READING THE BOOK OF PSALMS
PART XXII
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Psalm 28
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A review of Late Bronze Age Jewish theology is in order. Sheol was the underworld, where the dead resided. They, cut off from God, could not praise God. A synonym for Sheol, was the Pit–a miry bog. Zoroastrianism, with its concepts of reward and punishment in the afterlife, influenced Jewish theology, starting with the Persian conquest of the Chaldean/Neo-Babylonian Empire. Therefore, Zoroastrianism has influenced the Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell.
The psalmist, in verse 1, likens God being deaf to his plea to himself being in Sheol, cut off from God:
To You, O LORD, I call.
My Rock, do not be deaf to me.
Lest You be mute to me
and I be like those gone down to the Pit.
–Psalm 28:1, Robert Alter
I like puns, as those who know me well attest. Some dread my double entendres; others enjoy them. Puns do not translate, by definition. So, we who do not read Biblical texts in the original languages need exegetes to explain the puns to us.
The pun in 28:1 depends on the Hebrew words translated as on “deaf” and “mute.” The Hebrew word translated as “deaf” is teherash. The Hebrew word translated as “mute” is tehesheh. God, of course, does not turn a deaf ear to the psalmist; God is not mute. The psalmist, who does not perish, praises God, starting in verse 6.
Psalm 28 turns from the individual to the plural at the end:
The LORD is His people’s strength
and His anointed’s stronghold of rescue.
Rescue Your people
and bless Your estate.
Tend them, bear them up for all time.
–Psalm 28:8-9, Robert Alter
Once more, the collective context frames the individual context.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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