An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 108: A Rousing Game of Spot the Metaphor (Psalms 61-65)

Psalms 61-65
A Rousing Game of Spot the Metaphor.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Psalms 61

“From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

The psalms continue, and we are still with David as author. In this one it appears that he has become king, as it is a prayer of thanksgiving and a promise to remain faithful to God in gratitude for the increase in David’s fortunes. Metaphors employed here all speak of God as a shelter – a tower, shadow beneath wings, even the tabernacle, as a tent in the desert as well as a sacred place, forms a means of shelter. By the time I get to the end of Psalms I will probably not want to revisit this book for a while, but the idea came to me of recording how many times the following metaphors are used: fire, water, rocks, swords, lions, vipers and pits. A few, I’d imagine.

Psalms 62

“He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.”

Score another point for the rocks metaphor. This is similar to the last psalm, giving thanks to God as a protector, but it also includes the familiar theme about the fate of the wicked. Quite often in the psalms the argument about what constitutes a “wicked” person is pretty circular – they are those that indulge in wicked behaviour. Usually their main infraction seems to have been lying and/or vanity, but this one also mentions oppression and robbery (and by extension excessive love of riches – writes the king who builds himself a splendid palace, ahem).

Psalms 63

“(A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.) O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;”

And now a water metaphor – the blessings of God are like water to a thirsty man in the desert, according to this psalm. It’s another thanksgiving psalm, with David promising to remember and praise God at all hours of the day as thanks for the support that God has given him in times of trouble. And then he can’t help adding a curse upon liars again (it’s getting a bit like Cato’s “Carthago Delenda Est”). Some swords, no lions, but foxes instead to feed upon their bodies.

Psalms 64

“Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:”

You know, the book of Samuel does a good job of portraying Saul as an insecure ruler beset by paranoia about hidden enemies in the midst of his court, but reading these psalms you could form the opinion that David was that way inclined as well. Which is probably understandable considering he was hunted by agents of Saul for a good period of his earlier life (and depending on how much we want to read into the innuendo concerning his “friendship” for Jonathon perhaps there were other proclivities that his enemies could use against him). So this is another psalm calling for God to strike at slanderers with arrows that will make them lose their voices, and perhaps even cause them to see the error of their ways. There’s a sword metaphor here as well – for the tongues of the lying men.

Psalms 65

“Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof.”

This psalm comes as some welcome relief after a batch of enemy-baiting ones; it’s a hymn of praise, basically, telling of all the mighty works of God on the earth – weather, mountains, seas, fertility of crops and so forth. Although there’s plenty of reference to water, it’s less metaphorical than actual (but could, I guess, be read metaphorically – just as the rains brought by God nourish the crops, so do his blessings nourish the soul like drops of rain. That kind of thing. See, it’s easy this. I’m starting to think like Matthew Henry!).

Perhaps because it is less vengeful and more joyful I enjoyed this one more, and there’s some nice poetry to it, but it does seem to end rather abruptly – it feels like it ought to come back from the topic of God’s hand in the machinery of the world to people praising him because of it, back to where it starts in the opening verses. As it is feels like either part got lost, or David couldn’t think of an ending. Mind you, I like the image it leaves us with, of fertile valleys that “sing” for joy. Personally I think that If arable crops could be said to be expressing emotion through an artistic form, “dancing” would be a more apt description of what a field of wheat does. But “sing” is a nice abstract alternative.