Kindly-Ones

 

Psalm 32

This is what everyone faithful should pray
at a time when you can be found.
Then, when the floodwaters are raging,
they will not reach to him. (CJB)

 

Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him. (ESV)

 

The Hebrew word translated as “faithful” or “godly” is “chasid” — from “chesed”: loving-kindness. Chesed is often translated as “mercy” or “grace” and refers to the unbreakable bond (oath, covenant, vow) of love between God and God’s people.

“A person who embodies chesed is known as a chasid (hasid, חסיד), one who is faithful to the covenant and who goes "above and beyond that which is normally required" and a number of groups throughout Jewish history which focus on going "above and beyond" have called themselves chasidim.”  (From Wikipedia)

 

I got some insight from the Hebrew interlinear website. It isn’t easy to figure out, but by carefully comparing the translation with the transliteration I came up with this:

“On this shall pray every kindly-one to you in the-season-of-finding-you— doubtless in overflowing floodwaters many will not attain to him.”

The psalms are really tricky. First of all they are poetry, and if I’m not moved when I read them, then I usually tend to doubt the translation.

Today, what moved me was “pray at a time when you can be found.”

It occurred to me that the simplest and most obvious thing that a kindly person might pray about would be the certainty of being overwhelmed by the floodwaters and unable to reach God. In the “season when God may be found,” there is still the distant roar of the inevitable flood.

But then, there remains the firm connection between chesed and covenant; and there is one covenant that specifically has to with overwhelming floods: the covenant in which God promised Noah that there would never again be a worldwide flood.

I know that it’s a weird twist… very nonlinear, in contrast to the usual notion that if a ‘godly person’ prays to God in a time when God is reachable, then when the flood comes it won’t overwhelm the petitioner. But, see, that leaves me cold, and makes me think of under-the-table bargains and quid-pro-quo arrangements. I don’t believe that God goes for conditional and self-serving deals, at all. Ever.

 

I think the whole verse turns on the idea of a “kindly-one”—  a person who will give more than is asked, out of loving-kindness and a deep connection to the inviolate bond between us and God.

I also felt a solid link to the Bodhisattva vow: ‘to save all sentient beings.’

So then, when the flood overwhelms any one of us, the kindly-ones will step in.

The vow will hold, the connection stay strong— and even when God can’t be found, and darkness and chaos get the upper hand— the promise will still sustain.