CHRISTIANS AWARE COURSE ON THE PSALMS: 2

Barbara Butler & Rabbi Jonathan Magonet.

At Christchurch, Clarendon Park, this evening for the second session in the Christians Aware course on the Psalms (offered as part of their Faith Awareness programme).

Our speaker is Rabbi Jonathan Magonet, author of A Rabbi Reads the Psalms (among other books).

There are around 50 people here, the largest turnout I’ve seen for one of these Monday evening sessions. For the first time, we’re using the larger Vaughan Powell Room.

The Rabbi tells us that although the Psalms are more often thought of en bloc, they repay individual attention and close study, reflection and discussion as individual poems. Many of them are troubling, baffling, even violent in their language. Yet when considered in depth and detail, paradoxically, they can be seen to speak of great love and tenderness.

The speaker expresses disappointment and frustration at the translation into (differing forms of) English, at how they each fail (in different ways) to convey the essential truths in the original Hebrew. As a poet and a theologian, he doesn't consider that they do justice to the qualities of the Hebrew. Never mind our modern difficulties with the archaic style of the English itself, the real casualties are the complexity and subtlety of the Hebrew, which are lost in translation.

Psalm 90

1. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
3. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
6. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
7. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
9. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
13. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. 
16. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
17. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

The Rabbi leads us through the Psalm, verse by verse, discussing it as we go. I feel very much at home with this sort of approach to reading, discussing, appreciating and understanding the text. It has a lot in common with teaching an adult education class on poetry. I've picked out only a few things from the fascinating discussion led by the Rabbi.

Verses 1, 2: God as character in a story. When that character is called by different names, it is for a reason, it tells us something significant. “Lord" (Adonai) representing nearness and intimacy; "God" (El) representing majesty and grandeur.

Verse 3: Ambiguous – can be read to mean either "return to inorganic matter" (literally "crushed stone") or to return to God.

Verse 4: Two distinct ways of measuring time: human-centred perspective of generations (verse 1), and the divine perspective, longer than the life of the earth.

Verses 5, 6: Trying to see our lives from God's point of view.

Verse 7: Idea persists even into the modern day of the Old Testament God driven by anger - and it's not a view confined to any particular form of Judaism. This is the kind of idea of God that gives the Old Testament a bad name!

Verses 8, 9: Extending this theme.

Verse 12: Alternate translation: "Teach us how to measure our days, so that we may acquire a heart of wisdom"

Verse 13: Asking God to come back to us (focuses meaning of verse 3).

Verse 15: “Let us have a deal, measure for measure, of things positive for all the negative things already endured.”

Verse 16: Extending relationship with God into the future, measured in human terms.

Verse 17: “May the pleasantness of God be upon us”. This may sound banal, homely, quotidian - but after we've been considering such wrath ...

The second half of Psalm 90 is a protest at what's been stated in the first half. In the Psalms, God is taken to task, is challenged. The petitioner asks: where was God in times of need and distress; where is God now when aid is required; where will God be in the future?

If the Books of Moses may be said to be God's self-revelation to man, then the Psalms may be said to be man's self-revelation to God.

The questions you ask determine the answers you find. If you were a donkey reading the Hebrew Bible, then you'd probably be most interested in stories involving donkeys.

This enjoyable and intriguing session, by such a highly accomplished, distinguished, experienced and knowledgeable speaker sets a very high standard for next week ... *gulp*