Psalm 5: Of Words and Personality

(Initial note – some English translations do not number the title verse.)

TEXT

1. For the leader; on Nehiloth1. A psalm. Of David.

2. Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my utterance.
3. Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and God, for I pray to You.
4. LORD, hear my voice in the morning; in the morning I turn to2 You, and wait.
5. For You are not a God who desires wickedness; evil cannot sojourn with You;
6. wanton men cannot endure in Your sight. You hate all evildoers;
7. You destroy those who speak lies; a man of blood and deceit the LORD abhors.
8. But I, through Your abundant love, enter Your house; I bow to Your holy temple in awe of You.
9. O LORD, lead me along Your righteousness because of my foes; make Your way straight before me.
10. For there is no sincerity in their mouth; their innards - destruction; their throat is an open grave; their tongue slippery.
11 Hold them guilty, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many crimes cast them out, for they defy You.
12 But let all who take refuge in You rejoice; may they ever sing in jubilation as You shelter them; and let those who love Your name exult in You.
13. For You surely bless the righteous man, O LORD, encompassing him with favor as with a shield.

Notes


1. meaning uncertain. Possibly, "flutes."
2. lit., "lay out (before You)," indicating prayer and/or sacrifice

COMMENTARY

Techniques

Psalm 5 is the first psalm in the book addressed almost exclusively to the Deity. [The third-person reference to the LORD in verse 7 is not addressed to a different party, but serves as an adjective—vaguely, “deceitful, divinely rejected men.”] More often, psalms are directed to varied audiences, a dramatic element. In this case the reader encounters a focused statement, but more important, a revealing statement. An address to a human audience could perhaps be suspected of artifice and calculation. Here the speaker pours out his heart to God, Who would perceive deceit. The drama is within that intensity.

This psalm is also the first (in order of appearance) to adopt a less usual approach to word repetition. Throughout Psalms, one discovers great significance to the re-use of terms or Hebrew roots. Occasionally, however, the poet chooses exactly the opposite approach, what one might call a symphony of synonyms or a thesaurus complex. Repetitions are eschewed; alternate terms totally dominate. In Psalm 5 one notes the plethora of terms for speech (verses 1–4 and 7, with four additional metaphors for the source of speech in verse 10, and all of this with only one repetition, “voice”); some seven terms for evildoers (verses 5–7) and a variety of descriptions of their acts; four terms for God’s listening; and four descriptions of the righteous (verses 12 and 13, with only one repetition of a previously used root, ts-d-k, righteousness). It is thus no surprise that when the psalmist wants to emphasize the desired goal (joy) in verse 12, he uses three separate terms.

It is not clear why the poet so chose. It might be that he wanted us to concentrate on progressive change. This befits the psalm, as we shall see. In any case, the synonyms comprise two spectra of concentration: speaking-and-hearing and good-and-evil. (I return to these below.)

The Flow of Change

As I noted earlier, within the unity (provided by the uniformity of address to God), there is significant change. Given that change seems of import, I review the poem as it progresses.

Verses 2–4 are highly intimate (the only subjects are the speaker and God), but the prayer seems so general that it might be termed a prayer that prayer be accepted. At that point, evil and evildoers enter the picture (verses 5–7) as a comparison to the relationship of the speaker and God in verses 2–4. The speaker returns to himself in 8 and 9, but with a sharp internal change. Whereas verse 8 echoes the tone of verses 2–4, verse 9 begins to rephrase the request (for guidance) in light of the presence of those enemies. The “foes” are given a central new role—they suddenly become the reason that God should grant the request! (This is emphasized in the Hebrew by assonance of adjacent terms “my foes,” shorerei and “make straight” haisher.) The mention of the evildoers in turn leads to a strong denunciation and a prayer that God reject them (verses 10 and 11, respectively). Verse 12 takes yet another turn, to the antithesis: may the pious rejoice (a group and a theme not mentioned earlier, essentially locating the speaker within this group) with a final statement (verse 13) of reassurance of God’s blessing, set in the singular (“righteous man”), which can be read as reinforcement for verse 12 or for the speaker’s request for himself (or both).

Two different (perhaps complementary) analyses suggest themselves, parallel to the twofold emphasis: speaking-hearing and good-evil.

Speaking and Hearing: A Model of Prayer?

One wonders if this first psalm of total direct address to God is also a model of how prayer should proceed —beginning with oneself, but with humility (prayer that prayer be accepted), moving beyond oneself, and on to the group. If so, perhaps the poet expressed an ideal.

One also notes that the poet focuses extensively on the varieties of speech and attentiveness, as well as on the power of words, contrasting the speaker’s praying to the boastful ones’ lies and evil speech (described so comprehensively in 4:9). Here we have a poet whose speaker is both deceived and fascinated by words, ultimately relying on the LORD to distinguish honesty from deception. The poet is reflecting on the tools of his own trade, and even while using words to make his points, he finds himself compelled to have his speaker ask for the LORD to go beyond the surface of the words. Both man and God seem to be cautioned about the possible misuse of speech.

Evil and Good: A Study in Personality

One cannot ignore a second level of analysis, which focuses on the speaker. This monologue ascends in intensity. The gentle invocation leads almost innocently to a comparison to the evildoers. The return to request (verse 9), however, then evokes a much stronger sense of conflict, for it is now based on the way these evil people treat the speaker. This in turn leads to a direct attack on them in a prayer for their rejection and failure. The bitterness breaks through. Was it there, within, from the beginning? Was the speaker unable to “hold” to his tone of asking only for himself once he had brought the evildoers into the picture by way of comparison? If so, is one to evaluate this positively, as honesty, or negatively, as lack of control?

The sharp change in verses 12 and 13 leaves still further food for thought. Is the final concentration on the righteous a response to the questions I noted at the end of the previous paragraph, in one form or another? Is it a critique of what came before (“Let’s get away from these negatives and back to the positive”) or a continuation (“Prayer for the punishment of the wicked is totally legitimate as long as the obverse is the final point”)? The indirect audience of the speaker’s final reassurance readily encompasses himself, the pious, the evil – and all.

Two Further Thoughts

The speaker’s strong feelings emerge by degree through the poem. Ultimately, this development is yet another reflection on speech and words (so emphasized throughout the poem) and on the forbearance necessary to listen both carefully and patiently, waiting for the end of a poem before locking in on an interpretation.

Has the poet challenged the reader to consider the interaction of prayer and deep personal feelings, that is, how one influences the other?

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Additional Comments

1. There are two contradictory tendencies in interpretation, literalistic and symbolic. I illustrate with two references from Psalm 5. The two mentions of “morning” (5:4), lead numbers of commentators to conclude that the psalm was written as a prayer to be recited in the morning. (Many likewise assign Psalm 4, whose last verse refers to lying down to sleep, to the evening hours.) Similarly, “Your house… Your holy temple” (5:8) is often taken as an indication that the prayer was written to be recited in the Temple. However, read symbolically, “morning” implies “first thing” or “often” (so Sa’adya Gaon), and the reference to coming to “God’s house” (verse 8) is in the imperfect, and can be translated in our future tense (I shall enter Your house etc.), an indication of closeness to Him, not the locale of this prayer. One should read the poetry less literally. Getting up (often early) in the morning is frequently a sign of enthusiasm or determination in the Bible, and anticipated peak moments need not be the sole occasion of prayer. The more literal reading detracts from the power of the psalm (and may reflect a sad, general tendency among commentators to read this poetry as prose).

2. Schaefer points out a fine word play, involving the reversal of two Hebrew letters in 5:10: their innards (root krv) is filled with malice; their throat is an open grave (root – kvr). It is quite effective, the innards presumably being the life force, and the grave, death. In their case, the two are only a letter reversal apart.


The author of these essays is Rabbi Benjamin J. Segal, former president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and author of The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2009). This material is copyright by the author, and may not be reproduced. If you are interested in using the texts for study groups, please be in direct contact with the author, at psalmblog@gmail.com.