Suffering and Sin: Interpretations of Illness in the Individual Complaint Psalms

Abstract

The intention of this study is to question the supposed self-evident connection between sickness and sin in the individual complaint psalms. On the basis of a careful analysis of the psalms which contain the three motifs divine absence, divine wrath, and man’s guilt, the author problematizes this aspect of the exegetical literature’s widespread interpretation of the theological dimension of illness. As an alternative, the understanding of life which characterizes these psalms is brought to the fore. The individual’s relationship to God is not understood in light of the categories guilt and innocence, but rather in relation to YHWH’s freely given gifts of existence by which the threatened person is received into the saving presence of God. Like life itself, this foundational divine presence is something which cannot be claimed, impossible for man to appropriate by his own attitude or achievements. For that reason, the theory of individual retribution does not function as an interpretation of YHWH’s role in situations of acute suffering. Rather, the sudden loss of the presence of God and the life-threatening situation which thereby arises remains for the individual a something uncalculated and irrational. The divine presence is continually threatened, but neither from its Giver nor its receiver. This threat comes from a realm competing with God and life. The God of the psalms is the giver of life, not its destroyer.

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