Silence and Hope in Psalm 38

Abstract

The Psalms are essentially communication, and as such presuppose a relationship between various interlocutors, whether in the form of prayer, teaching, exhortation or reflection. Nevertheless, it is not rare to find references to silence as an attitude of some of the participants in this communicative process: silence of God, silence of the one praying, silence of the enemies. Sometimes the context allows us to recognize easily enough the meaning that such silence has in a given psalm. Very often, on the other hand, it is not so easy to clearly identify what one wants to express with the attitude of silence. A very particular case where one sees the difficulty of interpreting the meaning of an attitude of silence is found in Psalm 38.