The Labyrinth (rewind +)

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.  Psalm 139:1 NASB

Searched – Does anyone really know you?  Do you really know yourself?  If the research into personality and identity formation is correct, we would be inclined to answer both of these questions with, “No.”  There are some really good reasons why this is the case.  First, really being known by someone else is a terribly risky business.  We all have plenty of experience revealing our deepest secrets only to be rejected or criticized.  We know what it means to be burned.  Since revealing who we think we really are requires the willingness to be wounded, we hold back.  Without actually intending to build a protective wall, we almost automatically retreat from situations where our fragile egos could be damaged.  And, by the way, this is not wrong.  Quite a few people in our lives really aren’t safe.  That’s why Twelve Step groups and therapists stay in business.  If we are going to open ourselves to the possibility of wounds, we prefer a safe place to do so.

Second, of course, is that fact that we rarely view ourselves objectively.  The “fearless moral inventory” process most likely demonstrates just how complex and multi-layered we really are.  We often discover in the depths of personality something we would rather not admit, even to ourselves.  Like a great number of biblical characters, we discover, “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”[1]  Personality is very complicated.

The psalmist searches for himself through lyrics and music.  He employs Hebrew vocabulary that pushes us into the depths.  We can start by examining the meaning of the verb ḥāqar (to search, investigate, examine).  “It can refer to initial phases of a search or the end result, but always connotes a diligent, difficult probing.”^[2]  One of its derivatives adds more to our understanding:

(ḥēqer). Searching, inquiry. This noun is used of the “heart-searching” of the tribe of Reuben, which failed to aid Deborah and Barak against the Canaanites (Jud 5:16).

Usually, the emphasis is on the impossible. The heart of kings is unsearchable (Prov 25:3). Six of its ten usages refer to the unsearchable nature of God^[3]

Apparently, the psalmist also recognized the nearly impossible task of looking into the human heart.

We need to examine each of the verses in this psalm because we want to look where we can’t really see—where only God can pry into those dark places deep within us.  That is the subject matter of this psalm and insofar as the author is able to reveal the depths of personality, and the terrors found in those dark recesses of the soul, we will journey with him—toward what lies beneath.

But be warned.  This is not an easy journey, and not without consequences.  Zornberg’s comment is important:

This psalm is cited by the Melchita, among many other proof texts, as evidence of the absurdity of the very notion of fleeing from God. . .  Yet Psalm 139 presents the Psalmist himself—and not some benighted pagan—as attempting to do just that.  The energy of his desire to escape is palpable, even as it is thwarted at every turn. . . . Ultimately, the primal imagery of flight through space yields to the imagery of interiority: darkness fails to hide him from God’s eyes, God knew him before he knew himself; God’s consciousness filled his mother’s womb, shaping his protoplasm into himself.  Such a God is inescapable: the Psalmist knows this precisely because he desires and attempts to escape.  This is the knowledge of one who has allowed himself the full range of his imagination.  And his response to finding God precisely where he thought to elude Him is fraught with ambivalence.  He feels hedged, besieged; as fast as he moves, God, like a shadow, moves with him.  If the theological conclusion is impeccable—one cannot flee from God—its power derives from the fact that he does flee, that something human, which is not alien to the Psalmist, compels him to flee.  Ultimately, the mystery baffles him . . .[4]

I am particularly struck by Zornberg’s phrase, “like a shadow.”  God is my shadow—inescapable, almost unreal, yet a constant reminder of myself.  In my darkest places—in the shadows of my soul—I swim in His essence, the thick darkness of His reality.  A most uncomfortable place deep within me.

Topical Index:  personality, examination, search, ḥāqar, Psalm 139:1

[1] Romans 7:15  NASB 1995

^[2] Wolf, H. (1999). 729 חָקַר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (318). Chicago: Moody Press.

^[3] Ibid.

[4] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious, p. 87.