Blessed be the Lord,

for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me

when I was in a besieged city.

²² I had said in my alarm,

“I am cut off from your sight.”

But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy

when I cried to you for help.

(Psalm 31:21-22)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about besieged cities. Two in particular have been on my mind: Jerusalem and Mariupol. Mariupol, of course, has recently been in the news due to its near total destruction at the hands of the Russian military. Jerusalem’s siege and destruction is on my mind because I am currently writing a commentary on Lamentations. So it caught my attention when reading Psalm 31 that the psalmist endured the experience of living in a besieged city. I assume the psalmist is referring to Sennacherib’s (in)famous siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC that ended with YHWH’s miraculous intervention and Sennacherib’s retreat.

I wonder whether certain insights would ever dawn on us were we never “besieged.” The psalmist implies that he may never have known just how wondrous YHWH’s love is had he not been “in a besieged city.” Ok, before I go any further, I want to be clear about something. My thoughts here have nothing to do with the morality of siege warfare or of any other kind of warfare. I hate war and while I am not a total pacifist, my “just war” position leans heavily in a pacifist direction. By acknowledging that certain kinds of spiritual growth can only occur under siege I am no more justifying sieges than I justify crucifixion because Jesus turned his particular experience of it into a universal means of atonement. I do not want to be under siege, nor do I want anyone else to be. In this fallen world, however, siege of some kind is almost inevitable. We’d might as well learn from it and grow in it.

For one thing, sieges have a way of bringing perfect clarity to the besieged. Life and its priorities suddenly come into razor sharp focus. The psalmist came to some sudden realizations in his “alarm.” Hezekiah is another good example. When Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, Hezekiah committed himself to prayer like never before. About a hundred years later, a second siege of Jerusalem by Babylon launched a city-wide act of repentance in which everyone released their male and female slaves in accordance with Deuteronomy 15 (Jer 34). Unfortunately, this repentance was short lived; for no sooner had Egypt come to Judah’s rescue and the Babylonians had withdrawn than the Jerusalemites reneged and took back their slaves.

Ironically, however, sieges seem to have the opposite effect on those who execute them. The besiegers suffer from delusions of grandeur and power that are completely out of touch with all reality. One need only think of the Rabshakeh’s arrogant boasts in Isaiah 36 to see what I mean. How drunk on power do you have to be in order to challenge YHWH to as dual? You may say that I am crazy but I’d rather suffer in clarity and truth with the besieged than celebrate in delusions and denial with the besiegers.

Father,

I do not want to be under siege, but if that is what it takes for me to progress in my relationship with you, then so be it. I hesitate to pray it, and I only half mean it (Holy Spirit help me to really mean it), but rip from my white knuckled grasp every idol on to which I hold, every object of desire that I love more than you. Lord Jesus, forgive me for so often fleeing the implications of your cross, for preferring the delusions of worldly pleasure and secular “security” to the clarity of crucifixion. Holy Spirit, be the rope that secures me, a living sacrifice, to the altar. For without your help, I will surely crawl off the altar before I am even half-consumed.

AMEN