Turn
I want to tell you how a question got into my head and refused to leave, and I want to be upfront that this series doesn't answer it. I gave up on easy answers a while ago. What I want now are better questions, and this one turned out to be a good one.
It started with Jonah, of all people.
Jonah 4:2 is the verse where the prophet finally explains why he ran. He says, more or less, "I knew it. I knew you were a gracious God, compassionate, slow to anger, full of loyal love, and relenting from sending calamity." That last phrase is what stopped me. In Hebrew it's ve-nicham al-ha-ra'ah, "relenting over the calamity." And it's not a verb describing something God did once. It's a participle. It describes what God is like. Jonah is saying: you are a God who relents, that's your character, and that is exactly my problem with you.
So I went digging, and a few days later I was in Psalm 6, and in verse 4 the psalmist says, "Turn, YHWH, rescue my life, save me for the sake of your loyal love."
Turn. Shuvah. It's the same verb the Old Testament uses when it tells people to repent. Turn around, go the other way. And here is a guy aiming it at God.
That's when the question landed. If I tell God to turn, am I expecting him to? Is prayer a conversation where the other side can actually change course, or is it something I do to myself, a kind of performance, useful maybe, but one-directional?
The court
John Goldingay, in his little commentary on the Psalms, says something about Psalm 1 that reorganized how I read everything after it. Psalm 1 lays out two roads. Walk by God's instruction and you flourish like a tree by water; walk the other way and you blow off like chaff. Simple, he says. Not easy, but simple.
And then, Goldingay points out, the rest of the Psalter is full of people who walked the first road and are not flourishing. They say so. "I have walked in integrity" (Psalm 26). "All this has come on us, though we have not forgotten you" (Psalm 44). And so, he says, Psalm 1 doesn't just open the book, it gives you standing. If you've lived the Psalm 1 life and you're in a mess, you get to walk up to God and say, in Goldingay's phrase, excuse me, what about what you said in Psalm 1?
I started picturing it as a king's court. Psalm 1 and 2 are the terms, the agreement, and every psalm after is somebody coming before the throne with a case. That picture is mine, not Goldingay's, and I'm not sure it's right. His word is "promises," which is softer than "agreement." An agreement binds both sides. I'll come back to that.
But notice something about Psalm 6. The psalmist there doesn't claim the Psalm 1 ground. He doesn't say "I've been faithful." He says, "for the sake of your loyal love." Two different reasons to come before the throne. One is about me, the other is only about him.
Who turns whom
I keep coming back to that verb. Shuv is the repentance word. It's what the prophets shout at Israel. And Psalm 6, Psalm 80, Psalm 90 all take it and point it the other way. "Turn, please, God of hosts, look down from heaven." The refrain of Psalm 80 is the same verb again, the other direction: "Restore us." Turn us. Same root.
So somebody in that psalm is turning. The question is who.
And honestly? Psalm 6 never says. Verse 7 the man is weeping, verse 8 he announces that YHWH has heard his prayer, and nothing in between tells you what changed. Whether God turned, or he did, or both.
To sit with
- When I say "turn" to God, what am I actually expecting to happen?
- Have I ever walked up to the throne with the Psalm 1 argument, "I've done my part"? Have I ever gone with only the Psalm 6 one, "for your love's sake"? Which one do I reach for first, and why?
- In Psalm 6, between the weeping and the "he has heard," what do I imagine happened?