Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Divine hacker
There are uncanny similarities in Psalm 139 to events now coming to light in the summer of 2011. As a journalist I am especially interested in the motivations of those who go to any lengths to unearth and report a 'scoop': information which is assumed to be of interest to the general public. Often this information is about personal things people would prefer that others did not know. Is the writer of this psalm complaining about, or celebrating, the fact that God knows all there is to know about him? It is a hacker's guide: 'O Lord you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You pereive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.... such knowledge is too wonderful for me; too lofty for me to attain.' Verse 19 suddenly drops this open-hearted submission to the all-seeing hacker, and lashes into some unknown monster, using language we may link to unwelcome prying eyes: 'If only you would slay the wicked, O God. Away from, me, you bloodthirsty men....Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? Then submission returns: 'Search me O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'
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