Psalm 42

Read this in the King James Version. It's so great that I could argue the Lord inspired the whole translation just to get this Psalm translated. A couple of times I've heard people (tho never a Bible scholar) claim Shakespeare helped with the KJV of Psalms. Whoever did number 42 was an inspired genius. “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”

In a land that knows droughts, the readers would identify with being thirsty. I remember playing tennis on hot summer afternoons as a student. My best friend and I would usually drive down to the A&W for one of their frosted root beers in a frosted mug. Nothing ever tasted so good. I still keep a frosted mug in the fridge in memory of that. The Psalmist envisaged a desire for God so intense, he compares it to the wild deer seeking a watering hole. His intense purpose is to stand conscious in the presence of the Living God!

My tears have been my food all day long...What in the world? He is further comparing his desire for God to his thirst for God. Note the word translated food literally means “bread.” It's “lehem” in Hebrew, part of Beth-lehem, house of bread or food. Where is thy God? If this is a late Psalm coming from the Babylonian captivity, it may have the same source as Psalm 137:4 – how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? Yet their captives were demanding it of them. Yet, with one exception, God is the word used repeatedly in this psalm rather than Lord, the personal name of the God of Israel or Zion. Perhaps this speaks to the idea of God as creator and God of the whole world, not just Israel. You don't have to be in the temple or the church to worship. You can seek God anywhere!

Another possibiltiy behind the question where is thy God is discouragement in the face of life. Who has not said, “Why me?” Many have doubted God when they look and see all the evil rampant in the world. “Where is God?” “Then pealed the bells, both loud and deep, God is not dead nor doth He sleep...” This is more likely, for the next verse has the singer leading “them” to the house of God to worship!

Verse 4 tells of his leading a crowd of people to the house of God to worship. Was it the temple, a synagogue, another building of some sort in Babylon? We don't know, but there's an emphasis here on corporate worship. We have a need to join others in sharing worship and supporting one another.

Verse 5 – Why art thou cast down, O my soul? I've read Mother Teresa's diary. It's incredible that a woman who made such an impact on the world was depressed almost all the time. She was sure God had deserted her. My point is that when you are “dry” spiritually, don't beat yourself up. Many great saints of the church suffered from either depression or spiritual “dryness.” St John of the Cross wrote a book about it called “The Dark Night of the Soul.” The Psalmist here in gorgeous poetry writes from agony.

But suddenly a new song booms through! “Hope thou in God!” Martin Luther apparently was bi-polar with wide mood swings. The story goes that he was slouching around the house one day in a terribly black mood, when his wife said, “I' m so sorry that God has died.” Luther responded, “What? Woman, what are you talking about? God is not dead. God does not die.” She replied, “Well, the way you were looking so morbid I could only think God must have died.” Our faith in God is most important when it is the most difficult!

In v 6 he repeas himself. “My soul is cast down (or bowed down), THEREFORE I remember thee.” Faith is most necessary when it is most difficult. It is also most valuable then. One can also see a subtle change in the use of the word for cast or bow down. From dropping to a low point in feelings of despair, he is driven to his knees. Being cast down leads to bowing down!

“Deep calls to deep at the noise of thy cataracts – or conduits.” Beautiful, but what does it mean? I believe it means that when you are overwhelmed by the seas of life, God's channels of grace still find us. And the author affirms it!

PSALM 150

To conclude our study, take a quick look at the last psalm. Can you imagine such a worship service? I remember when some churches objected to adding a guitar to service. How would your congregation react if you walked in one Sunday morning to a praise band composed of:

Trumpets, psaltery and harp (their equivalent of guitars) tamborines played by dancers, other string instruments (lyres?), and flutes (better than “organs”). Of course, if you already use a praise band or orchestra, only the dancer would be radical. (At one church during Christmas candle-lighting services, we had a mime coming through expressing the traditional meaning of each candle - love, joy, etc. It's fitting that Psalms concludes with a resounding HALLELUJAH!

Psalm 141

First, a detour through Psalm 119, a most unique Psalm. The quarterly doesn't deal with this one, although I believe it's vital. This is by far the longest Psalm of all, and the longest chapter in the entire Bible with 176 verses! You can count 22 divisions of eight verses each. Most Bibles have a label over each division: Alef, Beth Gimel, Dalith...all 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. What you can't see in the English translations is that each of the eight verses per stanza begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alpabet as the label. If it were in English, it might be something like:

Always I will praise the Lord

And marvel at His word.

As the day begins I will seek Him

And follow throughout the hours.

Get the idea? Try your hand at it!

The theme of all the verses is the Word of God, although he uses a variety of words for law, commandments, statutes, and the like. Many familiar verses are scattered throughout: Thy word have I hid in my heart...

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to thy word.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path...

Remember that the very first Psalm set out on this course that the book returns to again and again. “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law(Torah) he meditates day and night.”

NOW ON TO 141!

Verse 1 – The poet dives right in. “I have called you. Hurry up and listen to me!”

Impatient isn't he? Well, aren't you and I? I frequently talk about a prayer list I had as a teenager. Eventually, I discovered everyone on the list had either been clearly saved and serving or at least associate with a church. But the last one on the list I found out only when he died 50 years later that he was buried from a church. I also repeatedly see self-help articles claiming that persistence is the common trait of successful people. I expect that applies to prayer as well.

Verse 3 anticipates the Book of James and its concern for speech. Watch my mouth, Lord and guard the door of my lips. How often has your mouth got you in trouble. For or against our current president, he definitely could keep the news (both real and fake!) on track if he would be more careful with his working. I like the old saying, “Be sure your brain is in gear before your mouth is set in motion!”

4 – Help me avoid evil. Note how often Psalms and Proverbs caution against association with evil and wicked people. Were there gangs in those days? Were their conspiracies, crime bosses? Apparently, there was a frequent temptation to hang out with unsavorty people, or scripture would have no need to warn against it. As Christians I feel we should be strong enough to associate with anyone and bend them our way. But as a matter of reality, we can't always do that, and there are some evil-doers who resist change. So it maybe wise to avoid them for fear we might yield to temptation. Consider the extreme cases of undercover cops with drug gangs. How far along can he go with the gang to gain their trust without compromising his personal ethics?

V 5 – On the other hand, he will cheerfully allow criticism and corrections by those who are righteous and just. Let him escape anointment by the sinful ways of evil. Rather he will pray against the evil ways of the wicked.

He concludes by hoping for the violent downfall of corrupt and wicked leaders. Instead, for himself he seeks salvation from the Lord, and he promises his total allegiance to God. We too would do well to focus our devotion on Christ and pray for the Spirit to lead us away from temptation instead to follow just and righteous lives.

Psalm 32

Like Psalm 51 of last week, this is a penitential psalm, one of repentance. He begins with two beatitudes proclaiming the path to happiness lies through the forgiveness of sins. This OT word corresponds to the Greek word also translated blessed in the Sermon on the Mount. This time happiness, blessings, or congratulations are due to those whose sins are covered and forgiven. Again we find the two common words for sin, the first of which implies rebelling. The next two words for sin imply perversity and deceitfulness. Note they are clean because God has made them clean or declared them clean and pardoned.

Verses 3-4 give text book accounts of a conscience-stricken soul. As some in the South would say, “He is et up with guilt!” As long as he stuffed his guilt inside and tried to keep it to himself, the more physical symptoms of his grief afflicted him. There is ample evidence today that guilt can physically eat away at people both through obvious ailments like headaches and ulcers and by more subtle things like disturbed sleep or wild dreams. Note his pain continued 24/7 around the clock. If this is still David repenting after Bathsheba, you can certainly understand such strong feeling.

Selah – This word is scattered all over the Psalms, and no one knows for sure what it means. Scholars are pretty much agreed it's a musical notation of some sort. When used elsewhere, it can mean to make light of or to weigh and balance. Perhaps it has to do with rhythm?

Next, the psalm makes two quick shifts. First, on the basis of discovering forgiveness, he challenges all God's faithful to pray and call on Him for protection. For those who do, the waters of the great flood will not reach to them. Did you see in the last week a storm hit New Orleans, and once again the pumps were overwhelmed and the streets were flooded. If your spiritual pumps can't keep you dry, call on the Lord, and He will protect you.

He shifts again to praise: God has become his hiding place, shelter, protection. The Lord will shield him from his adversary, his enemy. In the larger analysis, ONLY God has the power to shield us from Satan. The Psalmist becomes engulfed with praise, surrounded by it. I enjoy listening to music through earphones, which enable the sound to surround me so I can experience its richness as if I were in the room where it is being recorded. So David does here. “You surround me with songs of salvation!

8 – Once again we shift, and God is talking: “I will teach you how to live wisely and morally. “In the way you should go.” This likely means the moral way, the way Jesus called the straight and narrow. “Go” can also mean walk, so He's talking about a way of life, not just a decision or so. He amplifies that by saying He will give counsel, that is, He WILL help with decisions in life.

KJV says “I will guide thee with mine eye.” How does someone guide another with his eye, even God's eye? I think of the mothers I've seen sitting in the choir and fixing her eyes on her children acting up in the pew. One accidental glance in her direction, and the kid is straightened out! But I really think God is promising to “keep His eye on” us, ready to help and guide as we need Him now.

In summary, look back at this writer's testimony. He knew he had done something very wrong, and it was eating him alive. The more he tried to escape it, the tighter the knot in his stomach. Finally, he dumped it all before the Lord. When he did so, his outpouring of confession was met by God's outpouring of forgiveness. Instead of trying to hide FROM God, he began hiding IN God. Now he submits himself to the guidance of the Lord and has found great happiness.

Have you got stuff eating on you?

Let go of it.

Pourit out before God.

And accept His forgiveness.

PS – don't forget to thank Him!

PSALM 51

One of the more popular and better known psalms than most of those we've been looking at. It's a penitential psalm, a psalm of repentance. The inscription says David produced this psalm after his affair with Bathsheba and, presumably, after his murder of Uriah.

He begins by calling out to God to have mercy on him. Note, David does not here ask for justice, but mercy. Remember that the next time someone says, “they were under law, but we are under grace.” It was grace from the top all the way down! God is known as having great mercies – plural! He seeks blotting, wiping out, erasing, eradicating his transgression. The OT has several words for sin, and this is one of them, focusing on rebellion against God's rule and His laws.

2 – Wash, cleanse, do the work of a fuller, bleach – from his iniquity, another term for sin. This word means perversity or depravity. David's recognizing his wrongs are not garden variety, but seriously evil. He repeats the request (parallelism) in different words. Cleanse has the sense of purifying and moral cleanness. Sin here is perhaps the most common OT word for sin, sin.

3 – 5 - the next verse again repeats, and used the same word for sin as in the last verse. The “ever before me” carries with it the idea of stretching out into the future. A future of guilt!

6 – Here is a basic theological concept. All sin is a sin against God. I may mistreat you and feel that it's ok, because that's just you. No. Because you are God's child, by creation and maybe by redemption as well, to mistreat you is to mistreat God and sin against Him. Thats what was behind Jesus's statement, “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it unto me.” Evil is a strong word here. Someone has pointed out that man's sin did not bring evil into the world. In Satan evil was already here! David did the work of Satan, in rebelling against what God had said.

The last half of the verse might be paraphrased: That your justice can be seen from your words, and that same justice reflected in your judgments.

7 – Do you believe in original sin? Roman Catholics “baptize” infants believing it cleanses them from original sin. The writer next says he was born in sin and conceived in iniquity. He was a rotter from the get-go! Add to that the Calvinist belief in total depravity, the idea that we have nothing at all to offer God and are evil to the core. Personally, I have a lot of trouble buying into that, partly because after creating humanity, God looked at everything and called it “very good.” I do believe we are conceived and born into a sinful society that has influenced our parents all their lives and will continue to affect us as long as we live. One reason Christ sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us is to counteract those influences and replace them.

8 – In contrast (antithetical parallelism), the Lord seeks truth. Truth here is related to firmness and reliability, something we can build on as a foundation. And that truth must penetrate to the depths of our minds and thoughts. Thus he goes on to ask for wisdom! Replace rebellion with resting on the solid rock.

9 – He seeks cleansing at whatever the cost. Not sure what hyssop was, but it seems to be a medicinal herb. Maybe he's metaphorically saying to give him whatever antibiotic he needs to cure the bugs that are in him? Again a parallel statement – wash me, often with the idea of walking on the wet garments to push the water through them. I think of pictures of Indian women beating out their clothes on the banks of rivers.

10 – he turns more positive, remembering past festivities. He pleads to be restored to the sounds of celebration and gladness. David then makes clear he believes his pain comes from the punishment of God. How can you tell when God is punishing you, when the devil or others are attacking you, when you got into something by your own stupid decision, or it's a random trial that befalls everyone? A well-trained conscience can help you with that. Just remember a conscience is like a thermostat in that it has to be set. Cannibals can feel guilty if they don't eat some of their victim because they insult him as not wanting to take in his strength! One of the things we do in teaching right from wrong is to develop children's consciences. Incidentally, scripture says the Lord punishes those He loves, probably in hopes of producing this kind of repentance.

10 – Create! Yes indeed, this is the same word from Genesis 1:1. Only God creates! This creation transforms a filthy heart into a clean heart with no sin. Can you see the same God here as in John 3? he then uses another word with the same idea of renewing his spirit, his inner mind or inner parts.

11 - He's begging now. I see him on his knees before his master. Don't throw me away! Don't leave me. Probably he is not begging here for the Holy Spirit as we know Him from the NT. More likely “holy” is an adjective modfying “spirit.” remember parallelism? Compare this with not flinging him away. He seeks to regain the sense of the presence of God!

12 - He asks another positive step: the joy of his salvation, which can also mean deliverance, rescue, safety, or welfare? Which would you choose? The parallel here uses “spirit” more generically, one that is inclined to let David put his weight down on him, a support.

14 – David promises the result of his deliverance and restoration will be a steady witness and praise to the goodness of God. Does what God has done for you issue forth in praise and testimony for Him? Ernest Hemingway has a poignant brief story about a soldier in trench warfare begging God to spare him as the shelling moves toward him closer and closer. He promised Jesus many things afterwards if He will just save him. EH ends with a short sentence like this: The shelling passed by and he lived; he never mentioned Jesus again. I hope that wasn't you.

16-17 – Like the prophets, David recognizes that offering sacrifices is not what God wants in his situation. Rather, the Lord demands total repentance, grief, and bowing before him. One who thus approches God in abject humility knows that the Lord will receive him/