Bible Commentary - Psalms 36

This psalm does not neatly fall into any of the categories I have previously identified.  Major categories of psalms include the prayer psalms and praise and worship songs.  This is perhaps closest to a prayer psalm given the closing petition in the last few verses, but structurally it is distinct as it does not contain the usual tripartite formula of problem, petition and praise.

Usually the first verse establishes the themes or topic of the psalm, and everything else follows that.  In this psalm, it doesn’t seem to follow the typical structure.  It seems like this psalm can be broken into three sections, and the first verse only really sets the topic for the first section.

The first section, in verses 1-4, is a brief discussion of the nature of evil men.  It describes evil men in a couple ways.  First, it says that evil men have “no fear of God”.  Fear of God, or a concern about God’s opinion of us, will keep us from evil.  If we truly believed that God was always present and always watching us, it would be much harder to sin.  We would not have any sense of anonymity or freedom to sin.  Second, it says that the wicked man “flatters himself in his own eyes”, and as a result he cannot see his own sin.  This is the blindness of pride.  When we cannot see our sin, then we sin all the more freely.  The conclusion of all this is that the wicked man speaks evil (v. 3), plans evil (v. 4), and then “sets himself on a path” of evil.  This is a progression of activity that begins with words, then to thoughts (the “plans”) and finally actions.  This is a common pattern, where people first speak of a deed (but perhaps do not intend to do it), but once spoken they give it consideration, and once considered, they act.  The reason that a wicked man travels on an evil path is because he feels at liberty to do whatever he wants, what the book of Judges calls “doing what is right in his own eyes”.  It is making judgements based on his own will instead of obeying the will of God.

The second section, in verses 5-9, changes topics suddenly.  It is a description of the glory of God. It emphasizes the vast expanses of God’s moral character and holiness, using analogies from the natural world to demonstrate the greatness of God; not the greatness of his power, but of his character and behavior.  Notice the highlight of this section: “How priceless is your unfailing love” (v. 7).  Once again the emphasis is not on the power or capabilities of God, but rather on his loving and caring nature.  Following that, this section moves on to discuss how “the children of men” depend on God.  We take refuge under his wings, drink from his rivers, and see light in his light (v. 7-9).  It’s a picture of a God of abundance, a loving parent sheltering his children.  God’s overwhelming power is implied but never stated; instead, the psalmist chooses to focus on God’s abundant provision and sustenance for those he loves.

The third and final section, in verses 10-12, is a concluding prayer that builds off the themes of the previous two sections.  Having established God’s eternal love and profound righteousness in the second section, David asks God to “continue” both his love and his righteousness “to those who know you”, “the upright in heart” (v. 10).  Having established the depths of evil in the first section, David asks for God’s protection against “the foot” and “the hand” of evildoers, that they would not be able to harm him (v. 11).  In this case, both the foot and the hand are symbolic of the activity and the power of evildoers.  Finally, in verse 12, David makes one final plea for “the evildoers” to be cast down, so that they would no longer be capable of harming others.  This is expanding on verse 11 where David only asks for protection for himself; now he is wishing for the evildoers themselves to be thrown down so that no one would suffer under their evil deeds.

Bible Commentary - Psalms 35

Psalm 35 is yet another prayer psalm.  This time, it is a prayer of deliverance from David’s enemies, which is clearly indicated in verse 1.

This psalm contains many elements we have seen before.  First, and perhaps most significantly, it contains some of the elements of a typical prayer psalm.  However, it does not follow the pattern exactly.  Instead, it appears that the “problem statement” is largely missing.  It can be inferred from context, however.  David has a distinctly martial focus in this psalm.  In verses 2-3 David asks for God to take up his “buckler”, “spear” and “battle axe” to strike down his enemies.  It’s obvious that David is facing a threat against his life and desires for God to fight against his enemies.

The nature of the problem becomes more clear in verses 11-21.  David describes at length how his enemies are repaying evil for good.  In this case, he defines his “good” as how he prayed and fasted for his enemies when they suffered illness and possibly other problems (v. 13).  David believes that he genuinely treated them well, and yet when David himself “stumbled”, his enemies rejoiced and gathered together to attack him (v. 15).  I can’t exactly call this hypocrisy, but it’s clear that these are men who David treated well, and they respond by taking advantage of David’s earliest vulnerability to attempt to destroy him.  As David says in v. 12, “they repay me evil for good”.  Verses 19-21 expand on this point by clarifying that these are people who speak evil against David as well, similar to Psalm 31 which emphasizes even more strongly how the wicked fight against David through evil rumors and lies.

Nevertheless, verses 1-8 open with a request for deliverance.  The rest of the psalm has a fairly complex structure. There are some additional prayers (e.g. v. 17-26), declarations of thanksgiving and praise (v. 9-10, 27-28), and an interesting passage where David explains his own righteous conduct towards his enemies (v. 11-16).  It’s kind of a mashup of several different things.  It clearly has some prayer elements, but it does not follow the typical structure.

Second, verses 7-8 convey a wish of ironic self-destruction upon David’s enemies.  We have seen this pattern before, the notion that David’s enemies are setting traps for him, and that they will plunge into their own traps, with their behavior and trickery resulting in their own deaths rather than their intended target.

Beyond these points, it’s difficult for me to think of what else to say.  I can certainly spend a few minutes pointing out interesting details, but I struggle to grasp the overall structure and intent (beyond the obvious and conventional prayer for deliverance).  It’s clear that David sees many threats coming from people who he feels he treated well, and that David is ultimately looking to God for justice and deliverance from these wicked adversaries.  It’s also clear that while David suggests in the early verses that he faces a physical threat, the later part of the psalm seems to focus much more on destructive rumors, slander and questions (v. 11, “they ask me of things that I do not know”).  Perhaps that is all there is to it; it’s a prayer of deliverance from David’s adversaries and nothing more.

Bible Commentary - Psalms 34

Psalm 34 is another psalm “of David”.  This is very common in the first book.  Since Psalm 33 was untitled, Psalm 34 returns us to the normal pattern for this book through its claim of Davidic authorship.

Psalm 34 is also unusual in that it gives us the specific historical situation when the psalm was composed.  The only other psalms composed for specific situations are Psalm 3 which was composed when David was driven out by Absalom and in desperate need, Psalm 18 when David was saved from Saul’s threats, and Psalm 30 which was for the dedication of the temple.

The story of David and Achish is recorded in 1 Samuel 21, and it is a peculiar story to say the least.  Before going into the details, I want to address one minor inconsistency.  The title of this psalm says that David feigned madness before “Abimelech”, but 1 Samuel 21 names the king of Gath “Achish”.  There are many possible explanations for this inconsistency; it’s possible that Abimelech is an alternative title, or Achish could also be a nickname.  Either one of these names could be an abbreviation.  Regardless of which explanation is correct, what we can say for sure is that both names refer to the same person and the same story.

It’s a strange story.  This moment in 1 Samuel 21 comes right when David is driven away by Saul’s own madness and attempted murder.  David fled to the king of Gath, and when he appeared before the king he was frightened by the king’s recognition.  The king of Gath recalled David’s battle against Goliath, who was a Philistine hero.  Since Gath is also part of the Philistine confederacy, David quite reasonably suspected that the king would see him as an enemy and kill him.

In this context, David decided to “act like a madman” (1 Sam 21:13) so that the king would not perceive him as a threat and let him go.  It worked, but it’s hardly consistent with the faith and boldness that we normally associate with David.  The hero of Israel, slayer of Goliath, acted like a madman to evade the threat of Achish/Abimelech.  It really feels like an act of cowardice, and that makes this psalm even stranger.

The overall theme of this psalm, established in the first verse, is praise.  David writes this psalm to praise God for his deliverance from Saul and from Achish.  Even though David’s behavior was dubious, he nevertheless turns this moment into an opportunity for praise, showing that he ascribes his success and protection to the LORD.

It’s an interesting contrast.  On the one hand, his behavior does not reflect faith or trust in God; on the other hand, praising God is itself an expression of faith.  In a sense, this is an application of Psalm 33:16-19.  In the same way that kings are not protected by the size of their armies, David is implying that he was not saved by his behavior, but rather his salvation came from the LORD.  If David thought that his cunning or deceit was what saved his life, he would not thank God for saving him.  The fact that David is crediting God for his deliverance (e.g. verse 4) means that David does not credit his own actions for protecting himself.

In my commentary on Psalm 31, I mentioned that the prayer psalm is an expression of faith.  A standard prayer psalm has a problem statement, a petition for deliverance, and thanksgiving in anticipation of God’s response.  A typical prayer psalm is written before salvation occurs, because the petition for deliverance only makes sense if the problem is still there.  As such, the praise and thanksgiving in a prayer psalm is anticipatory; it looks forward to the moments after deliverance when praise becomes appropriate, and praises in expectation of that moment.

Psalm 34, in contrast, is clearly a praise psalm.  This means that it is basically the third part of a prayer psalm, but extended to greater length.  It is also no longer anticipatory; David has already been saved, and the problem has already been solved.  I claim that Psalm 34 is still an expression of faith.  Praising God in anticipation of deliverance is an expression of faith because it shows a belief that God’s deliverance is coming before the deliverance is ever visible or apparent to the ordinary human senses.  Faith is virtually defined as a belief in the invisible and the unseen, and that belief is expressed through praise.

After deliverance has occurred, it is no longer possible to have “anticipation” of deliverance.  However, as described above it is still possible to have faith through our belief that deliverance came from the LORD.  There are some situations where belief in a “natural” deliverance is virtually impossible.  Miracles like the division of the Red Sea or manna coming down from heaven leave no room for earthly, natural explanations with which we can steal God’s glory.  However, in the same way that they have no natural explanation they also leave us no room for faith.  Because deliverance from God is the only possibility when a clearly supernatural event occurs, it does not require the exercise of any faith to believe the supernatural in those cases.

Supernatural deliverance is remarkable when it occurs, but it robs us of the opportunity to exercise faith by our praise and worship.  However, in the case of “natural deliverance”, faith becomes a choice.  By natural deliverance, I mean instances when a supernatural origin for our deliverance is not obvious.  To demonstrate my point, consider David’s victory over Goliath.  Goliath’s defeat is not obviously supernatural; David cast a slingstone and struck Goliath in the head, killing him in one blow.  A fortuitous shot, to be sure, but not necessarily supernatural in any way.  Slings are incredibly deadly and a well-trained slinger could easily kill a man with a single stone and a lucky shot.  They were a standard issue weapon for hundreds of years in ancient times, and it’s quite possible that their ubiquity and simplicity are the reasons that David used a sling at all.

In these cases, faith becomes a choice.  We can either choose to believe that David was saved by the strength of his arm and the skill of his throw, or we can believe that he was saved by the strength of the LORD and the might of the LORD’s hand.  One choice is a belief in ourselves, the other is a belief in God.  To believe in God is to live by faith.  To praise God is to believe in him, and thus it is also faith.

We can imagine any moment of praise to be an expression of faith for some particular deliverance.  This psalm takes it even further: in verse 1, it tells us that the psalmist will continuously bless God, and will be praising him in every moment.  This is a stunning claim.  Rather than treating praise (and by extension, faith) as a momentary habit, David treats it as a lifelong expression of continuous adoration.

Many people view praise as a response to particular circumstances.  Even people of great faith will praise God as a reaction to individual moments, as if they are living their lives traveling from one island of faith to another, through barren seas of normalcy.  This is not the faith that David imagines.

Instead, David proclaims a faith that praises God continuously, because David believes that God is continuously saving and continuously delivering us.  God’s intervention in our lives is not fragmentary; it is perpetual and ongoing, and our continual praise should be a reflection of God’s continual activity.

This is an amazing thing.  Even though Psalm 34 was composed in response to a particular moment, David’s reflection is that praise (and by extension, God’s activity) should last forever.

The rest of the psalm is great, so I encourage reading and reflecting on all of it, but I’m only going to write about two other verses.

Verse 8 says that we should “taste and see that the LORD is good”.  This is a fascinating verse because of the remarkable intimacy and immediacy that it assumes.  I’ve been heavily emphasizing the faith in this psalm, how it is a belief in God, the spiritual realm, and things unseen.  In spite of that, David tells us that not only should we see that the LORD is good, we can even taste it.  Taste is one of the most intimate senses, and while it doesn’t directly say that we should taste the LORD, it does say that through what we taste we can arrive at the knowledge of God’s goodness.  Many people draw a contrast between the immediacy and directness of sensual experience and the abstraction of spiritual experience; David defies this contrast by bringing sensual experience and spiritual experience together.  We can taste and see the LORD’s goodness.

Through experience, we can come to know God’s nature and character.  Through our experiences in daily life, we can come to know God more and more.  Our knowledge of God does not have to be abstract or purely “spiritual”.

Finally, I want to briefly discuss verse 19.  Verse 19, like the book of Job, challenges “conventional” wisdom that the righteous will never faces affliction.  Job’s three friends had a belief that bad things would never happen to good people, and that Job’s suffering was positive proof that he had sinned in some way.  In verse 19, we see that righteous people really do suffer afflictions, but that the power of God “delivers” them from what they have been suffering.

For example, think about the Israelites living in slavery in Egypt.  They were living in terrible suffering for a long time, but when they cried out to the LORD, he sent Moses who brought ten plagues on Egypt and split the Red Sea so that they might escape to freedom in the promised land (eventually).  Without going into all the details of that story, it is sufficient to show this as a model for how any righteous person might suffer for a time, but in the right moment the LORD breaks in and brings them to freedom.

Our challenge is to simply live by faith.  We bring our struggles before the LORD, we petition him for deliverance, and we praise him both before and after we are freed from slavery and brought into the place that he has promised us.  We praise him because we believe.  We believe that God will set us free, and when we are freed we do not recant our belief and we continue to hold that God freed us rather than praise and glorify our own strength or wisdom.  We always praise God because we hold by faith that God is always working in our lives in every moment.

Whether we are still in the midst of trials or whether we are living in freedom, God is working in our lives in every moment.

Bible Commentary - Psalms 33

Psalm 33, as the first verse tells us, is a psalm of thanksgiving.

First, note that this is an untitled psalm.  It seems like almost all of the last 20 or 30 psalms have all been psalms “of David”.  Although the title “of David” does not necessarily imply Davidic authorship (scholars debate this point), it does clearly indicate a common grouping of psalms, perhaps coming from a particular collection with a common origin or thematic ties.  The fact that this is not a Davidic psalm therefore indicates that it may have structural differences with the Davidic psalms we have read so far.

This psalm is defined by several ideas.  I’m going to say a few words that I see in this psalm: praise, the word of the LORD, the eyes of the LORD, and creation.  We praise God because he created, by the power of his word, and that he is constantly watching the earth with a special focus on the righteous ones whom he watches for their protection and blessing.

In verses 1-5, we praise.  The praise is centered on verse 4 which declares the goodness of the LORD in both word and action.  This is a common pair of ideas in the bible; when combined, words and actions represent the entirety of one’s behavior and activity.  In this context it means that everything about the LORD is good.

In verses 6-9 the psalmist zooms in on God’s creation of the world.  Since the overall theme is praise and thanksgiving, we are still thinking about the LORD in a mindset of thankfulness.  By describing the creation of the world, our praise is directed and focused on God’s creative nature, authority and supremacy over the world, which he expressed through creation.  This passage repeatedly describes creation as the result of God’s spoken word.  Talking about creation as the result of God’s word highlights God’s authority and power.  There is one extra thing worth pointing out here.  The power of words is implicitly a royal characteristic.

This connection may not be obvious, so let me make a hypothetical example.  Imagine you are living in an absolute monarchy, where the king is the ultimate authority who can issue any law or decision he wants without any checks and balances.  In this situation, the king rarely “does” anything; if he wants somebody killed, he doesn’t grab a sword and go chase that person.  Instead, he will issue a declaration or edict, simply ordering that the person should be killed, and his soldiers or administrators will carry out the command.  The power of a king is in his authority, and his authority is expressed through his words.

Let’s take this analogy back to the creation story.  In this story, God issued a “command” that the world should exist.  Because the LORD is the great king who rules over the whole world, his command was carried out and the world was created as a result.

These verses echo the creation narrative of Genesis 1, which also described creation as a product of God’s word.  It is likely that the psalmist was aware of the Genesis narrative and indirectly referencing it.

In verses 10-12, it continues emphasizing the power of God’s word but instead of directing it towards creation, it stands in opposition of the words and plans of “the nations”.  In verse 10 we see “the plans of the peoples” are frustrated, and verse 11 tells us that it is “the plans” of God that override them.  The nations have “plans”, but the LORD is greater and stronger, and the LORD’s plans are imposed upon the nations against their will.  Verse 12 calls the nation of Israel “blessed” because the LORD’s plans is to bless them.

Now that the psalmist has described God’s authority and power to impose his will upon the world, verses 13-19 show us how God watches all the people in the world to enforce his will.  The reason God is watching is to ensure that his “plans” are fulfilled in every person’s life.  God’s diligence in observing everyone means that God is always ready to act.  He is always aware of exactly what is happening in every person’s life, and he will intercede to bring about his will every moment that it is necessary.

Verses 16-17 point out that we cannot be saved by strength or might of any kind.  It might not be obvious, but this is intentionally contrasted with verses 18-19.  The contrast is that earthly strength cannot save, but the strength and power of God can save us.  This contrast follows from the previous sections.  Because God has “plans” for everyone, because God has ultimate authority and because he is watching everyone, he is the sole power that is capable of delivering anyone because there is no earthly power that can resist his will.  The reason why God is the only one who can save is because his decisions about your life cannot be overruled by anyone else.

Finally, in verses 20-22, we are reminded to “wait”, “trust” and “hope” in the LORD.  This is a logical conclusion of the preceding sections.  Because God is the only one who can deliver, we should trust in him for our deliverance.  Even though it might feel like a circuitous path, this actually follows from the previous thoughts in this psalm, from verse 6-19.  Beginning from the creation of the world, we understand that God has authority over all things, and therefore he is the only source of deliverance and salvation from trouble, because his will and his plans are enacted in every person’s life by his power.

In conclusion, I hope my readers understand that while this psalm is meant to praise God, it also contains a latent theology; a theology of God’s power and goodness, our relationship to him and dependence upon him, and the immutability of God’s will and plans for our lives no matter what the “mighty armies” of the world seek to do.  There is no power that can overrule the LORD, and this is a great blessing because ultimately God desires to “deliver” the righteous “from death”.