literary analysis of Psalm 32 – Bliss of Teshuvah (Return / Repentance)

teaching photo Click here to read “Psalm Thirty-two – Translation of the Song

Composed for the purpose of instruction, Psalm 32 is moral teaching sounded in

 

melody. The first verse declares its intention: the song is a maskil  (מַשְׂכִּיל) –the exact meaning of the Hebrew has long been lost, but it is

 

apparent that it refers to a classification of song. The specific classification is hinted

 

at by the word’s root: it is also the root of the verb that begins verse 8, “to make

 

wise” (אַשְׂכִּילְךָ). Divided into two distinct parts –

 

verses 1 to 7; 8 to 11—the singer’s teachings are inspired by his own experiences,

 

which, in turn, have been fortified by his belief in God’s kindness.

 

 

The first two verses define the “happy” man: he whose sins have been absolved

 

to such an extent they are no longer even discernible, but “covered over” (v. 1);

 

an absolution so complete that God judges him to be without “transgression” (v. 2).

 

His lack of guilt, moreover, is of his own doing, for there is “in his spirit, no

 

deception” (v. 2). Happiness, then, is determined by the singer to be a state not of

 

pleasures but rather of spiritual awareness.

 

 

The singer’s example of the happy man is his own self. He has achieved his

 

happiness only after great effort. Verses 3, 4 and 5 describe his suffering before his

 

acknowledgement and confession of his moral offences: in his silence –either his

 

refusal to confess or his unawareness of the need to do so—he felt depleted. The

 

nature of his exhaustion is not depicted –that is, whether it was physical or

 

spiritual—but its cause is clearly his lack of an awareness that would provide him

 

sustenance: “For when I kept silent, eroded were my bones” (v. 3). The second line

 

 

of verse 3 makes explicit that the singer’s silence was not of his voice, but of his soul;

 

indeed, his complaints about his discomforts he had so loudly expressed that he

 

describes his groans as akin to roaring (v. 3).

 

 

The awareness he achieves was neither sudden nor self-created: he was guided by

 

God’s “hand’ that he felt “heavy” upon him (v. 4). The Hebrew form of the verb “to

 

be” (HEBREW HERE, inside brackets) can be translated here either in the present or

 

past tense, thus indicating that God’s presence is, for the singer, felt not in a single

 

act but has become an intimate part of his existence –though certainly its effect

 

upon him had at first been, seemingly, a devastating rebuke:

 

For all day long and night, heavy upon me was Your hand;

transformed the marrow of my bones into the dryness of summer.

(v. 4)

 

The metaphor of dryness or dust pictures a debility so profound it is death-like; that

 

it is not a permanent desolation, however, is indicated by the specific season

 

“summer”. The singer’s being, under the weight of God’s hand, is capable of renewal.

 

His nourishment is, paradoxically, his confession: by making known his offense to

 

God, he has been granted God’s forgiveness (v. 5). He is redeemed by revealing the

 

very offense which, hidden, unspoken, had consumed his strength. Accordingly, he is

 

able to say to his listeners –to those he is teaching—that his resultant happiness will

 

be attained by “every devout one” who prays to God “at a time of finding” (v. 6); in,

 

that is, a time of need.

 

Water, the usual solution to aridity, to summer drought, is not, for the singer, a

 

creative force. Rather, he warns his audience against “the flood” of “abundant water”

 

 

 

(v. 6): it has the power to overwhelm. The source of the water is not given; perhaps

 

the singer is alluding to the Flood whose torrents drowned all but the faithful, or

 

perhaps the waters of the Red Sea which swept away the Israelites’ oppressors.

 

Regardless, the threatening image is the singer’s warning that only the righteous

 

possess stalwartness.

 

 

The singer’s warning completes the first part of the song. He has declared his

 

dominant theme or melody, singing it to his listeners just as he had confessed it to

 

God. Turning from his audience to address God, he dedicates the song he has

 

composed to the One Who inspired it:

 

You are a hiding-place for me.

From torment You will keep me;

with happy songs of rescue You will surround me.

(v. 7)

 

The verses following this declaration (verses 8 to 11) are, then, the singer’s own

 

song of deliverance, one he will teach to others:

 

I will make you wise and I will enlighten you

as to the ways in which you should go.

I will counsel you; upon you is my eye.

(v. 8)

 

His eye will be upon them, just as God’s hand was upon him. It is as if he is both

 

reflecting and imitating God’s reminder to him to admit his offenses in order to

 

prosper, to gain wisdom.

 

 

Having put forth his own experience as example to his listeners, he now gives them

 

its inversion – the beasts of burden, horse and mule:

 

Do not be as the horse or as the mule – no understanding [have they];

bit and bridle bejewel their mouth, to rein them in,

so that they never will draw close to you.

(v. 9)

 

The horse and mule, lacking intellectual awareness, must be controlled and directed

 

by bit and bridle; they are animals guided by humans. In contrast, then, are those

 

humans who are prompted by God’s hand (v. 4). Moreover, the animals, should they

 

draw near, pose harm; the faithful seek, as their protector, the shelter of

 

“compassion” (v. 10).  That verse 10 begins by asserting the “pains” of the wicked

 

suggests a correspondence between the beasts and the wicked – certainly each lacks

 

moral consciousness; perhaps the implication is also that the wicked are incapable

 

of fellowship, of drawing near without harm.

 

 

The song closes with the exact words of the singer’s hymn of deliverance –its

 

entirety or its chorus only, no matter; in effect, the song within the song:

 

Be glad in Adonai and rejoice, righteous ones;

and sing happy songs, all the upright of heart.

(v. 11)

 

The Hebrew completes a circle the English does not: the word for “upright” in

 

Hebrew is “yishrei” (יִשְׁרֵי לֵב); the song begins with

 

“happy” –“ashrei” in Hebrew (אַשְׁרֵי). The similitude makes

 

certain that the lot of the upright is happiness.

 

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