As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
7Raising [the] poor from the dust, He raises [the] needy
from the dung pile,
8to make [him] dwell with nobles, with the nobles of his
people,
9making [the] barren [woman] to dwell [in] the house, the
mother of the sons,
joyful.
Praise
the LORD.
Before I leave these verses, particularly 7-9, I want to
record what I think to be a salient observation. I have often noted what I
think to be a prevailing deficiency in our Western culture. That deficiency is imagining
the entire world is ruled by what I call linear logic. Linear logic is the kind
of thinking which lends itself easily to Roman Numeral outlines, and time
lines, the “this, then this, then this” kind of thinking.
I would suggest that, in trying to see our world that way,
we are missing what I rather think is the predominant logic of life itself, and
that is “fractal” logic. A fractal is a pattern that repeats itself an infinite
number of times and on an infinite number of scales. In other words, it is the
pattern itself which is the logic. Once you see and recognize the pattern, you
then begin seeing that same pattern in many other situations. My argument is
that that is logical, that that is a form of logic, just the same as any linear
“this, then this, then this.”
A fractal defies Roman Numeral outlines, yet it is still
quite logical. Probably one of the best examples is a family tree. First of
all, note we can call it a “tree.” Why? Because a tree is a form of logic – it is
a pattern, a fractal. Looking at any family tree, what do we see? We see a man
and a woman who married, then had children. And what did the children do? They grew
up and married and those couples had children. You could use a Roman Numeral
outline perhaps to identify each generation and call it “the descending
generations of Bob and Sue,” but how do you show from one line to the next the
interrelationship between the individual families? The best way to depict a
family’s lineage is not a Roman Numeral outline, but rather by drawing up a
family tree. It is a pattern that
repeats itself. It is the pattern
itself that is logical. Then, not only is there the repeating pattern of
fathers, mothers, and children, next add in the thought that the children look like their parents. What is that?
Is it not another repeating pattern? Then add in that people beget people,
raccoons beget raccoons, tigers beget tigers. What is that? Is it not another
example of repeating patterns?
In fact, fractals are all around us everywhere we might
look. I would suggest that, particularly when it comes to living things and
living systems, the predominating logic is actually not linear but rather
fractal. I have suggested before and continue to maintain that the predominant
logic of life itself is fractal.
What does all of this have to do with Psalm 113:7-9? I guess I’m just wanting to
suggest that I think it important to recognize that these three verses are an
example of fractal logic. They are presenting before our minds a pattern which,
if we would but look around, we’ll see in a million different ways and on a
million different scales.
The verses say,
7Raising [the] poor from the dust, He raises [the] needy
from the dung pile,
8to make [him] dwell with nobles, with the nobles of his
people,
9making [the] barren [woman] to dwell [in] the house, the
mother of the sons,
joyful.
Praise
the LORD.
People who see the world only through linear logic would say
we need to decide whether, in this passage, the Lord is simply making a
statement as to His activities or whether He’s referring to the much bigger
business of redemption? Those people would insist you must choose. “It cannot
be both,” they would say. Fractal logic would say, “No. You don’t understand.
What He is presenting to us is a pattern
of His workings and the statement is true because it fits His pattern.” What this means is, it is okay to see that both are true. What these verses are
presenting to us is one example of the fact that our God is a redeeming God. It is a pattern of who He
is that, everywhere He goes, everything He does, He is redeeming. It is true
every day of my life. It is true every minute of my life. It is true of my
entire life. It is true of my eternity. It is true of everyone’s eternity. It
is true because that is who He is. It is part of the logic of life itself that
our God is a redeeming God. To fail
to see that is to miss a prevailing truth of our very existence.
That being said, we can take these verses quite literally
and observe that, at times, the Lord actually does take someone who was poor or
in some way needy and raise them from that condition – and in fact, doesn’t
just “raise” them but actually gives them some measure of honor. He does at
times allow women, though barren, to conceive and bear children. Literally –
just like it says here in Psalm 113:7-9. Our God is a literal Redeemer. But beyond
those obvious, literal examples, it is also imminently true that He finds all
of us in a million different ways “poor and needy and barren” and “raises” us. I
almost daily find myself in situations where I honestly do not know what to do.
I pray and ask for His help and time and time again, He sends just the right
thought or just the right person at just the right time and grants me success.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind this is exactly what Psalm 113:9-7 is
talking about. Me poor? Yep. Me needy? Yep. Me barren. Yep. He raises me? Yep.
Gives me honor I don’t really deserve? Yep. It is the Redeemer fractal that I’m
seeing all day every day.
But then we can keep going. Salvation itself is this same
Redeemer fractal. Can we see in Psalm 113:7-9 the redemption of the human race?
I say yes. Did God find us poor and in the dust? Did He find us needy on a
dunghill? Did He find us barren? As many, many authors have observed, the
answer is a resounding Yes! The fall of Adam plunged all mankind into the
poverty of sin. In order “raise” us, God has to stoop down and lift us from the
putrid filth and stench and disease of the dunghill we have created for
ourselves. Jesus came down to actually live among us, to be surrounded by evil
and brokenness, and to raise us to be kings and priests unto our God.
And I could go on from there. What about the redemption of
the entire Creation? “The Creation itself waits in eager anticipation for the
sons of God to be revealed … the Creation itself will be liberated from its
bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God”
(Romans 8:19-21). It’s the same pattern – the Redeemer pattern. It is a fractal
of our very existence, true in a million different ways and on a million
different scales.
I suppose my bottom line is simply to assert that we don’t
need to engage in some sort of exegetical debate to determine which of the
above applications are intended in this passage. They’re all true – because they
are an expression of a fractal, a pattern
of truth which exists because that is who our God is – our Redeemer God and “in
Him we live and move and have our being.”
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