Psalm 21:5
past and present
In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them. (Psalm 21:5 DR)
Rhetorical Recountings
Often times in the Psalms there are what amount to rhetorical recountings of God’s actions in the past towards His people or towards the Psalmist. And while God certainly does not need to be “reminded” of His promises or mercy, the language of the Psalms often functions in this manner. In doing so the Psalmist expresses not God’s need of remembering, but rather his own need. This duality of faith and seeking after faith is captured well in Psalm 41:
I will say to God: Thou art my support. Why hast thou forgotten me? and why go I mourning, whilst my enemy afflicteth me? (Psalm 41:10 DR)
The parallelism beautifully captures this, for in one breath he expresses a profound faith in proclaiming God as his support, but then in the next wonders why God seems to have forgotten him. This vacillation between faith and uncertainty characterizes our sojourning here, and the fickleness of our minds and hearts entails that we must have these reminders to ourselves of God’s faithfulness and mercy. These serve as anchors to keep us from going adrift or as markers that we can return to when lost in the obscurity of this vale of tears.
Perfect Deliverance
The Psalmist in the midst of his dereliction thus “reminds” God of the hope that his fathers placed in Him. And this hope was not disappointed but brought to fruition in that God “hast delivered them.” Both “have hoped” (speraverunt) and “hast delivered” (liberasti) are in the perfect tense, describing actions that have had their completion in the past. The Psalmist is thus recounting concrete actions of God’s salvation in the past towards his people, how when they hoped in Him He delivered them. This hope thus had its correlating completion in their deliverance.
The point of this recounting, of course, is rhetorical, for if God did so in the past, why not now?
And see what he says: Our fathers hoped in Thee, they hoped, and Thou didst deliver them. We know, and read how many of our fathers God hath delivered who hoped in Him. He delivered the whole people of Israel out of the land of Egypt (Exod 12:51); He delivered the three children out of the fiery furnace (Dan 3); He delivered Daniel out of the den of lions (Dan 14); He delivered Susanna from a false accusation (Dan 13): they all called upon Him, and were delivered. What? was He wanting to His Own Son, that He should not hear Him when hanging on the Cross? But why is He not delivered forthwith, Who said, Our fathers hoped in Thee, and Thou didst deliver them? (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 21, Exposition 2, 6)
Susanna’s Story
The story of Susanna is a fascinating one. She was a beautiful woman living in the midst of exile, and two of the elders who were appointed judges became enflamed with lust for her, and eventually conspired to have their way with her. They hid in an orchard while she was bathing, and then sprung upon her, declaring their “love,” and threatening that if she didn’t fornicate with them they would accuse her of adultery and have her stoned to death. She, being righteous and unwilling to sin even in the face of certain death, refuses, reckoning it better to fall into their hands than to offend God.
They accuse her and she is brought to judgment, whereat she cries to the Lord:
O eternal God, who knowest hidden things, who knowest all things before they come to pass, Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me: and behold I must die, whereas I have done none of these things, which these men have maliciously forged against me. And the Lord heard her voice. (Daniel 13:42-43 DR)
The end of the story is that the young Daniel is inspired by the Lord to speak on her behalf, and after questioning the two men separately is able to prove their stories false, at which they receive the recompense for their evil.
Back to the Cross
And since the Psalmist’s voice is that of Christ from the cross, if God was so solicitous for His people in their distress in the past, why would He not be solicitous for His Own Son, as St. Augustine asks? If in the “lower” case God’s mercy is poured forth and His deliverance manifested, why not in the “higher” case of the Incarnate Son of God?
In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them. So that none would ascribe the claims of the Son not to have been heard to the Father’s hardness, as has been stated, the Son briefly touches on the deeds which the Father performed. He delivered the people of Israel from the land of Egypt: He rescued the three boys from the furnace: He freed Daniel from the lion’s den, and there are countless other incidents which occurred or are recorded. But though He granted or grants these great concessions in answer to men’s prayers, He did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, clearly so that the scriptures might be fulfilled and that through His passion the salvation of the world might emerge. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 21, 5)
The plan of salvation thus required that the Son would not be “heard” by the Father in the same manner as the fathers of old who were heard and delivered. But since this is the will of both the Father and the Son, it is evident that this seeming lack of deliverance is not a rejection of the Son, not the Father turning a deaf ear to Him or turning His face from Him. The Son, after all, has far more claim, if such an expression can be used, to be heard by the Father than any of the fathers He references, but unlike them His cry will not be heard in the same manner as theirs.
To human eyes He will seem to be rejected and despised and not heard by the Father, and this passage would seem to lend support to that. For if God in the past heard the cry of the righteous and delivered them, would the Psalmist’s words not then prove that the Son was not righteous, if righteousness leads to God hearing and delivering?
Finding the Key
Susanna’s prayer perhaps provides the interpretive key, for even though she knew it meant death, she was willing to suffer that death so as to maintain her innocence. And the prayer of the three men in the furnace is equally instructive, for prior to being thrown in they tell the king that God can deliver them, and even if He doesn’t, they will not worship other gods. Even Daniel himself was willing to suffer death rather than neglect his prayers to God.
Our Lord brings these prayers of the righteous into their perfection in His own agony in the Garden, praying to the Father that the cup might pass from Him, yet not as He willed, but as the Father willed. The righteous are thus characterized by their readiness to suffer within the will of God, to submit the totality of their lives and wills to God even if it entails suffering and trials and even death.
The cry of the Psalmist and thus of the Lord from the cross is not absent from this context, for the righteous whom God delivered were likewise prepared to suffer death for the sake of God and His will. To “remind” God of the fathers who hoped in Him is thus not simply a rhetorical rehearsal of God’s goodness in the past, but a confidence in it within the present, even in the face of death, for the righteous do not not look to the goods of this life or this world as their highest end, but rather hope in the Lord’s mercy Who will deliver them from death and bring them to life everlasting:
But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure was taken for misery: And their going away from us, for utter destruction: but they are in peace. And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded: because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace he hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust he hath received them, and in time there shall be respect had to them. The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They shall judge nations, and rule over people, and their Lord shall reign for ever. They that trust in him, shall understand the truth: and they that are faithful in love shall rest in him: for grace and peace is to his elect. (Wisdom 3:1-9 DR)
I created a series of letters in After Effects and added some slight vertical looping animation on them. I then made each letter the same color as the background and used Shadow Studio to create the shadows. I then added in a few other lighting effects.
Enjoy.
In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them. (Psalm 21:5 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: