Suffering as separation: Towards a spatial reading of Psalm 11

Prinsloo, “Suffering as Separation,” OTE 28/3 (2015): 777-806 777 Suffering as Separation: Towards a Spatial Reading of Psalm 11 GERT T. M. PRINSLOO (UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA) ABSTRACT Every human being inevitably experiences illness, loss, failure, and disappointment. When it happens to a perceived-to-be “righteous” person, the problem of theodicy arises, the question whether it is just when deities allow righteous human beings to suffer. The existential crisis caused by severe suffering is a central theme in the Psalter. This study departs from the working hypothesis that suffering can be described in spatial terms and illustrates it with reference to Ps 11. Ultimately suffering implies separation from YHWH and his saving presence at-centre (Ps 11:2-3). In the universe as imagined by the poet there is but one solution: to take refuge in YHWH (11:1) at-centre. That confession, amidst the crumbling of personal security and comfort (11:2-3), draws the eyes of the poet to YHWH in his holy temple and in heaven. In 11:4 the poet’s imagined space transports him from ‫ שאול‬to ‫שמים‬. There, in the presence of YHWH (11:7), he arrives at-centre, convinced that the wicked will finally be destroyed. A INTRODUCTION Suffering can be described as “the universal experience of the human race.”1 Every human being at some stage, inevitably, experiences illness, loss, failure, and disappointment. When it happens to a perceived-to-be “righteous” person, the problem of theodicy arises, the question whether it is just when deities allow righteous human beings to suffer.2 For Walter Brueggemann it is “the ultimate, inescapable problem of the Old Testament” because the HB insists that * Article submitted: 7 October 2015; accepted: 9 November 2015. To cite: Gert T. M. Prinsloo, “Suffering as Separation: Towards a Spatial Reading of Psalm 11,” Old Testament Essays (New Series) 28 no. 3 (2015): 777-806. DOI: http:// dx.doi.org /10.17159/2312-3621/2015/v28n3a13 1 John T. Willis, “The Dignity and Suffering of Humankind According to the Hebrew Bible,” SCJ 1 (1998): 231-41. 2 The term “theodicy” was first used by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his book Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal published in 1710, cf. Gottfried W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil (trans. E. M. Huggard; New York: Cosimo, 2009). The question, however, has been wrestled with by human beings through all ages, cf. Hans Kessler, Gott und das Leid seiner Schöpfung: Nachdenkliches zur Theodizeefrage (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 2000). 778 Prinsloo, “Suffering as Separation,” OTE 28/3 (2015): 777-806 “God’s world is morally coherent and assured by God’s rule.”3 The assertion “does not square very well with lived reality.”4 Hence the theme of the suffering of the righteous is prevalent in the Bible,5 and as far as the HB is concerned,6 prominent in the prophetic literature,7 in Job,8 the Psalms,9 and Lamentations.10 Human beings’ reaction to suffering is as universal as the experience of suffering. It “brings disjunction and discordance, and in the existential crisis which follows severe suffering, human beings – both individually and in community – struggle to construct meaning.”11 The existential crisis associated with suffering is a central theme in the Psalter.12 In this study I argue that spatial concepts lie at the heart of suffering human beings’ struggle to construct meaning. Taking cognisance of a text’s spatial dimensions can aid us in understanding the psalmists’ struggle to construct meaning in the disjunction and discordance brought about by suffering. I investigate this premise via a spatial reading of Ps 11. I argue that the poem is structured in such a way that the centrally located v. 4 invites us to 3 Walter Brueggemann, “Some Aspects of Theodicy in Old Testament Faith,” PRSt 26 (1999): 253-68 (253). Cf. also Walter Brueggemann, “Theodicy in A Social Dimension,” JSOT 33 (1983): 3-25. 4 Brueggemann, “Aspects of Theodicy,” 256-7. 5 Erhard S. Gerstenberger and Wolfgang Schrage, eds., Leiden (BibKon 1004; Köln: Kohlhammer, 1977); Antii Laatto and Johannes C. de Moor, eds., Theodicy in the World of the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Keith Warrington, “Healing and Suffering in the Bible,” IRM 93 (2006): 154-64. 6 James L. Crenshaw, ed., Theodicy in the Old Testament (IRT 4; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983). 7 David P. Melvin, “Why Does the Way of the Wicked Prosper? Human and Divine Suffering in Jeremiah 11:18-12:13 and the Problem of Evil,” EvQ 83 (2011): 99-106; James D. Nogalski, “Recurring Themes in the Book of the Twelve: Creating Points of Contact for a Theological Reading,” Int 61 (2007): 125-36. 8 Kenneth Ngwa, “Did Job Suffer for Nothing? The Ethics of Piety, Presumption and the Reception of Disaster in the Prologue of Job,” JSOT 33 (2009): 359-80; Larry J. Waters, “Elihu’s Categories of Suffering from Job 32-37,” BSac 166 (2009): 40520; Tony Campbell, “God and Suffering – ‘It Happens’: Job’s Silent Solution,” ATI 3 (2010): 153-63. 9 Ralph K. Moore, An Investigation of the Motif of Suffering in the Psalms of Lamentation (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI, 1993); Fredrik Lindström, Suffering and Sin (trans. M. McLamb; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1994). 10 Elizabeth Boase, “Constructing Meaning in the Face of Suffering: Theodicy in Lamentations,” VT 58 (2008): 449-68. 11 Boase, “Constructing Meaning,” 449. 12 Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms (trans. R. N. Soulen and K. R. Crim; Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 30-35; Craig C. Broyles, The Conflict of Faith and Experience in the Psalms: A Form-Critical and Theological Study (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989). Prinsloo, “Suffering as Separation,” OTE 28/3 (2015): 777-806 779 read “from centre.” I will briefly argue that this reading from centre has implications for the interpretation of Pss 3-14 as a psalm group as well.13 B SUFFERING: SPATIAL PERSPECTIVES The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan emphasised that human beings’ sense of place and space is intricately linked to personal experience.14 My presupposition is that the spatial references in the Psalter have been filtered through the experience(s) of their authors/redactors and reflect the real-life experiences of these group(s). Adherents of critical spatiality remind us that space is a three-dimensional concept.15 The French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre argued that ultimately space should be regarded as a social phenomenon.16 It is produced in the interaction between human beings and their environment.17 Space is at the same time a physical, mental and social construct.18 The American geographer Edward W. Soja uses the terms Firstspace, Secondspace and Thirdspace to describe this trialectic of spaces.19 He emphasizes that Thirdspace (or lived 13 Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalm 1-50 (vol. 1 of Die Psalmen; NEchtB 29; Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1993), 13 regards Pss 3- (...truncated)