For my weekly quiet time this week, I'll be blogging about Psalm 17 and its interpreters.
In Psalm 17, the Psalmist appeals to his own righteousness as he asks God to hear his cry and to defeat his enemies. According to Richard Bautch's review of Gerd Kwakkel's book, According to My Righteousness: Upright Behavior As Grounds for Deliverance in Psalms 7, 17, 18, 26, and 44 (which appeared in the December 1, 2004 Journal of Biblical Literature), "In the first half of the twentieth century, certain scholars of the psalms equated assertions of upright behavior with self-righteousness, with a deficient understanding of one's own sin; the assertions were said to anticipate Pharisaism (i.e., the mind-set of the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14)."
What is ironic is that, not only do Christian exegetes struggle with the Psalmist's declaration of his own righteousness, but so do Jewish exegetes. The medieval commentator Rashi, for example, interprets Psalm 17 in a manner that essentially turns the Psalm on its head. For Rashi, rather than being David's declaration of his own righteousness, Psalm 17 is David asking God to defeat Israel's enemies, even though David realizes that he's a clear sinner. Rashi believes that the setting of the Psalm is David's fear that the Ammonites would successfully withstand Israel in battle, on account of David's sin with Bathsheba, which displeased God and could thus deprive his army and the nation of Israel of divine protection and blessing. As a result, the Philistines, the Moabites, and the Edomites would be encouraged to attack the land of Israel---and Rashi holds that Psalm 17:11b describes these enemies of Israel setting their eyes on the Promised Land, with a desire to infiltrate it.
Whereas many interpreters and translators understand Psalm 17:3 to mean that the Psalmist is asking God to test him in the night, on account of his confidence that God would find that he has done no evil, Rashi thinks that this verse is saying something completely different: that God did test David with Bathsheba and did not find what he desired (i.e., David resisting temptation), for David failed the test. Consequently, David resolved never again to transgress with his lips, namely, to claim to be sinless and invite divine testing. Rashi draws from Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 107a, which states that the Bible and the Eighteen Benedictions say "God of Abraham" rather than "God of David" because Abraham passed God's eighteen tests, whereas David failed the test that God gave him.
At the same time, Rashi does interpret Psalm 17:5 to mean that David resolved to avoid the ways of the lawless and to hold his feet firmly to God's path, and so even Rashi appears to think that David is appealing to his own righteousness, in some manner. Rashi may have agreed with the view that theologian Gerhard Von Rad would expound centuries later: that Psalm 17 and other Psalms like it are declarations of the Psalmist's loyalty to God, not his sinlessness. Moreover, Rashi thinks that Psalm 17:2b expresses David's hope that God would only look at the good things he has done, rather than his sins, which would disqualify him and his people from divine protection and blessing.
I want to make three points:
1. I am not surprised that all sorts of interpreters struggle with the Psalmist's apparent self-righteousness in Psalm 17. Not only does it appear to conflict with Judaism and Christianity, with their emphases on humility and repentance, but it also seems to contradict the sentiment of Psalm 143:2, in which the Psalmist hopes that God will not judge him, for no human being can be justified in God's sight. (I'm drawing some from the language of the King James Version.)
2. In Psalm 17:1, the Psalmist denies that his prayer is coming from deceitful or treacherous lips. I like how the preacher Chuck Smith interprets this verse:
"It is important that our prayers not come out of deceitful lips. I am afraid that many times I have prayed rather deceitfully, hoping to sort of con God. I haven't always been absolutely honest in my prayers. I have tried to make myself look better than I really am in many of my prayers. And I find that God can't deal with me until I get totally honest with Him. As long as I keep saying, 'Well, Lord, I can do it. I just need a little help.' I am not really honest, and the help doesn't seem to be forthcoming. Because if He would help me under those conditions, then I would go around saying, 'I always knew I could do it.' So it's when I get really honest and say, 'Lord, I can't do it. I need help.' Then He comes in and helps me, cause then all I can say is, 'Wow! The Lord really helped me.' And I give the credit and the glory to Him. 'Lord, You know that I get a little upset with this brother. I don't love him as much as I should. I don't have that agape for him, Lord.' That is sort of deceitful. That's not really telling the truth. 'God, You know I hate his guts. I can't stand him. He makes me sick every time I look at him. I want to punch him in the nose. God, change my heart and my attitude.' Then God can deal with me."
For Chuck Smith, the point of this verse is that we should be honest with God about how we feel---whether our feelings are good, bad, or ugly. Then, God can work with us---better than he can if we're putting on a false front.
But is Psalm 17:1 really saying that? If the Psalm is a declaration of the Psalmist's righteousness, then I would say "no." In that case, I'd interpret Psalm 17:1 to mean that the Psalmist is righteous---not a person who is deceitful or treacherous in his dealings with God and human beings---and the Psalmist wants God to know that so that God would be impressed and deliver him. But if I were to adopt Rashi's reading---that Psalm 17 reflects David's insecurity about his own sin and its consequences, as well as his acknowledgment that he has tried to walk on the path of righteousness, making Psalm 17 a window into David's complex thoughts and emotions---then Chuck Smith's interpretation of Psalm 17:1 makes more sense. Rashi presents David as transparent in Psalm 17, and transparency is what Chuck Smith is advocating.
3. I'm not surprised that Rashi can interpret Psalm 17 to mean something totally different from the interpretations of many exegetes, for the Psalm itself is quite difficult. In my study, for example, I encountered totally different translations and interpretations of Psalm 17:14. Some say it's talking about God destroying the wicked and blessing the righteous and their children, others say that it's expressing hope that God will kill the wicked people and thus leave their property to their (the wicked people's) children, and still others claim that it's lamenting that the wicked prosper.
Psalm 17:15 also highlights the difficult nature of Psalm 17. Psalm 17:15 was big in Armstrongite circles. The King James Version translates the second part of it to read, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." For Armstrongites, this verse is a proof-text that the righteous will one day be resurrected as God-like beings, bearing God's likeness, as members of the God-family. But all the Hebrew has is "I will be satisfied in awakening your likeness." The verse does not necessarily say that the Psalmist will bear God's likeness. The Septuagint understood the phrase to mean that the Psalmist will be satisfied when God's glory appears, which makes a degree of sense, since the word translated as "awake" is applied in Psalm 35:23 to God stirring himself up to uphold the Psalmist's cause. But, even if the word means in Psalm 17:15 that the Psalmist will awaken, that does not necessarily speak of resurrection, for there are other interpretations: that the Psalmist will see God's glory the next morning when he goes to the sanctuary (cp. Psalm 27:4; Exodus 23:15 and 34:20---which, according to the Hebrew consonants, indicate that the worshipers will see God when they gather before him); or that the Psalmist will experience God's glory, or liberation, the next morning, after he wakes up, for the morning in the Hebrew Bible can be a time of God's deliverance and help (Psalms 17:15; 90:14; 143:8; I Samuel 11:9---this thought comes from Patrick Miller's comments in the HarperCollins Study Bible).
I agree with the Armstrongites that the New Testament has passages suggesting that believers will be like God (I John 3:2), or Christ (I Corinthians 15:49). But I disagree with imposing that view on the entire Bible, when there are alternative interpretations of certain passages.