Psalm 74—If You Choose To Let It In, You Have To Let It Stay

"The enemy cried victory in the midst of a place that evil should never have touched."

A Note from Andy

If you’re just joining the Darkling Psalter, I am creating poetic renditions of the Psalms and pairing them each with a new poem and commentary. You can catch up with previous posts here: 1, 8, 14, 19, 22, 29, 32, 34, 42, 46, 51, 53, 73, 84, 86, 88, 107, 121, 130, 137, 142, 147, and the Guided Tour.

Rendition of Psalm 74

O God, why have you dispensed with us? 
We are your sheep, but your anger fell on us like fire.
Remember your people 
Whom you bought back for yourself,
Whom you redeemed to receive your inheritance.
You have dwelled in Mount Zion,
But your house is in ruins;
An enemy came to spoil and take and swallow down
All the goodness it could find there.
It cried victory in the midst of a place
That evil should never have touched.
It flung out wide its banners
As signs of its everlasting disaster.
It fell on us as with axes,
Breaking down the garden you made.
The carvings, the florid pomegranates, 
The glitter of golden things, the echo of voices,
Were all brought to nothing.
It sent a fire into your holy place
That was not your holy fire.
It hounded and oppressed your people
And burned every place where you met with us.

What signs and omens will guide us
When there is no prophet to gather us
And none who know how long?
How long will your enemy defy you?
Will you let your foes spurn you forever?
Why do you hold back your right hand?
Extend it and put an end to this.

For you, God, are the ancient king.
You built your deliverance in the middle of the land.
Your strength separated the sea.
You broke the heads of that ancient serpent in the water.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan
And gave its body to the wild beasts.
You burst open springs and water flowed out,
Then you made strong rivers wither. 
Yours is the day; yours also the night.
Yours are the stars and the sun.
You fixed the boundaries of the borders of the earth.
You made Summer and Winter turn over in their time.
Now remember, Lord, how the enemy taunts you
And fools revile your goodness.
Do not also give the life of your beloved to the beasts.
Do not forget those you have sheltered.
Remember the covenant we cut,
For the land fills with dark places
That evil things call theirs.
We are the crushed and the hounded;
Do not let us live in shame and fear.
We are the poor and needy;
We long to praise your name.
Stand up and defend us!
Remember how your enemies deride you day after day.
Remember their roar and clamor.

Notes of the Rendition

The Exodus Pattern: “Remember your people whom you bought back for yourself…”

The exodus from Egypt was neither the first nor the last exodus in the Bible. In their lovely book, Echoes of Exodus, Alastair Roberts and Andrew Wilson compare scripture to a symphony in which key themes continue to recur with slight variations in the original melody. Viewed through that lens, the exodus motif is one of the more significant themes in the symphony of scripture.

Psalm 74 evokes this exodus pattern when the psalmist calls upon God to remember when he bought his people back from Egypt. The pattern recurs again when the psalmist says that God’s “strength separated the sea.”

Here are a few more examples (taken from Robert’s blog Alastair’s Adversaria):

• Noah’s Exodus (Genesis 5-9)

  Judgment on the antediluvian world – Ark as embryo of new creation – Deliverance of Noah – Confirmation of God’s covenant with Noah – Rest and the fall that followed.

• Abram’s Exodus from Egypt (Genesis 12:10-14:24)

  A nation summed up in one man – Reading the patriarchs typologically – Abram’s deception – Capture of the bride – Plaguing Pharaoh – Release of the slaves – Return to the land – Military victory.

• Abraham, Lot, and the Flight from Sodom (Genesis 17-19)

  Cutting off the flesh before the judgment – Promise of a son – Angel of YHWH and the two witnesses – Elevation to membership in the Heavenly Council – Sodom as Egypt – Exodus from Sodom – Tragedy of Lot.

• Jacob in the Dark (Genesis 31:22-33:20)

  Laban pursues and overtakes Jacob – God appears to Laban – Rachel and Laban’s idols – Humiliation of the false gods – Covenant between Jacob and Laban – Preparing to meet Esau – Wrestling with YHWH – Peace with Esau.

•  The Exodus INTO Egypt (Genesis 37-50)

  Joseph going to his brothers – Sold into slavery – Reduced to prison – The dreams of Pharaoh – Two stage exodus – Joseph’s brothers – The exodus of Israel into Egypt – Promise and anticipation of Exodus.

Wilson and Robert’s walk through the rest of the exodus pattern in the Old Testament and the New Testament in Echoes of Exodus.

The Garden-Temple Pattern: “It fell on us as with axes, breaking down the garden you made.”

This part of the psalm depicts the destruction of the temple by the enemies of God. Interestingly, the temple is described as a forest of trees and those who would tear it down are cast as lumberjacks.

This goes right back to the garden and floral decorations on the temple (and the tabernacle before it). It was meant to look like you were walking back into the Garden of Eden when you walked into the temple, the archetypal meeting place between God and humanity.

The destruction of the temple is an “un-gardening” of the sacred space. There is ruin in the bastion of order (v. 3). Men roar like wild beasts in the middle of the temple (v. 4). The trees of the garden are felled (v. 5). There is fire in the sanctuary but it is not God’s holy fire (v. 7). Instead of the garden-temple rising up from the land like trees, the enemy has brought it all back down to the ground (v. 7).

Which leads us to the next pattern.

The Devastation Pattern: “It cried victory in the midst of a place that evil should never have touched.”

The “plot” of Psalm 74 is of evil invading God’s holy place “to spoil and take and swallow down all the goodness it could find there.” If you imagine the temple as a garden (as above) and cast the enemy as a serpent (see below), suddenly you’re back in Genesis 3, where the devastation pattern begins.

From Genesis 3 onward, the forces of evil try to interrupt and break down the strongholds of good in the world, turning the flourishing of all of God’s mini-Edens into wastelands, or, in the language of this psalm “everlasting disaster.”

The Serpent Pattern: “You crushed the heads of Leviathan…”

What is the “leviathan”? The early echoes of the creature appear on page one of the Bible in the epic creation narrative. Genesis 1:21 says that on the fifth day, God “created the great sea creatures.” This is saying more than just, “God made whales and other big fish.” The word translated “great sea creatures” is tannin, which can mean “dragon,” “serpent,” or “sea monster.” The word carries the connotation of evil and chaos throughout Scripture.

Some scholars argue that the appearance of sea monsters in Genesis 1 is a subversion of the creation myths of the nations surrounding Israel. Babylon was one of Israel’s most powerful ancient neighbors, and every good Babylonian knew that the world was created when the chief Babylonian god, Marduk, battled an ancient sea monster, Tiamat. In the myth, Marduk killed Tiamat and used the creature’s body to make the heavens and the earth. Quite the violent beginning. In Genesis, however, there is something very different going on. By depicting the chaotic sea monsters as God’s creation, Genesis is showing that God has complete authority and rule over even the darkest powers.

Whatever truth there is in the theory that tannin is a subversion of ancient pagan mythologies, the image of a serpent as an agent and symbol of evil is highlighted and developed from Genesis 3 to the end of the book of Revelation. Consider this passage from Isaiah 27:1:

“In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea."

And Revelation 12:9-10:

“And the great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan the deceiver of the whole world—that was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."

In the standard translations of Psalm 74 the ones that plunder the temple are referred to with plural pronouns (they/them instead of you/he/it), but in my translation, I made in a singular Enemy in order to bring out the connection between the chaos monster and the plunderers of the temple, to tie in God’s victory of the leviathan in the middle of the psalm with the destruction of the temple at the beginning of the psalm, and to highlight a connection between my rendition of the psalm and the poem that I’m pairing with it below (in which a monster comes into a house).

Notes on the Poem

In the bible, the enemy takes the form of a sea serpent/dragon. In this poem, it takes the form of a shapreshifting monster that is tryign to get into a house and prey on children.

I’m a Stephen King fan (here is a lecture to prove it: ) and kids are always facing (and facing down) monsters in his work. If you ever find yourself in a Stephen King novel, just stay with the kids and you’ll be alright. They are the most hunted and most vulnerable ones in the stories, but they are also the most powerful and it is in their vulnerability that they triumph. I read them at a young age and so it is no surprise that when Psalm 74 presented the task of re-personifying evil, this poem what came out. 

Shel Silverstein is another influence on this poem. His poems can be light, even trite, and are almost always told in a simple format with simple rhymes, but they can be quite dark. My favorite is The One Who Stayed. When I read the poem for Psalm 74 , I hear echoes of Silverstein’s work (so haunting hollow).

The last influence is simply stories I heard as a worker at L’Abri. People do such terrible things to one another. The first two lines were the seed of the poem and came to me on a walk as I reflected on a particularly terrible experience of a friend who passed through L’Abri. 

It begs the question: why write about such things in such a way?

There is pastoral medicine in showing the dark as dark. If you are going to face (and face down) the darkness using the medium of language, you had better make the depiction dark. The glory of redemption is only amplified by the depth of the losses it averts. The world being what it is, to portray evil lightly or with a gentle sentimentality is its own kind of distortion. That doesn’t mean we need to expose ourselves to evil in its harshest form, but it does mean that it is OK to come away with a bad taste in our mouths when we read something good in which there is also something evil. (For more on that, listen to Defense of the Dark Arts: Encountering the Fall in Fiction).

Give the Poem a Title

I’ll title this poem in a couple of days if I don’t hear from you, but I’m leaving the first pick for readers. The naming convention for these poems is that the title must come from a line of the poem.

Send your suggestions to andymatthewpatton@gmail(dot)com or leave them in the comments.

Poem for Psalm 74—If You Choose To Let It In, You Have To Let It Stay

It came inside the house those years
With its prowling, darkling favor—
Some for lies, some for fear,
And some as snacks for later.

There is a certain kind of taste it likes,
A certain kind of thrashing.
“Hush,” it says, and takes a bite
Without even asking. 

The kiddies hid or kicked their legs
Or gave their feeble shouts,
But none could make it go away
Or somehow cast it out.

Your mother noticed something strange—
A spreading stain upon the carpet.
She couldn’t figure what it was
So she put a chair atop it. 

The signs were there for all to see
(you couldn’t ask for more)
That there was something hungry
Crouching at the door.

If you choose to let it in, 
You have to let it stay.
So count the kiddies, keep them close
Before they slip away.

---

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