20th Mar 2009
Ashtoreth
I have had several questions regarding some of the poems in HillShadow. Some have asked about the short poem Ashtoreth, which is based on I Samuel 7:1-6:
Ashtoreth
If for deliverance
the heart is required,
then freedom is god
and the heart retained.
Divided up,
the deities pit
until by crowns
the heart is chained.
Verse three is the key from the text:
“And Samuel spoke unto all the house of Israel saying ‘If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtoreth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only: and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’”
The phrase “with all your hearts” brought to mind Melanchton’s writing about the first and greatest commandment in Deuteronomy 6:5: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” I paraphrase him, but the idea he presents is that if one falls short of this commandment, the summation of the law of God, then the result is damnation. Knowing this result, then, my motivation to fulfill the commandment is to save my own skin; and if saving myself is my motive, then love of self is foremost, not love of God. I am damned by the commandment because of its inherent impossibility.
If, in order to be delivered from bondage, “all my heart” is required, then I have run into the same conundrum. It is my own freedom that I desire foremost, not the means (God) by which I obtain it. I have not given my heart if it remains my end. The heart is by nature the sovereign that binds me because of its quest for supremacy.
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I have had several questions regarding some of the poems in HillShadow. Some have asked about the short poem Ashtoreth, which is based on I Samuel 7:1-6:
Ashtoreth
If for deliverance
the heart is required,
then freedom is god
and the heart retained.
Divided up,
the deities pit
until by crowns
the heart is chained.
Verse three is the key from the text:
“And Samuel spoke unto all the house of Israel saying ‘If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtoreth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only: and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’”
The phrase “with all your hearts” brought to mind Melanchton’s writing about the first and greatest commandment in Deuteronomy 6:5: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” I paraphrase him, but the idea he presents is that if one falls short of this commandment, the summation of the law of God, then the result is damnation. Knowing this result, then, my motivation to fulfill the commandment is to save my own skin; and if saving myself is my motive, then love of self is foremost, not love of God. I am damned by the commandment because of its inherent impossibility.
If, in order to be delivered from bondage, “all my heart” is required, then I have run into the same conundrum. It is my own freedom that I desire foremost, not the means (God) by which I obtain it. I have not given my heart if it remains my end. The heart is by nature the sovereign that binds me because of its quest for supremacy.