Episode Details

Psalm 36: The Fountain of Life

The psalm begins in a place we might not expect — inside the mind of the wicked. "The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes." David has, for a moment, listened to wickedness as though it were a voice, and heard its essential message: there is nothing above me to answer to. It flatters itself. It has ceased even to abhor evil. And then, without transition or apology, the psalm lifts its eyes from this cramped interior and opens onto the vastest landscape in the Psalter: mercy reaching to the heavens, faithfulness to the clouds, righteousness like great mountains, judgments like the ocean deep. The contrast is breathtaking — as though David stepped out of a windowless room into the whole sky. And at the center of that sky, a single image that has haunted the saints ever since: "With thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light." Not merely that God gives light, but that only in His light do we see anything at all. We do not bring our own candle to examine God; we see by the light He already is.

00:00 The Voice of Transgression
01:00 Mercy in the Heavens, the Fountain of Life