Читать книгу The Psalms - Herbert O'Driscoll - Страница 19
Оглавление“Because the needy are oppressed …
I will rise up,” says the Lord,
and give them the help they long for.”
There are moments when Winston Smith, the central character in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, seems to appear between the lines of the psalms, particularly as the psalmist agonizes about the state of his society. There is the same sense of alienation from those around him, as well as from the social structures. There is a feeling of loneliness, sometimes of fear.
The great difference between the two is that, for the psalmist, there is the presence of God giving meaning to everything, while for Smith, there is nothing above and beyond what is, or what seems to be.
As a person of faith, even though he is moving among people who consider themselves to be the people of God, the psalmist feels alone. “There is no godly one left; the faithful have vanished.” Trust has been drained away: “Everyone speaks falsely.” What is harder to accept is the way that speech has been used to deceive: “With a smooth tongue they speak from a double heart.” The vehemence with which the psalmist rails against the corruption of speech suggests that he himself has been deceived.
We cam help being reminded of the use of language in our own time, much of it expressly designed to manipulate and seduce. The managing of news media, and the ever-increasing skills of marketing, come easily to mind. Whatever the particular deceptions being practised in the psalmists society, it is obvious that at least one objective is economic deprivation. “The needy are oppressed, and the poor cry out in misery.”
At this point the psalmist becomes much more than someone who merely laments a state of affairs. Suddenly he voices the certainty that these evils will be corrected and suffering will be relieved. “‘I will rise up,’ says the Lord, ‘and give them the help they long for.’” For the psalmist, God is always the moral power from which justice flows.
Again the psalmist focuses on language to make his point. He contrasts the “smooth tongues” of those around him with the “pure words” of the Lord, “purified seven times in the fire.” In the face of declining standards all around him, where “that which is worthless is highly prized,” he offers the infinite worth of God, whose words are “like silver refined from ore.”
Once again, as in many of the psalms, the singer is appalled by contemporary events, but is never without a stubborn hope.
Can you discern occasions of duplicity in the voices of your society and yourself? Ask God to nurture, in you and others, perceptive minds and hearts to discern duplicity in the world and themselves, and to seek conscientiously for honesty, truth, and grace.
