Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods,
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I remember you upon my bed
and think of you in the night watches,
for you have been my helper,
and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My whole being clings to you;
your right hand holds me fast.
~Psalm 63:5-8
Today's portion of Psalm 63 begins with David--still, on the run in the Judean wilderness--declaring that God's steadfast love is better than living, better than life itself. This is a remarkable sentiment coming from someone who is running for his life, and running from one to whom he gave life. We have to imagine that David is having a reckoning with himself, and with God, as to the reason(s) he is where he is in the first place. (See yesterday's post, here.) In such a hostile natural environment, at such a dire hour, David is starting to assemble a sense of what is good, a hierarchy of spiritual needs, let's say. I don't think it's going too far to say, he seems to have concluded that living is not at the top of that hierarchy. That, on some level, he accepts that he may die, and only wants to affirm--or have God affirm--that, in the end, he has God's steadfast love, which is all that matters.
David compares this knowledge to a feast, a feast for the soul, akin to a feast for the body filled with rich foods. The Hebrew words (as found in the King James/ Authorized Version) translate to "marrow and fatness," certainly useful foods on the run, with protein that would provide lasting satiation and energy. (I've never consumed marrow, but had a father who was a butcher from a family of butchers, and he appreciated marrow very much. Likewise, some in our congregation's Bible Study!)
David will praise God, therefore, lifting up his hands, singing out his praises with that mouth that is remembering such deliciousness... even on his bed. Remember, he is roughing it, so the is certainly not sleeping in a royal bed. Still, his memories of meditating on God there flood him. David speaks of remembering God, meditating on God in the watches of the night. The very image the psalm conjures is one of safety, repose, and delight at contemplating God in all her wonders.
Ultimately, David connects all this--the satisfaction of a great feast for the soul, the place of repose and delight--to a God who has been his helper. Under the shadow of your wings--another image that fits in with the time of rest and meditation--I sing for joy.
Let's look more closely at this image of God as "helper." The root Hebrew word for helper is EZER, and we find a version of it used here. The word appears 21 times in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Seventeen of those times (including the usage here), the "helper" is God. In her article on "Helper," indigenous scholar Kat Armas points out that the Hebrew usage of "helper" is very different from our contemporary assumptions about it. We tend to think of a helper is someone who is subservient, under the supervision of a more important person. But in Hebrew usage, a helper is one with power to help. In the Hebrew Scriptures there are only four other appearances of the word: three refer to military aides, and one occurrence refers to the woman whom God creates in Genesis 2, to be a companion to the man in the Garden of Eden.*
This means that the word "helper" when applied to the woman in scripture does not and cannot mean that she is inferior to the man. Cultural and conservative assumptions about that word have driven an entire theology of the relations between men and women, and they are in error. Women and men have equal dignity in the sight of God, and neither is inferior to the other. Only the woman is given the descriptor that is primarily used for God. God is helper. So is the woman.
Our portion of the psalm--again, harkening back to the earlier metaphors around sleep and lying down--closes with a statement of David acknowledging that he turns to God, completely. "My whole being clings to you; your right hand holds me fast." The "right hand" of God refers to God's power. David believes himself--awake and asleep--held in the powerful love of God, who, even in this terrible moment of fear and uncertainty, will never leave him.
I mentioned yesterday that this psalm is one I often sing to myself in bed, and now you probably have a clearer understanding of why that is. I find the psalm incredibly comforting, and something that reminds me, as well, of the steadfast love of God, that helps me, too, to notice that deep satisfaction in my soul. God has been my helper, countless times throughout my life, and this week alone, because there is no way I could do, well, anything without God's help.
My whole being clings to God; her right hand holds me fast.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
* Kat Armas, What Does "Helper" Really Mean? July 25, 2018, https://katarmas.com/blog/2018/8/3/what-does-helper-really-mean#:~:text=So%20if%20woman%20has%20been,to%20describe%20a%20military%20aide. katarmas.com.
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