Readings (Track 1)
Moses, rightly, is centerstage in our first reading from Deuteronomy. There we hear God’s showing him the promised land (a land he will not enter), his death, and the editor’s summary “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.” Since Deuteronomy was probably still achieving its present form in the days of Jeremiah, that’s quite a statement. Elijah, Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah: none are his equal.
Yet in that reading Moses is silent. Is there nothing more for him to say? Within the immediate narrative, perhaps not. But only slightly pulling back the camera, today’s psalm says “Certainly not!” It’s the one psalm in the Psalter ascribed to Moses. While our lectionary invites us to read it alongside our Deuteronomy text, its words resonate in many other contexts as well.
“Lord, you have been our refuge.” ‘Refuge’ is a possible translation; the NRSV’s “dwelling place” is equally possible. A good deal of Exodus through Deuteronomy deals with the Lord dwelling in the midst of the people, with both its benefits (constant provision in the wilderness) and dangers due to human folly. We might hear the entire psalm as a plea that the Lord continue to be refuge in the ways that we need.
But almost immediately the Lord’s permanence contrasts—painfully—with the people’s impermanence. Our life is as permanent as the current crop of grass. In Moses’ case: death with the promised land in eyesight, death with sight unimpaired and vigor unabated. Death may be experienced as release, or a fitting close, but too often, as here, as insult and mockery.
Nor is Moses through describing the human condition. “For we consume away in your displeasure; / we are afraid because of your wrathful indignation.” The Lord had brought the people to the border of the promised land. The spies had brought back a divided report. The people chose fear, not trust, and started organizing to return to Egypt. The Lord said, essentially, “OK, have it your way,” and the people spent the next forty years circling around in the wilderness. That’s the characteristic way the Lord’s displeasure/indignation is expressed: we make a bad decision; the Lord hands us over to the consequences. The people, later, wanted a king despite Samuel’s warning. “He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves” (1 Sam 8:14-17). They wanted a king; the Lord said “OK.” And every nation, then and now, has their own stories illustrating the pattern.
All that leads to the first petition in vv.11-12:
11 Who regards the power of your wrath? *
who rightly fears your indignation?
12 So teach us to number our days *
that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
I like how the commentator Zenger hears these verses:
“He does not ask for rescue from the state of being subject to death, or even for immortality. Instead, he petitions for a right wisdom about life, an ability to deal with the knowledge of death in such a way—beyond all categories, such as divine wrath or death as punishment for sin—that life can be accepted as a gift from God and lived as something fulfilled. Thus the petitioner asks that knowing about the limitedness of the time allotted to each person may make one aware of the immense value of every single day (“teach us to count our days!”), the now given one already and every moment.”[1]
We might say that the petitioner is here channeling Ecclesiastes. We might say that the petitioner is asking for a heart wise enough to experience the Lord our “dwelling place” as good news even in the present moment.
The psalm could have stopped there, and perhaps did in an earlier edition. But Moses sees that more can be asked. Earlier in the psalm (translating more literally): “You return us to the dust and say, * / “Return, O child of earth.” So now: “Return, O Lord; how long will you tarry? * / be gracious to your servants.” The present can be received as gift, but finally if that’s all there is, it’s unworthy of the Lord who at creation pronounced everything “good” and the whole thing “very good,” unworthy of the Lord who revealed the divine glory to Moses: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exo 34:6). So Moses goes eschatological, straining what can be imagined in history as we know it:
14 Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; *
so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.
15 Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us *
and the years in which we suffered adversity.
Notice the repeated “your servants” (vv.13, 16). That’s double-edged. On the one hand, it appeals to mutual obligation: the servant to serve, the lord to care for the welfare of the servant. On the other hand, it positions the “us” as servants (Moses already described as “the servant of the Lord” in our first reading), so that our goals and appraisals properly fit within the Lord’s goals and appraisals.
Two petitions, then, in the psalm. First, for a wise heart. Passing the mic to Zenger again, “If ‘wisdom’ means the art of living, then the ability here asked of God…to say yes to life and to live that yes (in the midst of the many thigs that deserve a no) is Wisdom’s art of living par excellence.” Second, that the Lord knock over some tables: “Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; * / so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, we encounter that same double focus in the Lord’s Prayer. Daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance: all these are concerns of the day to day. But “your kingdom come:” when that prayer is fully answered no need to keep praying for daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance. May we, goosed on by the Holy Spirit, make Moses’ and Jesus’ prayer our own.
[1] Hossfeld & Zenger, Psalms 2, p.423.
