When Evil Whispers and Love Soars
What’s Psalm 36 about?
David paints a stunning contrast between the inner voice of wickedness that deceives the human heart and the towering, limitless love of God that covers everything. It’s like watching someone choose between a poisonous whisper and a symphony of grace.
The Full Context
Psalm 36 emerges from David’s deep reflection on the nature of evil and goodness – not as abstract concepts, but as living forces that shape human hearts and destinies. Written during his reign as king, David had witnessed firsthand how wickedness operates in the corridors of power and in the hidden chambers of the human soul. He’d seen advisors whose counsel dripped with selfish ambition, enemies whose flattery masked deadly intent, and perhaps most soberly, he’d confronted the capacity for evil within his own heart.
This psalm serves as both a warning and a celebration, fitting within the broader collection of David’s meditations on righteousness and wickedness that appear throughout the Psalter. The Hebrew structure moves from the intimate (“transgression speaks to the wicked”) to the cosmic (“your faithfulness reaches to the clouds”), creating a literary journey from the claustrophobic world of self-deception to the boundless realm of divine love. David isn’t just observing evil from a distance – he’s writing as someone who understands its seductive power and has chosen to anchor his soul in something infinitely greater.
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The opening line of this psalm contains one of the most psychologically sophisticated descriptions of evil in all of Scripture. When David writes ne’um-pesha’ “transgression speaks” or “sin whispers,” he’s using language typically reserved for prophetic oracles. It’s the same word used when God speaks through prophets – but here, transgression itself becomes a false prophet, delivering lying oracles directly into the human heart.
Grammar Geeks
The Hebrew phrase ne’um pesha’ l’rasha’ b’qerev libo literally means “the utterance of transgression to the wicked in the midst of his heart.” David presents sin as having its own voice, its own counsel, its own prophetic authority that competes directly with God’s voice.
This isn’t just about bad behavior – David is describing the internal propaganda machine of evil. The wicked person has developed an inner advisor that constantly whispers justifications, rationalizations, and reassurances. “No one will find out.” “You deserve this.” “Everyone else is doing it.” The Hebrew suggests this voice becomes so trusted, so familiar, that the person stops questioning its counsel entirely.
But then David pivots to one of the most breathtaking descriptions of God’s character in the entire Bible. When he writes about God’s hesed (steadfast love), emunah (faithfulness), tzedaqah (righteousness), and mishpat (justice), he’s not listing abstract attributes – he’s painting a cosmic geography where these qualities literally fill the universe.
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
Ancient Israelites listening to this psalm would have immediately recognized the subversive power of David’s opening metaphor. In their world, receiving an ne’um (oracle) was serious business – this was how prophets delivered God’s word to kings and nations. To suggest that transgression itself could deliver false oracles was both brilliant and terrifying.
They would have understood that David was describing something far more dangerous than external temptation. This was about internal corruption – the way persistent sin eventually creates its own theology, its own system of belief that makes wrong seem right. In a culture where hearing God’s voice was central to national survival, David was warning about a counterfeit voice that could lead individuals and communities to destruction.
Did You Know?
In ancient Near Eastern literature, the heart was considered the seat of both thinking and moral decision-making. When David says transgression speaks “in the midst of his heart,” he’s describing evil taking up residence in the command center of human personality.
When David shifts to describing God’s qualities reaching to the heavens and clouds, his original audience would have heard cosmic language. In their worldview, the heavens represented the furthest extent of creation. David was saying that while evil’s voice is confined to the cramped space of a deceived heart, God’s love literally fills all of reality.
The image of people taking refuge “in the shadow of your wings” would have evoked the Most Holy Place in the temple, where golden cherubim spread their wings over the ark of the covenant. David was inviting his listeners to see all of creation as God’s temple, with every person able to find sanctuary under divine protection.
Wrestling with the Text
Here’s what strikes me as I sit with this psalm: David doesn’t just condemn the wicked – he diagnoses them. He understands that evil isn’t typically chosen because it appears evil, but because it has its own convincing voice, its own seductive logic.
“There is no fear of God before his eyes” (Psalm 36:1) isn’t just about lacking reverence – it’s about losing the capacity to see beyond oneself. The Hebrew word yir’ah (fear/reverence) implies a healthy awareness of one’s place in a larger reality. When that awareness is lost, a person becomes trapped in the echo chamber of their own desires and justifications.
But David doesn’t leave us there. His description of God’s love as reaching to the heavens isn’t just poetic flourish – it’s therapeutic. After describing the suffocating world of self-deception, he opens up infinite space. God’s hesed isn’t bounded by human limitation, human failure, or even human understanding.
“In your light we see light – it’s not just illumination, it’s the discovery that reality itself is far more beautiful and hopeful than our fears had convinced us.”
How This Changes Everything
The genius of Psalm 36 is how it reframes our understanding of both evil and goodness. Evil isn’t primarily about dramatic acts of wickedness – it’s about the gradual replacement of God’s voice with our own internal narrative. It’s about becoming our own prophet, our own source of truth, our own final authority.
But goodness isn’t just the absence of evil – it’s participation in the cosmic reality of God’s love. When David writes about people being “abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house” and drinking “from the river of your delights” (Psalm 36:8), he’s describing a completely different way of being human.
Wait, That’s Strange…
David uses feast imagery to describe spiritual reality – being “satisfied with fatness” and drinking from “rivers of delight.” In Hebrew culture, fat was considered the choicest part of any sacrifice. David is saying that relationship with God isn’t about deprivation, but about experiencing the richest possible existence.
This psalm challenges the modern tendency to see good and evil as equal and opposite forces. David presents them as operating in completely different dimensions – evil as the cramped world of self-deception, goodness as participation in the unlimited reality of divine love.
The practical implications are staggering. If evil’s primary power is its voice of self-justification, then spiritual health requires cultivating the ability to hear and trust a different voice. If God’s love literally fills the universe, then no situation is beyond the reach of redemption.
Key Takeaway
The voice of evil whispers in the confines of our own hearts, but the voice of love fills the entire universe – and we get to choose which counsel shapes our lives.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
External Scholarly Resources:
- Tremper Longman III, Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary
- Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary
- John Goldingay, Psalms Volume 1: Psalms 1-41
Tags
Psalm 36:1, Psalm 36:7, Psalm 36:8, Psalm 36:9, steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness, justice, fear of God, self-deception, divine protection, temple imagery, cosmic love, moral psychology, Hebrew poetry, Davidic psalms
