Psalm 15

For my weekly quiet time this Sabbath, I'll blog about Psalm 15 and its interpreters. The Psalm is defining who will abide in God's tabernacle and dwell on his holy hill. The answer is the following (drawing from the King James Version):

1. Those who walk uprightly.

2. Those who do righteousness.

3. Those who speak truth in their hearts. Some interpreters have taken this to mean that what is in the heart and what is on the lips match each other, making the person truthful.

4. Those who do not slander (see II Samuel 19:27).

5. Those who do not do evil to their neighbors.

6. Those who do not reproach their neighbors. "Reproach" is translated from the Hebrew word cherpah (see here). Based on my search, I interpret that to mean causing neighbors to feel shame or embarrassment.

7. Those who reject a despised person, yet honor those who fear the LORD. The LXX understands the first part to mean that the righteous despise one who is doing evil. Keil-Delitzsch refer to another interpretation, however: the righteous person is despised in his own eyes (Keil-Delitzsch cite I Samuel 15:7 and II Samuel 6:22 as thematic parallels), yet he honors those who fear the LORD. According to this view, nimas serves to emphasize nivzeh (both mean "despised"). (For examples of the use of synonyms for emphasis, Keil-Delitzsch cite Genesis 30:31; Job 31:23; Psalm 14:1; and Isaiah 43:4.). For Keil-Delitzsch, one interpretation of v 4 is that the righteous person "seems to himself unworthy of any respect, whereas he constantly shows respect to others; and the standard by which he judges is the fear of God."

8. Those who keep their oaths, even when it hurts them.

9. Those who do not charge interest. Peter Craigie explains: "The reason was that a fellow Hebrew who was in need of a loan was almost certainly in distress; to make a loan to such a person and charge exorbitant interest would culminate in the aggravation of distress rather than its removal..."

10. Those who do not take a bribe against the innocent. This most likely refers to judges, who should not receive bribes from powerful oppressors to render decisions that hurt the innocent or deprive the victimized of justice (cp. Exodus 23:8 and Deuteronomy 16:9).

Notice that there are ten rules here. Peter Craigie states: "The tenfold structure of conditions is analogous to the Decalogue in principle and with respect to the sense of wholeness, though there is no precise inner correspondences between the conditions and the Commandments. Rather, the tenfold structure suggests...the didactic context of the wisdom school; young persons were being instructed to tick off, as it were, on their ten fingers the moral conditions prerequisite to participation in worship." So, for Craigie, the tenfold structure was a way for students to remember the righteous prerequisites for worship in the sanctuary.

I want to discuss three issues:

1. I used to take every statement in the Bible as absolute truth (or at least I tried to do so). And, when I came across a rule in the Bible, I viewed it as absolute---everyone had to do it, and there were no exceptions to the law! The conservative authors whom I read bemoaned the teaching of moral relativism in schools, as if acknowledging an exception to a moral law could lead to the entire collapse of the moral system. As a person with Asperger's, I tended to gravitate towards an absolutist way of seeing the world, since "shades of gray" made me feel uncomfortable. I wanted a solid foundation, and so I liked the idea that God gave a book that contained absolute truth. And there were fundamentalists who advertised that the Bible was just that: it gave instructions that applied to any and every situation.

And yet, seeing the biblical rules as absolute can also drive a person crazy. Let me go through some of these rules in Psalm 15, highlighting why they are not absolute:

Should I always speak the truth? Is there never a situation in which I should lie? If I always speak what's on my mind, then that can hurt other people's feelings. As a relative of mine once said, there are times when it's better to be kind than honest. Even Psalm 15 says that we should consider the well-being of others in our speech, for we should not slander or reproach our neighbors. But maybe that doesn't allow us to lie, since we can keep those rules by just keeping silent, without lying. And yet, Rahab in Joshua 2 lied when she hid the Israelite spies, and Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 regard her hiding of them as righteous.

Should I never cause my neighbors shame or embarrassment? I'm sure that the prophets caused unjust kings shame and embarrassment when they criticized the kings' evil deeds!

Should I never charge interest? Even Deuteronomy 23:20 allows Israelites to charge interest to a nochri, a foreigner!

Should I reject a despised person, if I go with that particular reading of Psalm 15:4? Shouldn't I love everybody, since Christ loved us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:7-8)? Why should I assume that a person is bad just because many do not like him? Many people rejected the prophets, the Psalmist, and even Christ.

Should I be despised in my own eyes, if I go with the interpretation of Psalm 15:4 that Keil-Delitzsch present? Sure, I should not take myself so seriously, but why should I despise myself? Even the Psalmist was upset that he was being mistreated, plus he desired blessing from God. This indicates that he had self-love.

Should I keep an oath, even when it hurts me? Saul in I Samuel 14 did not kill Jonathan, even though he made an oath to kill anyone who ate something during the battle. The story does not explicitly say what God thought about Saul's not keeping his oath, but nothing bad happened to the Israelites as a result of it. In Numbers 30, a husband is allowed to nullify the vow of his wife, and a father can do the same with the vow of his daughter (but the text is clear that a man, a divorced woman, and a widow have to keep their vows, meaning they cannot nullify them).

But perhaps I should not see the rules of Psalm 15 as absolutes, but rather as an exhortation to be righteous: to love others, to be reliable, etc. Many times, these rules are good guidlines for righteous living; in some cases, however, there may be a higher righteousness that relativizes those rules.

And the medieval Midrash on the Psalms makes a beautiful point: that God himself keeps the rules of Psalm 15, meaning that they're a part of God's character. The Midrash tries to show that God keeps those rules as rules for himself, but here's a thought: Perhaps it's better to see them as attributes of a person, not as absolute laws. It's one thing to be a well-intentioned person, who values the well-being of others. It's another thing to absolutize rules, when doing so can actually place those rules at odds with the well-being of people.

2. What's it mean to dwell in God's tabernacle or to abide on God's holy hill? The Midrash on the Psalms records rabbis asking how anyone can dwell in God's presence, since Nadab and Abihu died when they entered the Tabernacle, and Uzzah died just for touching the Ark of the Covenant. Uzzah may be relevant to certain interpretations of Psalm 15, for interpreters have related this Psalm to the events of II Samuel 6, in which the Ark is being brought to Jerusalem, the very circumstances that surrounded Uzzah's death. Perhaps if we read Psalm 15 and II Samuel 6 together, we can say that Uzzah's death caused David to ask who can dwell in the presence of a holy God.

Commentators have applied Psalm 15 to worship in the vicinity of the sanctuary, or to pilgrims who pitched their tents near the temple during festivals. The fourth-fifth century Antiochian Christian thinker, Theodore of Mopsuestia, asserted that Psalm 15 is connected with Psalm 14, which (for him) was about Sennacherib's invasion of Jerusalem. How can the Israelites in Jerusalem continue to dwell safely on God's holy hill, when there are enemies who want to destroy them? The answer is to do good and avoid evil. And that was the message of so many prophets (i.e., Micah, Jeremiah).

And then the medieval rabbi Radak interpreted Psalm 15 in light of the afterlife, saying that it tells us what kind of people will enter the World to Come. And, although I do not remember the source, I did encounter a similar interpretation of Isaiah 33:14-15, which is similar to Psalm 15. In Isaiah 33:14-15, sinners in Zion ask who shall live with devouring fire and everlasting burning (to draw from the KJV), and the answer is those who behave righteously, speak in a righteous manner, despise gain that comes from oppression, resist bribes, and avoid evil. An interpretation that I read said that Isaiah 33:14-15 is addressing how one can avoid the fires of hell. That brings us to our next issue.

3. At first, many Protestants may have problems with Psalm 15, for its message is that people enter God's presence by doing good works, whereas many Protestants believe that our works are not good enough for God, and so we must be saved by accepting God's free grace, which he gives to those who believe in Jesus Christ. Are we justified by grace through faith, or do we need to do righteous works in order to be accepted by God, to worship God, and to enter the good afterlife? The Protestant sermons that I heard repeated the cliche that "We are not saved by works, but we will not be saved without them," maintaining that those who will be in heaven will have lived practically righteous lives, for the Gospel had an impact on their behavior. (Personally, I view this cliche as backdoor legalism.)

Believe it or not, Protestants are not the only people who have been troubled by Psalm 15. The Midrash on the Psalms presents a discussion between Rabbi Gamaliel and Rabbi Akiba. When Rabbi Gamaliel read Psalm 15 and Ezekiel 18, he began to despair, for he wondered, "What man can do all of these things?" But Rabbi Akiba responded that a person does not have to do all of these good things to be righteous in God's sight; rather, a person is accepted by God when he does any of the good things listed. Akiba's logic is that, according to Leviticus, a person does not have to touch every defiling thing that's listed in order to become unclean; rather, touching one of those defiling things is enough to become impure. Akiba concludes:

"Clearly, the measure of goodness is five hundred times greater than the measure of punishment. And so if a man who touches a single creeping thing, even a portion of it no larger than a lentil, thereby becomes as unclean as though he had touched all creeping things, does it not follow that if a man does a single one of these good deeds, it is as though he had done all of them?" (Braude's translation)

In my post here, Jewish biblical scholar Jon Levenson says that Psalm 15 does not mean that a person has to become righteous enough to enter God's presence, for all have sinned. Rather, Psalm 15 is the worshiper's affirmation of God's moral principles: his expression of his commitment to live a moral life. The worshiper is flawed, but he pledges allegiance to an ideal. I found a similar view in the Orthodox Jewish Artscroll.

Jimmy Swaggart applies Psalm 15 to Jesus, affirming that Jesus was the only one righteous enough to enter God's presence, meaning that we become clean when we accept the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Swaggart may believe that Psalm 15 convicts us of our sins, demonstrating to us that we by ourselves can never be qualified to enter God's presence, and that's why Jesus Christ came to save us.

But there are so many cases in the Hebrew Bible in which righteousness is presented as the path to life, without any mention of the need for imputed righteousness on account of practical righteousness not being good enough. (I'm aware of the Old Testament texts that Christians, even Paul, have cited to support their position, but my point is that there are times when practical righteousness is highlighted, and the need for imputed righteousness goes unmentioned.) Yes, the Hebrew Bible says that everyone has sinned and needs forgiveness, plus there are appeals to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which is sort of like the imputed righteousness concept, in that God saves Israel on account of her ancestors. And, in Zechariah 9:11, God delivers Israel on account of the blood of the covenant. But there are people in the Hebrew Bible who are regarded as righteous on account of their behavior. If Christians are correct that God does not accept people unless they're perfect, which is why they need Christ, then why are there people in the Hebrew Bible who are called righteous, and who please God on account of their righteous deeds? Granted, they're not perfect. But they're righteous.

And, interestingly, Calvinist John Gill states regarding Psalm 15:2 that being righteous is "not so as to be without sin entirely, but as not to be chargeable with any notorious crime, and living in it." Gill holds that there is a righteousness within the Hebrew Bible that falls short of perfection.