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Chapter 71HerbTemple.2.71

Justice (I)

God's Wounding Mercy

The speaker confesses bewilderment at God's paradoxical ways, yet acknowledges that the Lord wounds only to relieve and kills only to reprieve.

I cannot make sense of these ways of yours.✦1 Lord, you made me, yet you wound me; Lord, you wound me, yet you relieve me; Lord, you relieve me, yet I die by you; Lord, you kill me, yet you reprieve me.✦

The Divided Will

Reflecting on his own inner conflict, the speaker sees God's justice in the gap between his intentions and his actions, ending again in self-bewilderment.

But when I look hard at my life and my praise, your justice pays me most justly: for I do praise you, yet I don't truly praise you; my prayers mean you, yet my prayers stray; I want to do right, yet sin has hold of my hand; my soul loves you, yet it loves delay.✦23 I cannot make sense of these ways of mine.4

Read the original English

I Cannot skill of these thy wayes. Lord, thou didst make me, yet thou woundest me; Lord, thou dost wound me, yet thou dost relieve me: Lord, thou relievest, yet I die by thee: Lord, thou dost kill me, yet thou dost reprieve me.

But when I mark my life and praise, Thy justice me most fitly payes: For, I do praise thee, yet I praise thee not: My prayers mean thee, yet my prayers stray: I would do well, yet sinne the hand hath got: My soul doth love thee, yet it loves delay. I cannot skill of these my wayes.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Rom.11.33;Isa.55.8-Isa.55.9 — Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways! Isa.55.8 — For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways, declares the LORD. Isa.55.9 — For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
  2. ↩Deut.32.39;1Sam.2.6 — See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life; I have wounded and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from my hand. 1Sam.2.6 — The LORD puts to death and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
  3. ↩Rom.7.15-Rom.7.23 — For I do not understand what I do. For I do not do what I want, but what I hate, that I do. Rom.7.16 — But if what I do not will, this I do, I agree with the law, that it is good. Rom.7.17 — So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. Rom.7.18 — For I know that good does not dwell in me—that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present with me, but the working out of the good is not. Rom.7.19 — For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Rom.7.20 — But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. Rom.7.21 — So I find this law at work in me: though I desire to do what is good, evil is right there with me. Rom.7.22 — For I delight in the law of God, according to the inner person. Rom.7.23 — But I see another law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin which is in my members.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Early modern 'skill of' means 'understand / have the skill to grasp'; not modern 'skill' as ability alone.
  2. 2 ↩Early modern 'mean' here is intentional aim/direction (prayers are meant for God), not 'signify' in a weak sense; rendered as 'mean you' to keep Herbert's plain verb and the force of directed intention.
  3. 3 ↩Idiom: sin has taken possession of the hand—the organ of action—so the will to do good is checked by captured practice, not merely abstract guilt.
  4. 4 ↩Archaic 'skill of' = understand / have skill in grasping; deliberately parallels the poem's opening inability to skill of God's ways, now turned on the speaker's own.

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