Poor Assyria. They believe themselves to be the intelligence that directs the axe, when they are just the axe. Poor Judah. They believe themselves to be God’s favorite, when they are under God’s wrath. Assyria seeks to destroy Judah, but God intends only to chastise her. What Assyria imagines as its blaze of glory will be the fire of its defeat. Poor them. And poor us, who do not, cannot, understand the ways of God. How can we see men and women trodden down like the mud of the streets and find God’s mercy there?  

The Psalmist does not attempt to reconcile what seems to us the irreconcilable. Will God’s people be trampled down? Yes. Will the widow and the stranger and the orphan be slain? Yes. The Psalmist sings only this refrain, “The Lord will not abandon his people.”  

As I write, war rages, again, in the land where Assyria and Judah met. I am fearful and sorrowful. I look to the peace of the small children in my care. I recall when my oldest grandson would spend the night with me. As I closed the door and turned out the light, he would say, “If I call you, MaMaw, you will come.” It wasn’t a question.  

Jesus’ words calm me. “No one knows the Father except the Son.” I can put away my quest to understand and accept the invitation to stand under, as a child hides in her mother’s skirts or leans against his father’s shoulder. We are children of God, not peers. I am to learn as children learn, by trusting, and following the steps of the Trusted One. Following, I will learn with the Psalmist, “The Lord will not abandon his people.”  

Melissa Musick Nussbaum