Exegesis Practicum
HB/NT 210

Methodist Theological School in Ohio
Fall 2003

John Dietsch

New Revised Standard Version
Psalm 19

	A provisional first reading of Psalm 19 consists of a hymn to God the Creator, a meditative praise of the law, and a prayer for purity of heart and faith in God.  There is clearly a division into distinct but related parts.  The first being the broad sweep of God’s wordless revelation and the second being the clarity of the written word.  With reference to nature, my initial thinking was to begin a close reading with the emphasis on the “organic unity” of both the structure and meaning, as they relate to nature and law.  Returning here to my first exegesis paper I was headlong into bringing the principle of (natura naturans), nature makes more, into the reading of the Psalm 19.  However, the vast immensity of this “more” of nature grew quickly as to saturate the reading.  There was simply too much.  Thus the rendering of this text using the tenets of structuralism proved difficult.
	The opening line of the poem sets into motion a reversal of order whereas the heavens declare the glory of God.  Yet the declaration is accomplished without the use of speech.  Nature is speaking in a language using wordless words.  In “The Origin of the Work of Art” (1933-34) Martin Heidegger says “the work of the work of art, its truth, is to open up a world, a human dwelling place.  The work is no longer reducible to a product of subjective expression or the object of aesthetic contemplation.” . . . “the task of art is to set up a world, but the work does not belong to the world it establishes.”  Psalm 19 is “world making”, as art or poetry that is about not using language as to create being.  By not using language that is heard, nature surrounds the reader.  Again saturation into nature that does not consist in having things in view.  Nature is not made of objects present before the reader or before the reader’s conceptual gaze.  Psalm 19 makes the implied reader belong to a world that the implied reader is in, and also involved with.  The reader is not a spectator at the passing show of nature.
	The absence of language points to what matters is not so much the existence of nature but the ontological involvement with it.  “All art” Heidegger says, “is essentially poetry.”  The art of the Psalm 19 is the poetry of silence or a first language of God.  Thus the writer of Psalm 19 somewhat lets the sound of silence behind the words.  The silence of the noisy presence of being that suggests that the Psalms were primarily intended as vehicles to convey the feelings and attitude of any worshiper in a similar situation,1 so the attempt again to reconstruct a typical experience or circumstance proves difficult.  “The poet is above all an interpreter of the soul of his people.  He says what they think and feel” (P. Drijvers, the Psalms: their Structure and Meaning (1965), p. 38.2
	This tendency towards expressive criticism especially intrigued me as an artist as a way then to begin to arrive at “occasion” of this text.  However the premise of writing as being privileged over speech led me to consider the poststructuralist methods of deconstruction as a way to think about “occasion”.  With deconstruction’s claim that the meaning of any text remains “radically open”, the reversal of order in the first line of Psalm 19 could stand as self-sufficient and also independent of human beings.  The writing exists solidly on page as marks.  The writer is apart from, or not present.  This would elude to Heidiger’s thoughts about not belonging to the world the artist brings forth.  The writer only discovers meaning of the words in the act of writing them.  The writer is just another reader immersed into the world-of-writing.
	Could not it be said then that if the heavens proclaim God’s glory without speech and without words, that the process is not only infinite but somehow circular.  Signifiers and signifieds are continually breaking apart and attaching in new combinations.  You can never arrive at a final signified which is not a signifier itself.  There seems a correlation here with both nature and God’s law.  Without speech and without words there is a removal of the signifieds and thus a taking away of the human control over language.
	This view without signs may be the view to take as nothing is ever fully present or known in signs. Would it not be an illusion for the poet to believe that the work is ever fully present to the reader?  What the poet says or writes, because of the use of signs or codes would always be divided or dispersed and never arrive at a “present”.  And if this division of language by signs prevents the presence of being with language, then couldn’t it be said the poet himself was fiction, as the poet is made up of language.
	With the binary opposites of nature and law, Psalm 19 informs the reader not to look for meaning in words, rather listen to the silence.  To say that God created nature, while it does bring them together in relation it also separates them.3  What makes and what is made must be two, not one.  This acts as a progression or added layer to develop the notion that there is no way to arrive at closure around knowledge.  There seems at this juncture that the center of what the author wants to say through the work is not as grounded.  Surely the heavens can’t proclaim the glory of God without language, yet God could so easily proclaim the glory of the heavens.  If the artist learns his craft too well, he or she makes slick art.
	The transition between the two parts of the psalm is seen in v.7.  Just as the sun prevails in the daytime sky, so too does God’s law prevail in human life.  The reversal of order in this verse begins the second part of the psalm.  “The law of the Lord is perfect reviving the life”.
	Again, the reversal of order, with the law of the Lord coming before the reviving of life illuminates that life as we know it is before the law of the Lord.  Thus life is in pursuit of the perfection of the law.  It is the idea of image dei or the existence of life patterned after a divine exemplar.  The poetic art is to lay bare the dependencies and the deficiencies of human life.  Psalm 19, by the division of v.7 begins to move the implied reader into a space that asks the reader to depart from the notion of “made in the image of” as a human construct and transform the notion into an external reality.  An external reality that is the law of the Lord.  An external source outside the human.  The deficiencies are highlighted by the fact that without the concept of revival of life, the law of the Lord is not perfect.  Without the concept of perfection there is no law of the Lord.  The dependencies show up in the fact that without the concept of the laws of the Lord there would be no Lord.  These reversals serve as small variations in the initial conditions, however the results are of dynamic transformation.
	With the text remaining “radically open” in the two reversals, a pattern emerges that shows order in the fact that a text deconstructs an opposition.  The heavens proclaim the glory of God is reversed but the deconstruction goes a step further than reversal by saying our sense of God is derived by the proclamation of the heavens.  Likewise, “the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the life” is a reversal, but again, radically open or deconstructed reads as, our sense of life is derived from the law of the Lord.
	The deconstruction works within an opposition so as to upset the hierarchy.  The saturation that I felt at the beginning of this work on Psalms 19 could, I suppose, be the “within” of the opposition.  The reader here is not spectator but rather by the very act of realizing deficiencies becomes aware of the dependencies.
	In v.13 the tone again changes to one of saturation or awareness.  The initial praise of God through the heavens and through that of law draws the reader into sudden awareness of unworthiness.  This presence of awareness is felt by first looking at the heavens and divine law.  What they reflect back the reader cannot escape.  There is an awareness of insignificance and unworthiness.  Here there is the feeling of the vastness or immensity that surrounds or saturates the reader.  The only way out is through prayer in this case.  For once again the reversal of the first line creates tension.  “Who can discern errors?  Acquit me of hidden sins!”  Reversal of the written order would have hidden sins discerning error.  However to deconstruct the order would be to have our sense of hidden sin derived from God.  Hidden sin cannot exist without God.  Likewise, in v.6 “there is none hidden from its heat” informs the reader that the sun’s one-dimensional heat reaches everything.  A reversal would be to say that the sun’s heat hides humankind.  Therefore to again deconstruct, our sense of ourselves is derived from this light that fills the daytime sky, as God’s law fills human law.  Here as well, there is no way out but through as the sun sustains life to the planet so does the revealed word of God sustain true human life.  As these two elements are used here, it is important to remember that “nature poetry” never would have existed.  What we would call country never could have existed as there was only country and no cities.  Everyone was on the land and appreciation for nature is what water was to fish.4  Again a saturation of surroundings where the reader is in an aslo involved with the surroundings. Nature is not an object, or to return to my earlier point, the reader is not a spectator of a passing show of nature.
	In a contemporary context all one would need to do is to immerse oneself.  An astute observation in all directions as well as looking into the sky and down on the ground, discloses that the only manmade things present are the clothes one is wearing.  One can begin to sense of what it might feel like to be deprived of the sun, and its life-giving properties.  Imagine for a moment in the reverse, what trees might thirst for, or need in order that they might live, if they were sitting around in a classroom discussing theology.  
	It is with that image that I look to the commentaries for comparisons.  William R. Taylor, The New Interpreters Bible, pp. 101-105, Abington Press, New York, 1955 begins with the dual authorship question.  Maybe two separate psalmists expressing conviction of both the glory of God and the law of God.  I enjoyed the statement that the work follows none of traditional patterns of composition.  There is mention of fresh and poetic theological insights, and a mention that it ranks as one of the noblest examples of Hebrew poetry.  Sun is thought of not as deity but rather as a runner somewhat suggestive of the deconstructive notion that “course” determines the implied meaning of sun.  The mention of music not being heard because constantly hearing sound suggests that we humankind are not aware of the sound.  Again reference here to the living so close that we can’t see or we are not aware of the presence of light.  The writer breaks down the law into several terms used for law.  There are six: law, testimony, precepts, commandments, fear, and ordinances.  With trust in these ordinances, there is assurance for those who never betray them and trust.
	The psalmist presents the meditation of the heart with a prayer that it may be acceptable in the eyes of the Lord.
	Although the information presented in the commentaries again for me seem vast in themselves, the one that found me returning to was that of the AA Anderson.  Psalm Vol. 1, Greenwood, SC. Attic Press, 1972.  The introduction found on page 30.  Anderson’s description of the task of exegetically reconstructing the Psalmist’s “experiences” I found compatible to what I see happening in the institutional church today.  He writes: “Exegetically it is often convenient to attempt a reconstruction of the Psalmist’s ‘experiences’, but the resultant picture may well be, in most cases, a description of a typical situation encountered by a hypothetical person.  The reason for this is to be found in the purpose of the Psalms: they were, primarily intended as vehicles to convey feelings and attitudes of any worshiper in a similar situation.”
	“Thus even the Psalms of the individual have a collective character . . . it is very likely that most Psalms were composed by skilled poets for the use of other people less able to clothe their experiences in a poetical language.  Therefore it is fairly clear that any reconstruction of the particular circumstances (such as often attempted in the exegesis of the Psalms) presents us with a generalization of what often happens in typical cases, rather than with a factual description.  The aim of these frustrating efforts is to determine, as far as possible, the type of man envisaged the Psalm’s possible situation in life.”
	The meaning of this text demonstrates the importance of being aware of presence.  It shows the incarnational awakening that in today’s postmodern church is seeking.  In reaching postmodern more experience oriented people, the move away from the Roman model of proclamation as the key to persuasion is something the church needs to be aware of.  The soul awakening within the saturation of community is the transformational awareness.  This Celtic model of church can be seen in the experience of Psalm 19.  The power of it rests in the fact that the text so beautifully demonstrates the power of the soul awakening, and even more astounding is the fact it does it using wordless words.

Bibliography

Abrams, M.H.
A Glossary of Literary Terms (1988)
Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Orlando, Florida, Saunders College Publishing

Burnham, Jack
The Structure of Art (1971)
George Braziller, Inc.
New York

AA Anderson
Psalm Vol. 1
Greenwood S.C.
Attic Press (1972)

Lewis, C.S.
Reflections on the Psalms
Harcourt, Brace and Company
New York (1958)

Taylor, William
The New Interpreters Bible
Abington Press, New York (1955)

Fred,
	Also, I am including an article on chaos theory as there were some things about reversal within.  I thought it would make an interesting tie in with the reversals that I talk about in the paper.  However, it seemed like it might be another paper altogether.  Please see highlighted areas.  And please excuse my enthusiasm if this is old news among chaoticians.  It just seemed to tie in somewhat with the scripture reverse/the Lorenzian Waterwheel . . . .