Shiur #40: The Difference Between Prayer And Complaint Psalm 80 (Part II)
SEFER TEHILLIM
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Dedicated
in memory of both Zissel Bat Yitzchak Gontownik, and Avraham Ben Yosef Halevi
Gontownik,
on the occasion of his tenth yahrzeit, by his children, Anne and
Jerry Gontownik, and Sidney Gontownik,
and his grandchildren, Ari and Shira,
Zev and Daniela, Yonatan, Ranan, Hillel, and Ezra Gontownik.
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Lecture
40: Psalm 80
THe
difference between prayer and complaint (part II)
Rav
Elchanan Samet
(1) To the
director of music, el-shoshanim. Edut.
A psalm of Asaf.
I
(2) O
shepherd of Israel, listen,
You who tend Yosef like sheep.
You who sit upon the keruvim, shine forth.
(3) Before
Efrayim, and Binyamin, and Menasheh,
stir up your might,
and come to save us.
(4) O God,
restore us,
and cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved.
II
(5) O Lord,
God of hosts,
how long will You angrily reject the prayer
of Your people?
(6) You
feed them bread of tears,
and You give them to drink a cup mixed with tears.
(7) You
have made us a strife to our neighbors,
and our enemies mock them.
(8) O God
of hosts, restore us,
and cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved.
III
(9) You
brought a vine out of Egypt.
You drove out nations and planted it.
(10) You cleared room
before it,
and it took deep root and filled the land.
(11)The hills were covered with its shadow,
and the mighty cedars with its boughs.
(12)It sent out its boughs to the sea,
and its branches to the river.
(13) Why have You
breached its fences,
and all who pass by the way pluck its fruit?
(14) The boar from the
wood ravages it,
and the wild bird devours it.
(15a)O God of hosts, please return.
IV
(15b)Look down from heaven and see,
and be mindful of this vine.
(16) And the sapling
that Your right hand planted,
and the branch that You planted for Yourself.
(17) It is burned with
fire, it is cut down.
Let them perish at the rebuke of Your face.
(18) Let Your hand be
with the man of Your right hand,
with the man whom You have attached strongly
to Yourself.
(19) He has not turned
back from You.
Let us live, and we shall call upon Your name.
(20) O Lord, God of
hosts, restore us.
Cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved.
II. THE SECOND STANZA - FROM PRAYER TO COMPLAINT
What is the difference between the first two stanzas of the psalm? The
answer is clear: stanza 1 constitutes a prayer, and its tone is optimistic the
bond between God and His people is expressed in positive terms.[1]
Stanza 2 constitutes a complaint, and its tone is harsh the connection between
God and His people is expressed through verbs appearing in exceedingly negative
contexts.
The call to God at the beginning of the stanza, "O Lord, God of hosts,"[2]
is immediately followed by a rhetorical question that is typical of complaints
in the book of Tehillim: "How long
" Everything appearing later in this
stanza with respect to God's relationship with Israel is governed by the opening
question, "How long?"[3]
How
long will You angrily reject
the prayer of Your people?[4]
[How
long] will
You feed them bread of tears,[5]
and give them to drink a cup mixed with tears.[6]
[How
long] will
you make us a strife to our neighbors,[7]
and will our enemies mock them.[8]
The three questions of "how long" relate to three realms in which God
acted against His people:
1)
He
refused to accept their prayers because He was angry with
them.
2)
He
brought upon them exceedingly difficult afflictions which caused them bitter and
extended weeping.
3)
He
gave strength to their enemies and made Israel into a mockery in their
eyes.
Now
the question arises: In the psalms of complaint with which we are familiar, the
prayer always follows the complaint, and the role that it plays is to shine a
ray of light (sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger) on the darkness of the
complaint and to conclude the psalm on a hopeful note for the future.[9]
In the first part of our psalm, however, the prayer precedes the complaint. What
does this mean?
Our
discussion regarding stanza 1 following Y.M. Grintz's article seems to open a
door to an answer. Stanza 1 and stanza 2 reflect two different stages of the
historical event upon which the psalm is based. The event in question is a war
in which the tribes descending from Rachel participated apparently Israel's
war against the Pelishtim at Even ha-Ezer. Stanza 1 reflects the eve of the
battle, the stage during which Israel prayed for their victory, filled with the
hope that the shepherd of Israel, who sits upon the keruvim, would appear
before them with all His might and deliver them from their enemies. In contrast,
stanza 2 reflects Israel's situation following their painful defeat in that war,
and it therefore expresses Israel's bitter complaint against God, its wording
imbued with pain and suffering.
We
can now understand the question with which the stanza opens: "How long will You
angrily reject the prayer of Your people?" This question relates to the prayer
in stanza 1: How long will You angrily reject the prayer that we offered before
You on the eve of the battle, the prayer appearing in the previous
stanza?
Nevertheless,
even the complaint in stanza 2 ends with a short prayer, as in all the other
places where Israel sounds a complaint in our book. This prayer is included in
the refrain:
O
God of hosts, restore us,
and
cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved.
This prayer which closes stanza 2 stands in opposition to what was stated
in the body of the stanza:
"O
God of hosts" this call is similar to the call at the beginning of the
stanza.
"Restore
us" to You, and let not Your rage fume at us; or else: Restore us to our
original state, as we were in our time of prosperity before You made us fall
before our enemies.
"And
cause Your face to shine" toward us, and not as You have hidden Your face from
us until now.
"And
we will be saved" from the hands of our enemies who have overpowered
us.
Here the question may be raised: Surely the same refrain appears at the
end of stanza 1, and there it cannot be understood as has been proposed here!
And the answer is: Indeed, this is true, and this is one of the features of the
refrains in the book of Tehillim. Not only does the refrain undergo
various changes in its successive appearances in the psalm (as was noted at the
beginning of this study), but its meaning also keeps changing in accordance with
the context in which it appears at the end of each stanza.
How should the refrain be understood at the end of the prayer for success
in battle in stanza 1? Perhaps in this manner:
"O
God, restore us" to our homes in peace, like a shepherd who returns his sheep
to their usual place after having led them out to pasture in the
wilderness.
"And
cause Your face to shine" toward us by stirring up Your might before
us.
"And
we will be saved" when you give us victory in battle and accept our prayer,
"And come to save us."
III. THE THIRD STANZA - COMPLAINT FOLLOWING COMPLAINT
1.
The Topic of this stanza, and the connection between it and the previous
stanza
When
we reach verse 9 at the beginning of stanza 3, we seem to be starting something
new that is totally unconnected to the first part of the psalm. Several
essential things change in the transition from the first part of the psalm to
the beginning of stanza 3. First of all, the time the prayer and the complaint
in the first part pertain to the present, the time during which the psalm is
being voiced; at the beginning of stanza 3 we go back in time to the exodus from
Egypt and to the settlement of Eretz Yisrael. Second, the literary form
all of stanza 3 likens the people of Israel to a grapevine, and the changes in
the nation's history are compared to the changes in the situation of that vine;
nothing similar is found in the first part of the psalm.[10]
Third, the atmosphere the atmosphere at the beginning of stanza 3 is different
than that of the first part of the psalm; it has none of the urgency that
characterizes the prayer and the complaint in the first part, but rather a
feeling of leisure and satisfaction.
This
feeling that we get at the beginning of stanza 3 stems, of course, from an
optical illusion. The four verses with which stanza 3 opens are but a necessary
introduction to verses 13-14 that follow them. And it is precisely those two
verses that determine the topic of the entire third stanza. Stanza 3 is a bitter
complaint on the part of the psalmist regarding the attitude of God, who in the
past had planted and nurtured the vine, to that very same vine in the
present:
Why
have You breached its fences,
and
all who pass by the way pluck its fruit?
This
"why" is left as a rhetorical question that has no answer.
In other psalms of complaint as well, the complaint is preceded by a
description of God's acts of loving-kindness toward Israel in the past. This is
the case in psalm 44, the first part of which (about a third of the psalm)
describes God's loving-kindness toward Israel during its conquest of Eretz
Yisrael as a background to the complaint in the second part of the psalm
regarding God's sharply contrasting attitude toward His people at the present
time. Similarly, in psalm 89, the complaint at the end of the psalm regarding
God's breaking of His covenant with the house of David is preceded by a
description of God's loving-kindness toward David and the covenant that He had
made with him, a description that takes up the better part of the
psalm.
The reason that in all the aforementioned places the complaint is
preceded by a description of God's loving-kindness is clear: the essence of the
complaint relates to the radical change for the worse in God's relationship
toward Israel, a change that defies explanation.[11]
The same is true in our psalm. Following the expansive account of God's caring
for and nurturing of the vine, i.e., Israel, the question of complaint cries
out: "Why have You breached its fences
?" Why have you changed your disposition
toward the vine from one extreme to the other, when the vine remains the very
same vine?
Now
that we have defined stanza 3 as a complaint, we understand how it is connected
to the first part of the psalm, or more precisely, to stanza 2 - both of these
stanzas contain complaints. Is there a connection between the complaints in
these two stanzas? Do they relate to the same event? If the answer to this
question is positive, why are these two complaints so different in their
substantive and stylistic form?
We
will only answer these questions after we deal with several exegetical aspects
touching upon the two parts of stanza 3: the introduction that describes God's
loving-kindness toward the people of Israel in the past and the complaint
regarding his attitude toward them in the present.
2.
The difference between the parable of the grapevine in our psalm and similar
parables in the rebukes sounded by the prophets
Likening
Israel to a grapevine or to a vineyard is very common in the words of the
prophets. In two places, this metaphor is used, as in our psalm, to describe a
change that occurred in Israel's situation. The first instance is the parable of
the vineyard in Yeshayahu 5:1-7. From both a literary and a substantive
perspective, there is great similarity between the parable of the vine in our
psalm and the parable of the vineyard in Yeshayahu. The striking
difference between them is the choice of the metaphor a single grapevine or an
entire vineyard.
Yesh. 5:1 |
Now
I will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning his
vineyard: My
well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful
hill: |
2 |
And
he dug it, and cleared away its stones, and planted it with the choicest
vine, And
built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a wine vat in
it; And
he looked that it should bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth bad
grapes. |
3 |
And
now, O inhabitant of Jerusalem and man of Yehuda, Judge,
I pray you, between me and my vineyard. |
4 |
What
could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done
it? Why
was it, when I looked that it should bring forth good grapes, that it
brought forth bad grapes? |
5 |
And
now, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I
will take away its hedge, and it shall be eaten up; and break down its
wall, and it shall be trodden down: |
6 |
And
I will lay it waste: it shall be neither pruned, nor hoed; but there shall
come up briers and thorns. I
will also command the clouds that they drop no rain upon
it. |
7 |
For
the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of
Yehuda His pleasant plant; And
He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but
behold a cry. |
The
second place is the prophecy in Yirmiyahu 2:21. There we find, as in our
psalm, a single vine rather than an entire vineyard, but the literary scope is
limited; the metaphor of the vine takes up only one verse, and the account of
the calamity that befell the vine (which is found both in our psalm and in
Yeshayahu) is absent entirely:
And
I had planted you a noble vine, an entirely right seed;
how
then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me?
(Yirmiyahu 2:21)
The short comparison conducted here between the three instances relates
to various details, but not to the deep difference that distinguishes between
our psalm and the prophecies of Yeshayahu and Yirmiyahu. Perhaps it shouldn't
even be called a difference, but rather a complete
turnaround.
Both
in our psalm and in Yeshayahu's prophecy, the owner of the vine/vineyard
breaches the fence that protects it, and thus allows it to be trodden over and
eaten up by all who enter. Why does the owner of the vine/vineyard do
this?
This
question is raised by the author of our psalm:
Why
have You breached its fences,
and
all who pass by the way pluck its fruit? (v. 13)
The
question is left unanswered, and therefore we have defined it as a complaint
about God's disposition toward His vine-nation. But it is precisely this
question that Yeshayahu comes to answer. The prophet also asks a question, and
in his question we find an answer to the psalmist's
question:
What
could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done
it?
Why
was it, when I looked that it should bring forth good grapes, that it brought
forth bad grapes? (v. 4)
To the question, "Why have you breached
," the prophet answers,
"Why was it when I looked
" It is not the owner of the vineyard who
changed his relationship with his vineyard, but rather it is the vineyard who
"betrayed" its owner, disappointing one who had expected to see good grapes, but
instead saw only bad grapes. Breaching the vineyard's fence is merely the
reaction of its owner who was betrayed and thus punishes his vineyard for its
sin.
Yirmiyahu's prophecy also provides an answer to the question raised by
the author of our psalm, and this answer is also formulated as a question and an
expression of amazement:
How
then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to
me?
In our psalm, however, the vine is the same vine that was brought out of
Egypt and planted in Eretz Yisrael. It did not betray its planter or
disappoint him; it was he who changed his attitude toward it for the worse, from
one extreme to the other, for no apparent reason!
We have, then, what appears to be a "disagreement" and contradiction
between our psalm and the prophecies of Yeshayahu and Yirmiyahu on the question
"who is responsible" for the degenerated state of the vine: it itself or its
owner?
It may, of course, be suggested that a gulf of many years, or even many
generations, separates between our psalm and the two prophecies. The
circumstances in each place are different, and this difference may account for
the contrast between our psalm and the prophecies. Indeed, a historical
discussion of this sort should not be rejected, despite the difficulty in
clarifying the precise spiritual-religious circumstances that serve as the
background of our psalm.
It seems, however, that the solution to the contradiction between our
psalm and the two prophecies must be sought elsewhere. The solution lies in the
fact that our psalm is found in the book of Tehillim the book in which
man speaks from down below to God above. The books of Yeshayahu and
Yirmiyahu, on the other hand, are included among the books of the
Prophets, in which God speaks to man by way of His
prophets.
Using terminology taken from Yeshayahu's parable of the vineyard, we can
say as follows: The prophecy contains "a song of my beloved concerning his
vineyard," a song of reproach that the "beloved" God sings to His vineyard
the house of Israel. Our psalm, in contrast, is "a song of the vine's complaint
against its beloved."
From the prophetic perspective, the history of the people of Israel is
understood in the framework of God's recompense for Israel's actions. When
calamity strikes Israel, or when it is about to strike, the prophets explain
that the calamity is a just punishment for Israel's sins and their betrayal of
God.
From the human perspective, on the other hand, the people of Israel
sometimes feel that the calamity brought upon them by God is unjust, and they
complain to God in accordance with the way that they experience the
calamity.
It is not impossible then that a particular event in Jewish history will
give rise to harsh prophetic words that justify the calamity and hang it upon
the sins of Israel, while at the same time the same event will give rise to
bitter words of complaint on the part of the holy poets who direct their
complaints toward God; those words will be included in the nation's holy
Scripture in the framework of the book of Tehillim (or the book of
Eikha).[12]
The canonizers of the Hebrew Bible included sharp and bitter psalms of
complaint in the book of Tehillim, such as psalm 84, psalm 89, and, in
far more moderate fashion, our psalm as well. In this way, they taught us that a
complaint sounded from man's perspective, when it expresses a true human
experience and is voiced by holy poets, is also said through the holy spirit and
worthy of being included in holy Scripture. This is true even if there is a
response to Israel's complaints and this answer will be revealed by a prophet in
later generations, or even in that same generation.[13]
We are, therefore, permitted to ignore the differences in the periods and
the circumstances between our psalm and the prophecies of Yeshayahu and
Yirmiyahu and consider all of them from an a-historical perspective, as if they
were all sounded at the very same time.
3.
The differences in the choice of the parable vine or
vineyard
The
main difference that we noted above between the parable of the vine that serves
as the basis of the complaint in our psalm and the similar parables in the
reproaches of the prophets can also explain some of the more specific
differences between them. For the details follow from the speaker's general
approach - is it his intention to admonish and reproach with a prophetic rebuke,
or does he mean to lay out his complaint before God?
Why
did the author of our psalm choose to liken Israel to a single vine, whereas
Yeshayahu compares them to a vineyard? Before we answer this question, we must
first explain the parable's meaning in our psalm.
The
beginning of Yeshayahu's parable of the vineyard describes the vineyard owner's
actions in a most realistic fashion, to the point that we don't even realize at
first that we are dealing with a parable. In contrast, the parable of the vine
in our psalm announces from the very outset that it is a parable, and it is
clear already from the opening words what is being likened to the vine: "You
brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out nations and planted it." Even though
the name of Israel is not mentioned here, it is evident to all that the
reference is to Israel and not really to a vine.
But
the description of the vine in our psalm is so fantastic that the question may
be raised whether there is any connection between this description and actual
reality. The answer is that, indeed, such a connection exists: the description
in our psalm accords with the household vine that a person grows in the back of
his house and that climbs up and covers a pergola built on the
roof.
The
analogy of a good wife to such a vine in psalm 128 "Your wife will be like a
fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house" was discussed at length in
our study of that psalm, section VI. There, we also described this phenomenon,
bringing support from scriptural verses and the words of Chazal. In that
same study, we tried to identify the characteristics of this household vine that
are not found in a vine growing out in the field. I wish to mention two of the
characteristics noted there. First, there is an incomprehensible relationship
between the weakness of the vine's thin trunk and the enormous spread of its
branches across the entire roof of the house. Second, such a vine is amazingly
able to climb up and reach the height of the roof. A thin and weak trunk rises
up without limitations, although it is supported by the wall of the house. It is
clear that in order for the vine to reach the roof and spread out across the
pergola that is built there, the vine must be tended by its owner, who trains it
to climb the wall of the house and cover the pergola.
This
is the background of the parable of the vine in our psalm; just as the vine is
the people of Israel, the house on which it climbs is Eretz Yisrael, the
roof of the house are the hills covered by its shade, and the poles of the
pergola built on the roof are the "mighty cedars."
Let
us now return to our question regarding the selection of the different analogies
used for the people of Israel, the vine in our psalm and the vineyard in
Yeshayahu's prophecy.
There
is a great difference between the single household vine growing in the innermost
parts of a person's house and the many vines growing in his vineyard. This
difference expresses itself not only in the external appearance of these two
types of vines, but also in the care that the owner gives to each of them and in
the goal of that care.
The
vineyard is the farmer's place of work. Many different labors are associated
with a vineyard, some of which are mentioned in the words of Yeshayahu: "And he
dug it, and cleared away its stones, and planted it
and built a tower in the
midst of it, and also hewed out a wine vat in it." Other labors are mentioned
later: building a wall around it, pruning the branches, hoeing, and removing the
weeds growing in the vineyard. The farmer invests this difficult and
time-consuming labor so that he will be able to pick the grapes and support
himself from them.
In
the prophetic reproach of Yeshayahu, it is precisely the parable of the
vineyard that is most appropriate. Through this parable, the prophet
wishes to express the vineyard's ingratitude even though its owner invested
such hard work, the vineyard yielded bad grapes, causing the owner great
disappointment and frustration.
The
household vine would have been inappropriate for Yeshayahu's reproach for two
reasons. First, it does not demand the same hard and continuous work as does the
vineyard; second, this vine is not planted for economic reasons, for its fruit,
but rather for its shade and beauty. Thus, it cannot be used to express the
disappointment stemming from the contradiction between the great investment and
the meager results.
For
these very reasons, it is precisely the household vine that is most appropriate
for the complaint in our psalm. The care and nurturing provided by the vine's
owner to the single household vine does not involve arduous and tiring labor,
but they do give expression to a personal, intimate relationship with it. The
role of the vine is to shade the house, and this it does by itself, after the
initial investment made by its owner. With this we can understand the transition
in verses 9-12 from verbs whose unequivocal subject is God, "You brought," "You
drove out," "You planted it," and
"You cleared room," to verbs the subject of which can be understood to be the
vine itself, "it took deep root," "it filled," "it sent
out."
The
test of this vine is not necessarily in the fruit that it yields, but rather in
the fulfillment of its role of shading the roof through the spread of its
branches. And this the vine did with great success: "And it filled the land. The
hills were covered with its shadow
It sent out its boughs to the
sea
"
It
is precisely against the background of the personal care that the owner provides
his vine - care and investment based on endearment - and against the background
of the vine's success in it mission to shade the hills that the complaint is
sounded: "Why have You breached its fences
" Why has Your loving attitude toward
the vine turned into abandonment? Surely the vine is the very same vine that You
took out of Egypt, and the goal of its being planted on the soil of Your Land
has been achieved!
It
is difficult to imagine how it would have been possible to express this
complaint had the psalmist chosen to liken the people of Israel to a vineyard,
as in the prophecy of Yeshayahu.
Why
does Yirmiyahu in his prophecy of reproach choose to liken Israel to a single
vine, as in our psalm, rather than to a vineyard, as in the prophecy of
Yeshayahu? The purpose of Yirmiyahu's rebuke is different than that of
Yeshayahu. He does not compare the great amount of work that the vintner
invested to the meager yield of fruit, a comparison that emphasizes the
vineyard's ingratitude and the lack of (economic) profitability in continuing to
maintain it. The comparison that Yirmiyahu draws is between the excellent
genetic foundations enjoyed by the vine that had been chosen out of many (the
reference seems to be the selection of the Patriarchs for the purpose of
establishing the nation), and the "strange" branches that grew from this
first-rate vine.
A
solitary grapevine that was carefully selected from among many others is
particularly suited to express the planter's disappointment with this genetic
accident {"how then are you turned into the degenerate
plant").
4.
The difference between the complaint in stanza 3 and the complaint in stanza
2
What
is the difference between the complaint expressed in stanza 2 of our psalm and
the one expressed in stanza 3? There are several differences between them, but
we will focus on one of them: The complaint in stanza 2 seems to relate to a
particular event, that which is referred to in the prayer in stanza 1. That is
to say, it is a complaint about the defeat in battle alluded to in the first
part of the psalm, as was already pointed out in our analysis of stanza 2. In
contrast, the complaint in stanza 3 is directed at the ongoing national
situation, in which Israel's borders are breached ("Why have You breached its
fences") and various nations allow themselves to pluck the vine's fruit ("and
all who pass by the way[14]
pluck its fruit"). Other nations ("the boar from the wood" and "the wild bird")
inflict damage upon the vine itself when they eat of its branches, that is to
say, they fight Israel and perhaps even conquer parts of the Land. Since this
stanza is not dealing with a specific national trauma like in the previous
stanza, but rather with the ongoing national situation, there is no "bread of
tears" or "a cup mixed with tears," but there is here the bitter feeling of
continued abandonment and desertion of the vine.
Is
there a connection between the two complaints in stanzas 2 and 3? The answer
seems to be yes. The ongoing national condition described in stanza 3 is a
consequence of that same decisive defeat in battle discussed in stanza 2. If
indeed we are dealing with the battle fought at Even ha-Ezer, this supports our
argument. In the wake of this battle, the Pelishtim reached Shilo in Mount
Efrayim and destroyed it and the Mishkan in its midst, as well as the
army of Israel. Thus, the fence that had protected the vine the people of
Israel - was breached, and the people and Land of Israel became subjugated to
the Pelishtim.
This
war created a new national situation reflected in the complaint found in verses
13-14 of our psalm. It turns out, then, that all three stanzas 1, 2 and 3
refer to the same event, but they relate to three different stages that are
arranged in chronological order. Stanza 1 the eve of the war; stanza 2 the
rout in war; stanza 3 the ongoing national consequences.
5.
The refrain following stanza 3
Let
us conclude our analysis of stanza 3 with a discussion of the refrain appearing
at its end, in the first half of verse 15:
O
God of hosts, please return.
Why was the second part of the refrain "and cause Your face to shine,
and we will be saved" omitted? And why was a change introduced into the first
part, so that it reads "please return" and not "restore us," as it reads in its
other appearances?
The reason seems to be the nature of the complaint in this stanza. In the
previous stanza, the complaint related to a specific event, the defeat in
battle, and therefore it says at the end, "restore us" to our previous
situation, "and cause your face to shine, and we will be saved" from the enemies
who overcame us. In stanza 3, on the other hand, the complaint relates to the
ongoing national situation, in which the psalmist feels that God has abandoned
His people and deserted them, like the owner of the vine who breached its fences
and allowed it to be trampled by passers-by. In such a lowly situation, the
prayer, "and cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved," is inappropriate,
for we are not dealing with a complaint of temporary anger that can be repaired
with the shining of God's face and a single act of deliverance. The request,
"restore us," is also out of place: We are in our place, but God has abandoned
us. Therefore, the correct and appropriate request in such a situation is
"please return." Please return to Your cherished vine as in days of old![15]
(To
be continued.)
(Translated
by David Strauss)
[1]
The connection in the past, at the time of the exodus from Egypt, is likened to
a shepherd's tending of his sheep (v. 2). The connection upon which the prayer
is based in this stanza is expressed through a series of verbs that express
God's positive disposition toward His people: listen, shine forth, stir up your
might (before Israel), and come to save us.
[2]
Whereas the call to God at the beginning of stanza 1 describes Him as having
acted favorably toward Israel in the past "O shepherd of Israel
You who tend
Yosef like sheep," the call in stanza 2 alludes apparently to the present, when
Israel went out to battle, and the Lord, the God of the hosts of Israel, brought
utter defeat upon them.
[3]
It is possible, however, to understand the question "how long" as relating
exclusively to what immediately follows, "how long will you angrily reject the
prayer of Your people," whereas the rest of the stanza explains the question:
"for surely You feed them bread of tears
" According to this understanding,
everything that follows is proof of the fact that God has rejected the prayer of
His people. The first alternative, however, seems to be
simpler.
[4]
This explanation follows R. Yeshaya of Trani. Some commentators (Ibn Ezra)
explain that the prayer itself turned into smoke an expression of God's anger.
[5]
Here, too, we follow R. Yeshaya: "You feed them bread of tears that is, they
ate their bread weeping, and perhaps the tears even melted in their bread. And
some explain that their tears were their bread, as in Tehillim 42:4: 'My
tears have been my bread day and night.'"
[6]
The word "shelish" refers to a vessel that holds a measure called a
"shelish," as in Yeshayahu 40:12: "And comprehended the dust of
the earth in a measure (ba-shelish)." According to the Ibn Ezra,
the letter bet before the word dema'ot governs the word
shalish, as if the verse read: "vatashkemo dema'ot ba-shelish."
This parallels what we explained in the name of R. Yeshaya at the beginning of
the previous note (and indeed R. Yeshaya explains these words in this way as
well).
[7]
The word "madon" appears in Scripture together with the word
"riv." Accordingly, the meaning of the verse is "that they quarrel with
us all the time" (Radak); "all day long they fight us"
(Meiri).
[8]
The word "lamo" means "lahem" (them). Therefore, the Ibn Ezra
explains that it comes in place of the word "lekha," and it is "a
substitution for the glory of God
and 'they will mock him' that You cannot
help us." So, too, explains the Radak. According to this explanation, there may
be an allusion here to the fall of the ark into Pelishti captivity. The plain
sense, however, seems to be as suggested by Tz.P. Chajes: "Lamo refers to
the enemies, this being an instance of the lamed of benefit, as in
'lekh lekha,' 'go for yourself,' for your own benefit. And here too: 'for
themselves.' Accordingly, the object of the enemies' mockery is us. The
Septuagint and the Peshita have "lanu" instead of "lamo," although
we cannot determine whether this was their actual text or their
interpretation.
[9]
This is the case regarding Tehillim 44, 79, 89, and in our psalm as well,
as will be demonstrated later in this study.
[10]
In truth, the two distinctions that we have noted between the first half of the
psalm and the beginning of stanza 3 are imprecise. The call to God at the
beginning of the psalm, "O shepherd of Israel
You who tend Yosef like sheep,"
alludes to the time of the exodus from Egypt and Israel's wandering in the
wilderness (see our discussion about this in the analysis of the stanza 1), and
it is these designations themselves that liken the people of Israel to a flock
of sheep that is tended by God. Another hidden connection between the two parts
is the fact that a grapevine serves as a metaphor for Yosef "ben porat
Yosef" (Bereishit 49:22) the branch of a fruitful grapevine is
Yosef - And at the beginning of our psalm, the people of Israel are called by
the name of Yosef.
[11]
Introductions of this sort are not found in two psalms of complaint,
Tehillim 74 and 79, because the complaint in these psalms does not relate
to a change in God's disposition toward Israel, but rather to the fact that God,
through His actions regarding Israel, causes the profanation of His name among
the non-Jewish peoples. See our comments on the two types of complaints in the
book of Tehillim at the end of the section dealing with stanza 1.
[12]
It goes without saying that we are not arguing that our psalm and Yeshayahu's
prophecy are dealing with the very same event, but merely that it is not the
change in time and circumstances that account for the contradiction between
them, but rather their belonging to two different, and even contradictory, types
of religious expression prophecy and prayer.
[13]
This point was already discussed in a different style and with the help of the
words of Chazal at the end of our study of psalm 44, section
7.
[14]
a. The expression "those who pass by the way" as a designation of the nations
bordering upon Israel appears twice in Eikha: 1:12 "Is it nothing to
you, all you that pass by;" 2:15 "All that pass by clap their
hands."
b.
An example of the fruit of the vine-Israel being eaten by the neighboring
nations is found in Shoftim 6:3-4: "And so it was, when Israel had sown,
that Midyan and Amalek, and the children of the east came up against them
and
destroyed the produce of the earth
and left no sustenance for Israel, neither
sheep, nor ox, nor ass."
[15]
Only at the end of stanza 4, following the detailed and moving prayer in which
the psalmist imagines the arrival of the salvation, "Let us live, and we shall
call upon Your name," does he feel that he can once again return to the full
refrain, and even expand upon it by way of the threefold designation, "Lord, God
of hosts."