May 13, 2022
The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. … Arise, Lord, do not let mortals triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, Lord; let the nations know they are only mortal. (Psalm 9:9-10,19-20)
Most of this Psalm is a prayerful song of praise to God for who he is as Judge of the Nations and what he has done in showing himself to be a refuge for the oppressed against their oppressors. But near the end of the Psalm, the tune begins to turn from praise to plea. A plea for justice and judgement against the nations and the wicked.
A funny thing happens across the Psalm: the whole of the congregation who may have sung or recited this Psalm identify themselves with the oppressed and needy. “The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed” and a God who never forsakes those who seek him. On the other side, the enemy is identified with the nations, the mortals, the wicked ones.
I have often found it hard to draw such hard lines as the Psalms do. I am rarely as confident in my own righteousness so as to shout out with David: “vindicate the integrity of my cause!” I likewise have a hard time slapping the label of wicked on anyone and asking for them to be destroyed.
But there’s more to the prayers of the Psalms than just these hard lines and categories. Surely there were wicked people and enemies in Israel too. Surely there were wealthy and arrogant people that would not have so well fit the category of “the oppressed.”
And yet, when the Israelites came to worship before their God, they became “the needy.” To ask for salvation and justice from God is to admit of one’s need. To recognize that there are, in fact, powers with which one cannot reckon on one’s own is to admit of one’s need. To recognize that one is “only mortal” is to knock all of one’s arrogance and pretentions to power down to the appropriate lens of perspective that allows one to admit of one’s need.
The Israelites are so humbled as they enter worship and remember again that it is only by God’s work and not their own that they are ever saved and preserved, whether they find themselves in humble and oppressive circumstances, or not. And this then becomes the prayer for the nations too: may they also be reminded that they are but mortal. May they also be humbled in the presence of God so to admit of their need.
This, I think, is a very good way to hear this Psalm spiritually for all those of us who might not find ourselves to be particularly “oppressed” at any given moment.
But of course, there is also the very real and hard thread that runs through this Psalm too that we just can’t ignore: the Judge will judge with justice. Those who really are oppressed or needy, those who are addicted, abused, homeless, hungry, or afflicted in whatever other way—they have a refuge in God when they seek him. Not just because he comforts them, but also because he brings justice.
This Psalm then is also a call to all of us who may not be oppressed to keep a keen eye out both for those who are, but also for the ways that we might be contributing to their oppression. This is where the spiritual meets the practical: as we are humbled to our own mortality and need in worship before God the judge, we are called to gain the eyes to see others who were already there.