Grief can silence us but sometimes also squeeze the most painful poetry out of our hurting souls. And help us heal.
Did the death of David’s son inspire him to write this poem that has more to do with rage than sorrow? How else can we metabolize our feelings?
The opening line of psalm 9 has been a mystery for many generations now, as multiple scholars have tried to make sense of this psalm’s puzzle. Is it about the death of David’s son, and if so, which one, or is it about a son’s secret, or something else entirely?
לַ֭מְנַצֵּחַ עַל־מ֥וּת לַבֵּ֗ן מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִֽד׃
“To the chief Musician, upon the death of Labben, A Psalm of David.”
(Koren Jerusalem Bible Translation)
Ps 9:1
Who or what is Labben?
These two or three Hebrew words - Al’mut La’ben are unique and therefore unclear.It may be some sort of scribal error. Most other English translations leave this phrase in the original Hebrew, while some translate or add a comment ‘Upon the death of the son’. Could this be the baby boy born to Bathsheba and David’s illicit affair, who died quite young and left David full of guilt, remorse and mourning?
The 3rd century BCE Greek Septuagint may allude to this option in English; it's something like “Over the secrets of the son, A Psalm of David”. But the Aramaic translation of Targum Yonatan went in a different direction: “concerning the death of the man who went out between the armies, a hymn of David.” That one at least makes sense - the man who ‘went out between the armies’ is likely Goliath, described exactly this way in the Book of Samuel - he was the warrior who took a position between the armies of Israel and the Philistines, until young David killed him with a slingshot. Is this a triumphant psalm then?
The medieval commentary of Rashi references another option - that this refers to David’s anguish over the death of his rebellious son Absalom, but this is also rejected as “There is no evidence of or reference to this interpretation in the psalm.”
But what Rashi does suggest is a poetic reading that interprets the word ‘Laben’ not as ‘the son’ but as the Hebrew verb l’laben - literally ‘to clarify’ or ‘whiten’ as when washing dirty laundry. Rashi suggests that what this poem is about refers to “the future of the nation of Israel… when their righteousness is revealed and their salvation nears, because their enemy will be destroyed.”
Whether this chapter is inspired by a father’s grief for his dead baby or adult son, a triumphant battle field, or the future salvation - what echoes throughout it is the gratitude for being lifted out of the narrow places within oneself, ‘lifted up from the gates of death’ towards some sense of relief and redemption.
This theme of grief into growth brings us closer to Passover, celebrated this week with memories of our mythic liberation, and deep yearning for future redemption in which we are all lifted up from the narrow confines of existence, as a mourner eventually gets to rise from gates of grief.
While the introduction to this psalm remains a riddle, the poetry needs little prooftext to remind us that it’s the contractions that lead us to the expansiveness, from bondage to liberation, and from the narrowness of being towards the widest sense of being.
May grief help us grow.
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