk.”^[1]

Recall William Graham’s assessment of Scripture:

“Scripture is widely understood today to be the antithesis of a community’s oral tradition.  It is conceived as the tangible document that fixes the fluid sacred word and gives it substance and permanence.  The idea hardly even occurs that a sacred text could exist for long without being written; nor does the recognition come easily that virtually every scripture has traditionally functioned in large measure as vocal, not silent discourse.”[2]

“. . . in most major religious traditions, sacred texts were transmitted orally in the first place and written down only relatively recently.”[3]

With these thoughts in mind, we should probably translate this verse something like this: “I will vocalize your oversight.”  Oh, we still have to investigate that last word, piqqûdîm, but for the moment consider this written text a statement about an oral recitation, not a silent contemplation.  In the ancient Hebraic world, matters dealing with God were not relegated to the silent majority.

Graham adds one more significant element:  “Where memory collapses time spans, writing tends to fix events temporally and heighten the sense of their distinctiveness as well as their ‘pastness’, or separation from the present and the individual person.  The sense of participation in the events narrated becomes more difficult.  Something of this kind of perceptual shift is what we often try to get at by distinguishing (oral) ‘myth’ from (written) ‘history’ as narrative modes.  The crux of the difference between the two is not their relative ‘truth’, but their presentation of temporality . . .”[4]

Perhaps we should have begun this investigation by asking why the poet bothered to write this.  Was it simply autobiographical or did he mean for others to learn from his experience?  If his culture is primarily oral, then any purpose other than a statement of personal meditative history would expect the words to be spoken, and since silent meditation was not a highly regarded religious activity when he wrote, it seems to me that his agenda is for his audience to hear what he says and be challenged by it.  “Meditate” removes all of this.  “Meditate” is a modern religious invention.  Ancient Israel declares God’s involvement.  It doesn’t think about it.

Maybe we’re just too modern to actually listen—and repeat.

Topical Index: śîaḥ, oral, meditate, written, Psalm 119:15

^[1] Cohen, G. G. (1999). 2255 שִׂיַח. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 875). Moody Press.

[2] William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. ix.

[3] Ibid., p. 4.

[4] Ibid., p. 16.