The Watchers
For my enemies have spoken against me; and those who watch for my life have consulted together, Psalm 71:10 NASB
Watch for my life – Don’t read this as if others are watching over you! In this verse, the psalmist identifies those who watch in order to see him fail. They’ve teamed up with his enemies and can’t wait to see disaster strike him down. The word he chooses normally brings a different scenario to mind, but here he inverts the normal use in order to shock his readers into identification.
šāmar is typically about protection, guarding in order to preserve, or attending to something important. It comes from the idea of a hedge with thorns, still in use today in non-Westernized places. “The basic idea of the root is ‘to exercise great care over.’” [1] It’s the same word used in the exhortation to Israel regarding the commandments and other instructions from God. “It expresses the careful attention to be paid to the obligations of a covenant, to laws, statutes, etc. This is one of the most frequent uses of the verb.”[2] “Frequently the verb is used to speak of personal discipline, the need to take heed in respect to one’s life and actions:”[3] You can see why the psalmist bends this word for different purposes. It’s like reaching for a stick and discovering it’s a snake. The psalmist’s word bites you. It’s not at all what you expected. It’s just great poetry. But we all know that feeling, don’t we?
One of the great mysteries of life is how gullible we are to our own expectations of peaceful existence. Over and over, we experience that “instability is chronic. Disruption is common. Uncertainty is permanent,”[4] and yet we go right on believing that this stick isn’t really a snake. The poet knows human proclivities tend to ignore real experience. He’s quite aware that most of the time the world seems completely indifferent to human life. We sow; a drought dries up the fields. We build; an earthquake topples our efforts. We plan; God laughs. Those who watch for our lives are not always other homo sapiens. There might be a few “watchers” in the mix, according to 1 Enoch. With all this chaos and calamity ever-present, do you suppose the psalmist throws up his hands and sinks in life’s quicksand with a heart of despair? No, he doesn’t! Why not? Because he still has tiqwâ, another enigmatic word with a colorful history. You’ll find it in the story of Rahab (Joshua 2:18), used to describe a scarlet cord, but the word only means “cord” in two verses in this story. All the rest of the time, it means “hope.” What looked like a red rope was really a sign of hope. Just think of all the homilies built around that!
Who watches for my life? Make a list. Now, on the other side of the page, draw a long red rope. Then change the preposition from “for” to “over.”
Topical Index: for my life, over my life, šāmar, tiqwâ, Psalm 71:10
[1] Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., Jr., & Waltke, B. K. (Eds.). (1999). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 939). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Erica Brown, Leadership in the Wilderness: Authority and Anarchy in the Book of Numbers, (Maggid Books, 2013), p. 28.
