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Psalms 60

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1 O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again.

2 Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh.

3 Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.

4 Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.

5 That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.

6 God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth.

7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver;

8 Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me.

9 Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?

10 Wilt not thou, O God, which hadst cast us off? and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies?

11 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.

12 Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.

   

Commentary

 

Exploring the Meaning of Psalms 60

By Julian Duckworth

Psalm 60 is a fervent emotional psalm, a prayer to be restored to God. It has a meaningful order. It begins with the despair of feeling that God has cast us away, and has allowed us to be broken down. This leads us to an understanding that the Lord permits us to go through hard experiences so that we may be strengthened and be able to be brought back with truer understanding.

The psalm moves on to use familiar names in the land of Israel to represent the scenes of the Lord’s might and influence. These are the Lord’s possession and they are the means for his power and involvement. The Lord claims them absolutely.

The third part of the psalm finds new courage and confidence from seeing the intimate power and presence of God over all Israel and over each part of it. It asserts that the Lord will unfailingly bring us to safety and lead us, this Lord whom earlier was said to have cast us off and who did not come to our aid. It ends, triumphing in God’s might and the assertion that help from man then is useless.

The first three verses give us a harrowing picture, that somehow God has acted against us in several ways, because he is displeased. This of course is not true, but it pictures a state that can descend on us even though we know and believe the opposite. It is caused by seeing the appearance and not seeing the underlying reality. It is interesting that in the middle of all this, the speaker begs to be restored again. This suggests the spark of some remnant state. (Divine Love and Wisdom 40[2])

The curious phrase in verse 3 about the ‘wine of confusion’ is literally the ’wine of reeling’. Being made to drink this by God means that God allows us to have states where our thoughts and understanding become disturbed and unclear. This allows us to reorder them which then strengthens them, which is then beneficial to us. (Arcana Caelestia 6377)

Verses 4 and 5 are about the ‘banner’ given by God to be displayed so that we can be delivered. What is this ‘banner’? A little further on it says ‘it is displayed because of the truth’, which is the purpose of the ‘banner’ or standard, to raise truth high up to be seen and known. A banner is a war rallying ensign; truth in our mind is our spiritual rallying point to which we turn for courage and confidence. (Arcana Caelestia 8624)

Then we come to the place-names of Israel which God claims and rules. The spiritual meaning of all these together and of Israel as a whole is that they stand for our existence from God. Individually, we are ‘Israel’. God is over it all, directing and governing our lives in every possible way. (Heaven and Hell 307:3)

The reference to dividing Shechem carries the spiritual idea of God almost like a referee, separating our warring factions and strife. Measuring the valley of Succoth stands for the Lord’s knowledge of the true state of us. Gilead, Manasseh and Ephraim become the trinity of life, and the goodness and truth which are needed to guide our life. Judah, the lawgiver, stands for the supreme need to recognise and acknowledge that truth is of and from the Lord. (Arcana Caelestia 4748:3))

It then moves on to more questions, but now they are full of confidence and understanding: ‘Who will bring me…? Who will lead me…?’ ‘Is it not You, O God, who cast me off?’ The speaker is overruling his early complaint to God and now, in this greater realisation, he feels the leading presence and power of God. (True Christian Religion 137[5])

The psalm comes to an end, having journeyed from dismay into instruction and to realisation, by comparing the trust we put in God and the trust we would be wise not to put in man. Spiritually, ‘man’ represents our own will which is fickle and delusory whereas Divine will and truth is an ever-dependable foundation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1093

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1093. That 'cursed be Canaan' means that external worship separated from internal turned itself away from the Lord is clear from the meaning of 'Canaan' and from the meaning of 'being cursed'. That 'Canaan' is external worship separated from internal is clear from what has been stated already about Canaan, also from his being called 'cursed'; and from what follows about his being 'a slave of slaves'. And being a slave both to Shem and to Japheth cannot mean anything other than something separated from the Church itself, such as worship that is wholly external. This is clear from the meaning of 'being cursed' as turning oneself away, for the Lord in no way curses anybody, or is even angry. Instead it is man who brings the curse upon himself by turning himself away from the Lord. On these points see what has been shown already in 223, 245, 592. The Lord is as far from cursing or being angry with anyone as the sky is from the earth. Who can believe that the Lord, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, who with wisdom rules the universe, and so who is infinitely superior to all [human] weaknesses, is angry with such pitifully worthless dust, that is, with human beings who scarcely know anything of what they do and who of themselves are incapable of anything other than evil? With the Lord therefore anger is never present, only mercy.

[2] That arcana are contained here can be seen merely from the consideration that even though it was Ham who saw his father's nakedness and pointed it out to his brothers, he was not cursed but his son Canaan, who was not his only son nor even the firstborn but the fourth in line, as is clear from Chapter 10, verse 6 later on, where the sons of Ham are mentioned as being Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. It can in addition be seen from the Divine Law that no son was to bear his father's iniquity, as is clear in Ezekiel,

The soul that has sinned will die. The son will not bear the iniquity of the father, nor will the father bear the iniquity of the son. Ezekiel 18:20; Deuteronomy 14:16; 2 Kings 14:6.

And the same can also be seen from the consideration that this iniquity of merely seeing his father's nakedness and pointing it out to his brothers seems too slight for all of his descendants ever to have been cursed on that account. From these considerations it is clear that arcana are contained here.

[3] The reason Ham is not mentioned here but Canaan is that Ham means faith separated from charity in the spiritual Church, which cannot be cursed because in that Church faith has holiness present within it because truth is present there. And although there is no faith when there is no charity, it is still possible - since it is by means of the cognitions of faith that a person is regenerated - for separated faith to be allied to charity, and in this way to be in some sense 'a brother' or may become one. This was why Canaan was cursed and not Ham. Furthermore the inhabitants of the land of Canaan were for the most part people such as made all worship consist in external things, the Jews there as much as the gentiles. These are the arcana contained here, but for which Canaan would never have been substituted for Ham. That external worship separated from internal turns itself away and so brings a curse on itself is quite clear from the fact that people whose worship is external have no regard for anything other than worldly, bodily, and earthly things. Thus they look downwards, and immerse their minds (animus) and life in those things; such will be dealt with a little further on.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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