Sneaking Around
He does not slander with his tongue, nor do evil to his neighbor, nor bring shame on his friend; Psalm 15:3 NASB
Slander – The Hebrew word here is rāgal. Once you know that, you might be shocked at this translation. You see, only one time in twenty-four occurrences is it translated “slander.” In the other twenty-three instances it means “spy out,” “view,” or “back bite.” Two related domains translate rāgal as “feet” or “foot soldier” or “footstool” more than 216 times. In addition, it is sometimes translated as toes and even as urinating. How it becomes “slander” is somewhat of a mystery. Maybe that helps explain why this line is absent in the Qumran copies of Psalm 15. Nevertheless, it’s here in the MT, so we will have to try to understand its role.
What do you imagine is the connection between spying and slander? Well, let’s employ some poetic license. Slander might be pictured as spying into someone’s life in order to do them harm. We can think of it as voyeurism. The point is to find something scandalous in order to humiliate another. Since this kind of behavior happens routinely in our broken world, it doesn’t take too much imagination to see the connection. But there’s another connection that isn’t quite so obvious to those outside Israel. The use of a word that means both “spying” and “slander” reminds me of the story of the spies sent into Canaan. After they returned, they essentially slandered Moses, not because of their original evidence but because they spread lies among the people in order to instill fear in them. The text says, “But the men who had gone with him said, ‘We can’t attack those people! They’re too strong for us!’ So they began to spread lies among the Israelites about the land they had explored” (Numbers 13:31). They made Moses’ instructions seem ludicrous and they diminished his leadership. The rāgalim (spies) became rāgalim (slanderers).
Perhaps this was a connection that the poet had in mind. If it were, then we have something else to learn from his imaginative portrait. What motivated the spies to become slanderers was fear. They considered the people of Canaan from their own human perspective. As a result, they disregarded the promise of God and ignored all the prior generation’s evidence of God’s commitment. In a real sense, they not only slandered Moses with their lies. They slandered God. Behind it all was their fear for their own well-being. Isn’t this the motivation of slander itself? Slander is an attempt to damage another person’s reputation. Why would someone do such a thing? Only if they felt the other person was a threat of some kind. In other words, they concoct damaging lies because they are concerned for themselves to the exclusion of another. When the poet uses the word rāgal, he not only connects us to an historical example, he also provides an insight into the behavior. His choice of words might be very unusual, but his analysis is critically important. Perhaps that’s the point of using such an odd word: to make us alert to the fear that generates our own temptations to slander another.
Topical Index: rāgal, spy out, foot soldier, feet, slander, fear, Numbers 13:31, Psalm 15:3
