The full spectrum of raw humanity in Psalm 6

The full spectrum of raw humanity in Psalm 6

Rembrandt van Rijn, David and Jonathan, 1642; 73 × 61.5 cm. Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Manic depressive, or from an armchair perspective, high highs and low lows strikes me as an apt description of David’s mental state in Psalm 6. 

The second anointed king of Israel thinks God might get angry with him. The New Living Translation ramps up the emotion by describing the attitude David thought God might use with Him as rage.Was this rage David imagined God might have with him is what I think of when I hear rage? I get the sense the shepherd boy from Bethlehem was crying out “uncle.” King David reminds God in His pleaful prayer “I am weak.” It isn’t clear for me if David assumes God would kill him. Read verse 5, “For the dead ... .from the grave.” Was David sure He would die from sadness if God didn’t intervene with the healing he requested in verse 2 (“heal me”), v3 (“restore me”) and v4 (“return, rescue, save”)?

Is David blaming God? In my own experience,  I have been blamed because I failed to help. The bad result others had was blamed on me. I didn’t do the bad thing, I didn’t wish the bad on them, I wasn’t against them but just because I didn’t respond as they had hoped I was to blame. I hear that voice from David to God. Maybe I am wrong. Could he believe God will actively discipline in anger and rage, God will make him sad, God will cause physical pain, God will kill him or leave him dead?

But I admit it might not be a fair reflection of the Psalm. This prayer flows from a relationship not only focusing on one negative blaming line of reasoning. David reveals another perspective right alongside the one I’ve just questioned. David expects God to be compassionate. Our weeping monarch begs for restoration, and rescue with the conviction that God can and will do something and that certainty of God’s intervention is confirmed first in verses 8 & 9 by the statement twice in the past tense, “The Lord has heard” and again in verse 9 in the future tense “the Lord will answer.” 

Stability is good but an emotionless middleground is actually not very attractive. I am reminded that Jesus says in Revelation, I hate lukewarmness. God’s desire is for hot or cold. God has a loathing of lukewarm. If the 8th son of Jesse is anything, he is not lukewarm. Maybe Daivd was a “passionate Italian lover” of God. American’s characterise Italians as passionate lovers. Lots of hand movements and rapid speech from the southern warm climates compared to the solid silent and auster attitudes of the northern climates. The christianity I grew up on was a more northern flavoured  somewhat emotionless variant. So when I read Psalm 6 I recognize the passion as an enemy that threatens my stability. But I wonder if such Victorian sensibilities are not an accurate point of view.

Could it be that what seems to me to be a rather schizophrenic relationship with God is actually a healthy range of emotions with the ultimate stability found in calling out to God? I admit I am not satisfied with my answer or suggestion of an answer. I am left with David thinking that God might handle him with rage and one way or another kill him and leave him alone. That’s the picture I see even if there is a positive relational restorative hope nestled in the prayer. I can’t shake the picture of a rageful God walloping the daylight out of David.  

I want to remind you I am resisting an attempt to conclude these thoughts with little sermons. I am looking for raw humanity. I submit to you I have found it in a full range of blistering heat and stone cold death. One thing I can say is this is not a lukewarm Psalm.