Poverty Pimps Psalm 12

For the director; on the Sheminith. A psalm of David.

Help, Yahweh.

The simplest, most direct prayer in the Bible is “help”. To call on God for assistance is the basis of prayer. It is a recognition that all is not well in the world, and God himself sorrows over it. It is a recognition of the power of God, and His ability to change things when we cannot. And it is dependence on the Only One who can make all things right. When everything is going wrong, when everything is destruction and horror, all we can do is to cry out to God for help, without fancy words, without elaborate speeches. Simply “help”.

There is no longer any godly;
The faithful have disappeared from humanity.
They speak lies to each other
They have flattering lips
And they speak with a double heart

The psalmist cries to God because the whole world is evil. Perhaps this isn’t so insightful, as the world has been evil from an early time. But the evil that the world is consumed by is an insidious evil, a deceptive wickedness where everyone thinks that good is being done to them, but really it is the deepest wickedness. Hypocrisy is no longer for a few Pharisees, but a way of life for the majority of the world. Everyone feels that they “must” lie, from white lies to whoppers, from small boasts to great deceits. Everyone exaggerates, elongates, extrapolates. Not just for the entertainment of it, the pleasure of a shared knowledge of untruth, but a lie to deceive, a fib to lead astray. They do it to protect themselves, to get something from someone else, to hope in the hopeless in order to obtain profit for oneself.

May Yahweh cut off all smooth talkers
The tongue that speaks boastfully.
They that say, "By our tongue we succeed.
Our lips are our own;
Who is lord over us?"

Why must they lie and deceive? Because it works. It gets them what they want. Through successful lies, one gains employment, one obtains a better salary and gains the higher profit. In a world that honors the one ultimately self-interested, the best liar is the most successful. And why not? To tell the truth is for the one who believes in God. But the liar is the one—no matter how much lip service they give—who, in their heart of hearts, does not believe that God will judge them. For they can speak without any consequence, and all that they obtain will be theirs forever.

"For the plundered poor
For the groaning needy
Now I will arise," says Yahweh
"I will give him the safety which he longs for."

God draws himself up to bring justice, to judge the hypocrites. Why? Not because the hypocrites attack other hypocrites. If the liars gain profit from liars, then who is truly harmed? It is just a game that the most successful liar will win. But it is not the liars that lose out—it is the poor. The most successful liars either directly or ultimately take advantage of the poor. The banks who claim that they make profit through “free checking” by establishing fees that deliberately target the poor. The loan companies that say that they will give a “fare rate” and strip the poor of what little earnings they have. The supermarkets that claim a great sale on the very things the poor would use to fill out their stomachs, but never on the basics that they actually need. The churches and organizations that claim to be helping the poor, but just degrade them and condemn them for not living up to middle class standards. These hypocrites, these liars will be judged by God, simply because they harm the poor by their lies.

The words of Yahweh are pure;
Silver refined in an earthen furnace
Purified sevenfold.
You, Yahweh, will protect them
You will guard each one from this generation forever.

The aspect of God that is least spoken about in modern theology, but most affirmed in the Bible is God’s faithfulness. God would never make a promise and fail to keep it. He does not claim one thing and grant another. God is completely honest, completely true. So, if he says he will be there for the poor, to defend them against the hypocrites, the secret haters of the poor, He will. Thus, hypocrites beware! God is on the side of the poor, so should you destroy the poor with your lies, God will destroy you.

The wicked strut about on every side
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.

Despite this warning, the evil continue their attempts. They exult in their duplicity. They glory in their vileness. They don’t care who sees their shame, for they see it as success, as something to be trumpeted, to be praised by all humanity. And yes, they are praised. They make the Fortune 500, the top business lists. But their day is coming. God will not allow them to be honored forever. They are being raised up, just so that their fall would be harder.