Psalm 4 - Restoring Strength and Trust through Solitude, Silence, and Song

treat first words as last

NOTE:  This psalm begins with a double heading "LaM'natzei'ach BiN'ginot" and "Mizmor L'David."  A typical translation, "For the chief musician, on strings, a psalm a David."  In the previous post on Psalm 3, I explain the choice to render the latter phrase as "Pruning Pain for Love's Sake."  The former phrase, introduced in the heading to Psalm 4, invites a reflection on the word netzach - especially during the counting of the Omer when netzach is paired with the fourth day of each week and the fourth week between Passover and Shavuot; and as we prepare for a commemoration of the "victory" celebrated by the "Song of the Sea" read (tomorrow) on the 7th day of Passover.  
As a midah, or measurable moral quality of character, netzach is associated with persistence and perseverance rooted in trust.  In the psalms, the m'natzei'ach, the maestro of netzach, reminds us that the goal is not to 'best our opponents,' but rather to 'bring out the best in them and in ourselves.'  This is how Jacob's wrestling match with his 'adversary' resulted in a blessing and a renaming, Jacob becoming Israel.  This is also the only way, as Rabbi Itamar Schwartz teaches, for any victory to be a lasting one.  
The psalmist here highlights to the power of words, silence, and music to grow grace, dignity, discernment, devotion, silence, joy, and trust, and in so doing enable our love to endure and grow through the current adversities.

As with many of the psalms, this one can be read as a dialogue (internal or external) rather than a monologue.  I have italicized the second voice.  


PSALM 4 – For Persistence and Trust with Melody and Devotion  / התבודדות 

Is it fair?
Is it my choice?
Please answer, honestly.
	Sorrow and strife widen horizons and grow our capacity to love. 
Welcome grace. Listen 
with impassioned presence.  Prayer heard.

Fellow sons of womankind, what have you done with dignity?
		Am I a nobody? Is my love worth nothing?
		My wants for naught?  	We know better.
Discernment. Devotion. Heed the call. Shake off the stale 
shame of habits now lame and speak with song, sing 
with heart strings. Treat first words as last and silence as best.  
Selah.

So many talk and talk.  Their talking cannot reveal your good.
Our trial – to shine the light on your unseen face,
on the joy of times plentiful with grape and grain.

Plant seeds of ease in the silence within my lonely 
unsettled breast.
I long to rest, to sleep in peace, to share this solitude
and return to that refuge of trust.