The poet’s heart has wandered into a dark place. Surely he does not mean what he says. It has, perhaps, been a very bad day in a very bad week and, for some reason, he has decided to put thoughts to paper. It would be a good day to skip writing responsibilities. To give up the streak. Just for a day. Until the happiness returns.
I am speculating, of course. The words of the poet at the beginning of the psalm, where we learn the presenting emotion or event, are sharp. He calls God the “God of vengeance, twice. His desire is for God to “judge the earth” and “repay the proud.” God has many attributes and the poet insists that God is energized to simply judge, but to exact revenge and repayment. He wants God to be not merely a judge, but a judge who is subject to a conflict of interest because the defendant is alleged to have hurt Him, personally. The poet is in a dark place.
When we read lyric poetry we want to distinguish between the introduction, body, and conclusion. The body of the lyric is constrained by the introduction and applied by the conclusion. Generally speaking. In Psalm 94 it is hard to discern when exactly the conclusion begins. The last verse, verse 23, may be a tidy conclusion: He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness,” and conclusively, “the Lord our God will wipe them out.” The word for wipe them out is simply the Hebrew word for destroy. Inexplicably, the word is only ever translated as wipe out in the ESV here in verse 23. Verse 23 seems to tie the threads of verses 1-2, together. God’s avenging and repaying heart will be vindicated by their “iniquity” and “wickedness.” Is this, then, what the poem is about?
Leland Ryken, the emeritus professor of literature at Wheaton College, thinks the conclusion is the final eight verses of the poem, beginning at verse 16. In this manner we understand that the poem is not merely about the right of vengeance and repayment exercised by God against the deserving doers of iniquity and wickedness. In this schema the poet himself disappears. Where is the poet in all of this? We do know enough about lyric poetry that the poet never disappears. It is their own thoughts and feelings that give the poem its shape. They cannot disappear!
In verse 16 we find the “me” of the poet. Twice. For the first time in the poem. The poet has waited 15 verses before inserting himself into the poem so that we understand that God is not operating a vast distance away from the poet’s own world and life. God is at work, exacting vengeance, but the poet is there, too. What God is doing is justified, authoritative, and real. There is no doubt about this. But the poet is still there.
How long are we willing to wait before our grievances are heard? Nobody likes a long customer service line. Especially when my complaint is iron-clad. The poet is not like this. Whatever grievances he has, even firm grievances for which no judge will ever doubt, the poet waits. Harm has been done to him, real wickedness evil (v. 16), the sort that has been disguised behind legitimate legal codes (v. 20) and inflicted by large numbers of people (v. 21) and already resulted in the death of the innocent (v. 21). Nevertheless, the poet will wait. He waits for 15 verses before every showing his personal suffering as result of the badness of the world. When the poet sits to write his poem he is still licking his physical and emotional wounds from yesterday, and is likely to get hurt again tomorrow. A bad day, in a bad week. But he will not write a poem with his own suffering at the forefront. His suffering is nestled within the work of God who exercises His judgement as He sees fit. And the God who is doing this is doing so as if a precious member of His own family has been deliberately injured by another. To this Judge, it’s personal. It’s revenge.
The poet teaches us that, for the Christian life, every bad day is surrounded by the cosmic work of God. There is never a day in which He is not active. The poet trusts this. He knows that, while the harm inflicted upon him might not cease for a very long time, God will one day put a final stop to it. Until then, the poet will not just remind himself of God’s activity, he will receive from God “steadfast love,” a steady hand to hold him up, and “consolations to cheer [his] soul” (vv. 18-19). A bad day in a bad week in a bad month in a bad year, is never just that. There is more going on. Much more.
