The Nature of Anger and the Frame of the Psalmist’s Relationship to God

The issue of Liturgy dealing with “Worship and Emotion,” guest-edited by L. Edwards Phillips, looks at the relationship between worship and emotion. What follows is an excerpt from Rachel Wrenn’s essay in this issue, “Worshipping in Anger,” exploring how anger is expressed in the Psalms and liturgically so that lament can be part of the truth-telling in worship. –– Melinda Quivik

~~~~~

The psalmist’s ability to explicitly express anger against God is limited both by the framework used to understand that relationship and by the nature of biblical anger itself. In the Bible, anger is an emotion that is expressed almost exclusively by those in positions of power. Ellen van Wolde describes biblical anger as being “embedded in a hierarchical framework.” In such a framework, anger is associated with power, and only the person of power in the relationship can express this emotion. Thus it is rare to find an instance where an individual expresses anger at God in the Bible. Corporate Israel hardly expresses anger at the deity, social inferiors rarely express anger at superiors, and women never express anger at men (or even at all). The social hierarchy of power renders anger an emotion of the powerful in the Bible. Those in powerless or power-less situations do not explicitly express it. Since the individual, mortal psalmist operates with much less power than the national deity, the psalmist does not express anger against God.

This conception of anger is not foreign to our modern reality. One expresses anger differently to a spouse than one does to a child, differently to a coworker than to a corporate superior. The social setting and framework of the relationship dictate which emotions may be expressed and how. Amy Cottrill has argued that the relationship between the individual psalmist and God is based on the social setting of a royal audience between a human client and a divine patron. In this framework, it is the divine patron’s duty to protect the needy human client. One of the main ways the psalmist motivates the deity to act is through self-abasement. The goal of this tool is “to convince God that the suffering of the psalmist merits God’s intervention and enactment of the role of a just, protective patron.” An emotion of the powerful would undermine the tool the psalmist uses to relate to God. Expressing anger at the “royal patron” (God) would be both hierarchically inappropriate and less effective in motivating the deity to act. We see evidence of this struggle to maintain an appropriate relationship to anger in Psalms 4 and 37. . . .

While explicitly expressed anger against God might be inappropriate in the relational framework of the Psalms, there are still instances where such anger is expressed implicitly. Psalm 4 is a perfect example of—to paraphrase a wise bard—a poem that doth protest too much. Psalm 4 begins much like any stereotypical lament. Psalm 4:1 records the speaker’s petition for God to hear their plea, a plea that never comes. The psalm never returns to this initial request for help from God. Thus the beginning verse hangs awkwardly as an ill-fitting introduction to what quickly turns from lament to lecture. John Goldingay has wondered if this lecture to the listeners is more for the sake of the prayer than for the congregation. He proposes that this speech “could function somewhat like a lament; the suppliant has something to lament about but diverts this into preaching. The psalm could then fulfill a role for people who are uneasy about complaining to God; they can protest at other people.”

The full article and the entire issue of Liturgy 36, no. 1 is available by personal subscription and through many libraries.

Rachel Wrenn, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is an instructor of Biblical Studies at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Capital University, and a PhD candidate in Hebrew Bible at Emory University, Atlanta.

Rachel Wrenn, “Worshiping in Anger: Anger at God in Psalms and Liturgies,” Liturgy 36, no.1 (2021): 19-26.