I’ve read Psalm 22 several times before starting this commentary, and I have really struggled to understand this psalm. While a superficial rendering of the psalm is pretty straightforward, I find myself constantly questioning whether I truly understand what this psalm is about.
If we follow the same pattern as nearly every other psalm, we can identify the central theme by looking at just the first verse. In it, David says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The key word here is “forsaken”. David feels that God has abandoned him, and in verse 2 he explains why. “Forsaken” in this case means unanswered prayer. David depends on God and cries out to him, “but you do not answer”.
Verses 3-5 introduce the basic tension of this psalm, which isn’t really captured by the first verse. The basic tension is that David is comparing his own unanswered prayer to the deliverance of “our fathers”. “Our fathers” trusted in God “and you delivered them”. At its most basic level, David is calling God faithful, God answers prayers, and yet he sees his own time of need and is not getting the answer from God that he desires.
This is a really fundamental challenge that every person of faith will face at least once in their life, but more likely they will face it many times. Perhaps even more than David, we have the entire bible filled with extravagant promises, seemingly impossible promises, that God will heal every disease, fulfill every desire in our hearts, it’s just crazy stuff. And then more times than I can count, I offer up some simple prayer and wait for God’s answer. And wait, and wait, and wait…
For many of these prayers I am still waiting, and I find myself crying out like David, asking why God “does not answer” when the bible is filled with so many stories of God’s faithfulness. Even in my own life I have stories of God’s faithfulness, and yet still I wait for God to answer more of my prayers.
This is all in verses 1-5. Beginning in verse 6, the thoughts get a bit more confused and it changes direction a couple times. In verses 6-8 he describes how the people around him criticize and mock him. This is somewhat difficult to understand because it is only loosely contextualized. Who are these people, and why are they mocking him? Perhaps it is only broadly characterized because it is meant to be broadly understood. Anytime we are in a place of need, there are going to be people who mock or criticize, especially if we have confidently declared that God is going to protect or deliver us.
In verses 9-10, David returns once more to the subject of trust. This time, instead of “our fathers” trusting in God, David asserts that he trusts in God, and has trusted God since the day of his birth.
From verse 11, the remainder of the psalm hews much closer to the traditional formula of a prayer psalm. David gives the “problem statement” in verses 11-18, a plea for help in verses 19-21, and praise and thanksgiving in anticipation of God’s deliverance in verses 22-31.
I think if this psalm had started in verse 11 and simply skipped the first ten verses, I would have said that this is completely typical, traditional prayer psalm. With those first ten verses, the overall tone of the psalm is radically changed. For instance, how should we read David’s praise and thanksgiving in verses 22-31, in light of his confusion and anxiety in verses 1-5? David is certainly putting on a confident front, but is it just a front when his very first thought is asking why God has forsaken him?
A typical prayer psalm maintains a position of what I would call, for lack of a better description, desperate confidence. Psalm 18 is a great example of this, because we see David in a desperate situation, surrounded by raging waters and trapped in the mud, on the verge of death. And yet out of that desperation we see a confidence that God is going to deliver him after his prayer. Since that psalm (and most other prayer psalms) end with praise and thanksgiving, the general tone of the prayer psalms is optimistic. Things might start off badly, in a difficult situation, but they always end with confidence that God will deliver his people.
Psalm 22 ends similarly, with a deep optimism that God will save David from “the bulls” that are surrounding him.
I don’t think it’s a front, per se. First of all, I mentioned before that the fundamental tension in this psalm is that David does not see God’s answer to his prayer, and yet he believes in God’s faithfulness. More than anything else David appears confused by his circumstances and God’s apparent delay. He is upset because his deliverance has not yet come, but he praises God because he still believes in God’s support for him.
Second, I think David praises God because of his faith. Even though he is confused and distraught over his present danger, he still believes that God will save him and it’s from this belief that he praises God. It’s not “a front” because I believe David is sincere. David sees the difference between his present struggles and his belief in God’s deliverance. David knows the promises that God made to Israel in the covenant, and when he sees a difference between his present reality and God’s promises, he trusts in God’s promises.
In conclusion, this is a prayer psalm that has many things in common with the other prayer psalms. What makes it different is the unusual insight it gives us into David’s emotions and feelings in the difficult moments when he is still waiting for God’s deliverance. We can see that in spite of the confidence David shows here and in the other prayer psalms, he faces an inner emotional turmoil while waiting for God to show up in a big way.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Bible Commentary - Psalms 21
This is a psalm of thanksgiving for God’s salvation and answered prayer. Like so many other psalms, this psalm is well-characterized by the first verse, which establishes the overall tone of the chapter as a whole. Even in the first verse, we see the praise themes with David “rejoicing” and being “glad” at the salvation of God.
Remember how I explained that the psalms of prayer had three parts? A prayer psalm is a problem statement, a request for deliverance, and then praise and thanksgiving for God’s presumed response. This psalm basically takes that last third of the prayer and stretches it out to fill up an entire song.
I can identify two parts in this psalm. The first part is from verses 1-7, and this is, for lack of a better word, the “positive” section. This is the part where David describes how wonderful God is to him, how God has “given him his heart’s desire” (v. 2). He continues to describe the “blessings of good things”, “a crown of fine gold”, “life”, “glory”, “splendor and majesty”, and “joyful with gladness in your presence” as a choice selection of God’s blessings for the king.
These are all wonderfully positive things and de-emphasize the adversarial nature that many other prayers in the psalms can take. For example, you don’t need to defeat an enemy to have a crown of gold, or life or glory or joyfulness or any of those things. Those are blessings that come from a bit of hard work and the favor of God. In contrast, many other psalms focus on victory over his enemies as both the goal and the object of praise and thanksgiving (for one example, see Psalm 18).
The second part is verses 8-12 (excluding the brief concluding verse 13). This is the part where David praises God for destroying all his enemies. Interestingly, if you carefully parse the pronouns here David is not talking about his own enemies, he is talking about God destroying God’s enemies. I know this because throughout the entire psalm, David has an entirely consistent usage of pronouns: “he/him” refers to “the King” (with one minor exception in v. 9, where it is God), “they/them” refers to the enemies, while “you/your” refers entirely to God. Every single place it says “you” or “your”, in both the first and second part, it is referring to God. This means that “your enemies” (v. 8) are God’s enemies, not David’s. It’s also interesting how David describes himself in the third person, referring to himself as “the king” rather than using first person pronouns.
Again this is an interesting, if minor, shift from the typical narrative. Typically the “enemies” in Psalms are either wicked men, exploiting the poor and vulnerable and generally running contrary to social justice values, or they are evil men seeking to destroy David or the righteous more generally (these groups contain some overlap of course and are not always easily distinguishable). In this chapter, the crimes of these “enemies” are not clearly described, but since they are called the enemies of God I would suspect it could include either group.
Anyone who breaks the laws of God is considered, in some vague fashion, an enemy of God, because God’s laws and God himself are somewhat conflated in the biblical text. What is the difference between obeying God and obeying his laws? Or in the same way, what is the difference between disobeying God and disobeying his laws? From there, it’s only a small jump to get from disobeying God to being his enemy.
Similarly, David and the righteous more generally carry a strong association with God throughout the bible. Therefore seeking to kill or destroy the righteous is generally equivalent to attacking God himself. In conclusion, I think David would equate any kind of wicked person, regardless of the nature of their crimes, as an enemy of God inasmuch as their wickedness stands in rebellion against God’s nature and God’s law. Even though I called this a minor shift, it seems like this is just a slightly different way of talking about the same general group of people.
Between these two sections, then, we see the righteous (such as the king) uplifted, and we see the simultaneous downfall of the wicked. This reminds me of Job and elsewhere in the OT where God is the righteous judge, blessing the righteous and punishing the wicked. This seems to be the basic narrative structure of the psalm, where “the king” is the righteous and the “enemies” of God are the wicked.
The centerpoint of this whole structure is trust. “For the king trusts in the LORD” (v. 7), and that is the reason we can believe in both deliverance of the king and destruction of those who do evil. It begins and ends with praise (v. 1, 13), but in the center is trust, believing that God will do what he has promised and help his people.
Remember how I explained that the psalms of prayer had three parts? A prayer psalm is a problem statement, a request for deliverance, and then praise and thanksgiving for God’s presumed response. This psalm basically takes that last third of the prayer and stretches it out to fill up an entire song.
I can identify two parts in this psalm. The first part is from verses 1-7, and this is, for lack of a better word, the “positive” section. This is the part where David describes how wonderful God is to him, how God has “given him his heart’s desire” (v. 2). He continues to describe the “blessings of good things”, “a crown of fine gold”, “life”, “glory”, “splendor and majesty”, and “joyful with gladness in your presence” as a choice selection of God’s blessings for the king.
These are all wonderfully positive things and de-emphasize the adversarial nature that many other prayers in the psalms can take. For example, you don’t need to defeat an enemy to have a crown of gold, or life or glory or joyfulness or any of those things. Those are blessings that come from a bit of hard work and the favor of God. In contrast, many other psalms focus on victory over his enemies as both the goal and the object of praise and thanksgiving (for one example, see Psalm 18).
The second part is verses 8-12 (excluding the brief concluding verse 13). This is the part where David praises God for destroying all his enemies. Interestingly, if you carefully parse the pronouns here David is not talking about his own enemies, he is talking about God destroying God’s enemies. I know this because throughout the entire psalm, David has an entirely consistent usage of pronouns: “he/him” refers to “the King” (with one minor exception in v. 9, where it is God), “they/them” refers to the enemies, while “you/your” refers entirely to God. Every single place it says “you” or “your”, in both the first and second part, it is referring to God. This means that “your enemies” (v. 8) are God’s enemies, not David’s. It’s also interesting how David describes himself in the third person, referring to himself as “the king” rather than using first person pronouns.
Again this is an interesting, if minor, shift from the typical narrative. Typically the “enemies” in Psalms are either wicked men, exploiting the poor and vulnerable and generally running contrary to social justice values, or they are evil men seeking to destroy David or the righteous more generally (these groups contain some overlap of course and are not always easily distinguishable). In this chapter, the crimes of these “enemies” are not clearly described, but since they are called the enemies of God I would suspect it could include either group.
Anyone who breaks the laws of God is considered, in some vague fashion, an enemy of God, because God’s laws and God himself are somewhat conflated in the biblical text. What is the difference between obeying God and obeying his laws? Or in the same way, what is the difference between disobeying God and disobeying his laws? From there, it’s only a small jump to get from disobeying God to being his enemy.
Similarly, David and the righteous more generally carry a strong association with God throughout the bible. Therefore seeking to kill or destroy the righteous is generally equivalent to attacking God himself. In conclusion, I think David would equate any kind of wicked person, regardless of the nature of their crimes, as an enemy of God inasmuch as their wickedness stands in rebellion against God’s nature and God’s law. Even though I called this a minor shift, it seems like this is just a slightly different way of talking about the same general group of people.
Between these two sections, then, we see the righteous (such as the king) uplifted, and we see the simultaneous downfall of the wicked. This reminds me of Job and elsewhere in the OT where God is the righteous judge, blessing the righteous and punishing the wicked. This seems to be the basic narrative structure of the psalm, where “the king” is the righteous and the “enemies” of God are the wicked.
The centerpoint of this whole structure is trust. “For the king trusts in the LORD” (v. 7), and that is the reason we can believe in both deliverance of the king and destruction of those who do evil. It begins and ends with praise (v. 1, 13), but in the center is trust, believing that God will do what he has promised and help his people.
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Bible Commentary - Psalms 20
Psalm 20 is a little different from most of the other psalms we have read so far. This psalm could best be described as a royal benediction, with David declaring the blessings of God upon the anonymous recipient of this prayer. It’s as if this psalm were a prayer, but unlike the earlier prayers David is not praying for himself; rather, he is praying for us, the listeners to this song. This most reminds me of the Aaronic blessing that was given back in Numbers 6:22-27, since they both use second person pronouns (e.g. “may the LORD bless you”) and because they are both calls for God to bless the recipient of the prayer in some fashion.
The Aaronic blessing in Num 6 is quite generic, while the prayer in Psalm 20 is more narrowly targeted as a prayer for victory. Verses 1-5 continue on this theme pretty much continuously, beginning with a request for help “in the day of trouble” (v. 1) and ending with a song “of joy over your victory” (v. 5).
In keeping with the many psalms we’ve read so far, Psalm 20 does not place this prayer into any specific context. One way it’s different however is that most of the prayer psalms have what I call a “problem statement”, where David describes at length the crisis he was facing before issuing his specific request for deliverance from the LORD. Examples of this type include Psalm 10 and, to an extent, Psalm 18 as well. Since the prayer in Psalm 20 is not for David but for his listeners, it is a natural consequence that David would not know the circumstances of the difficulties they were facing and therefore this psalm is slightly more generic than the usual prayer psalms.
Lastly, verse 7 reinforces one of the major themes of the OT, contrasting the power of God and the power of human strength (or horses). We’ve seen this show up several times already, with one early example being the Law’s prohibition on the king’s accumulation of horses (Deuteronomy 17:16). Even though the passage in Deuteronomy associates that prohibition with returning to Egypt (which is also forbidden), it’s clear from here and elsewhere in the OT that God doesn’t want Israel to accumulate horses because that is a form of human power that can be substituted for their dependence on God.
Here in verse 7, David is saying that rather than trust in the power of horses and chariots, he and the people of Israel would “boast” or depend on the power of God to save them. A good example of this in action is 2 Chronicles 20, when the LORD destroyed the enemies of Judah in a situation when they would have been hopelessly outnumbered if they fought by human strength. More generally, there are many places in the OT where we see Israel vastly outnumbered both in soldiers as well as chariots, and where Israel is nonetheless victorious because God gives them the victory against their stronger enemies. David himself won several battles in this way (2 Samuel 5:17-25), so he would undoubtedly believe in the supremacy of the power of God over human strength.
Thematically, the saving power of God is the primary topic of this psalm. In the prayer of verses 1-5 it was the strength of God that would deliver those who are in trouble, and in the later half of the psalm (verses 6-9) David is praising God and God’s ability to save those who call upon him.
Structurally this follows some of the patterns of a typical prayer psalm. The tripartite structure of a typical prayer psalm is problem statement, prayer for relief, and praise and thanksgiving for deliverance. This psalm seems to omit the first part and instead it only contains a prayer for relief (v. 1-5) and praise for deliverance (v. 6-9). As I previously mentioned, the problem statement is left out because this prayer is not focused on himself (the author), but rather upon the recipients or listeners to whom this psalm is delivered. This seems like the minimum modification necessary to make the standard prayer structure fit with the context of a second person, benedictory prayer.
Verse 6 is the only hint in the psalm that David might be talking about himself, when he refers to the LORD’s “anointed”. Verse 9 contains a reference to “the king”, but it’s ambiguous whether this king is David himself or the great King who rules over the world (God). Otherwise, the psalm is entirely written to us and for us, that we might receive the blessing of God in our day of trouble and our time of need.
The Aaronic blessing in Num 6 is quite generic, while the prayer in Psalm 20 is more narrowly targeted as a prayer for victory. Verses 1-5 continue on this theme pretty much continuously, beginning with a request for help “in the day of trouble” (v. 1) and ending with a song “of joy over your victory” (v. 5).
In keeping with the many psalms we’ve read so far, Psalm 20 does not place this prayer into any specific context. One way it’s different however is that most of the prayer psalms have what I call a “problem statement”, where David describes at length the crisis he was facing before issuing his specific request for deliverance from the LORD. Examples of this type include Psalm 10 and, to an extent, Psalm 18 as well. Since the prayer in Psalm 20 is not for David but for his listeners, it is a natural consequence that David would not know the circumstances of the difficulties they were facing and therefore this psalm is slightly more generic than the usual prayer psalms.
Lastly, verse 7 reinforces one of the major themes of the OT, contrasting the power of God and the power of human strength (or horses). We’ve seen this show up several times already, with one early example being the Law’s prohibition on the king’s accumulation of horses (Deuteronomy 17:16). Even though the passage in Deuteronomy associates that prohibition with returning to Egypt (which is also forbidden), it’s clear from here and elsewhere in the OT that God doesn’t want Israel to accumulate horses because that is a form of human power that can be substituted for their dependence on God.
Here in verse 7, David is saying that rather than trust in the power of horses and chariots, he and the people of Israel would “boast” or depend on the power of God to save them. A good example of this in action is 2 Chronicles 20, when the LORD destroyed the enemies of Judah in a situation when they would have been hopelessly outnumbered if they fought by human strength. More generally, there are many places in the OT where we see Israel vastly outnumbered both in soldiers as well as chariots, and where Israel is nonetheless victorious because God gives them the victory against their stronger enemies. David himself won several battles in this way (2 Samuel 5:17-25), so he would undoubtedly believe in the supremacy of the power of God over human strength.
Thematically, the saving power of God is the primary topic of this psalm. In the prayer of verses 1-5 it was the strength of God that would deliver those who are in trouble, and in the later half of the psalm (verses 6-9) David is praising God and God’s ability to save those who call upon him.
Structurally this follows some of the patterns of a typical prayer psalm. The tripartite structure of a typical prayer psalm is problem statement, prayer for relief, and praise and thanksgiving for deliverance. This psalm seems to omit the first part and instead it only contains a prayer for relief (v. 1-5) and praise for deliverance (v. 6-9). As I previously mentioned, the problem statement is left out because this prayer is not focused on himself (the author), but rather upon the recipients or listeners to whom this psalm is delivered. This seems like the minimum modification necessary to make the standard prayer structure fit with the context of a second person, benedictory prayer.
Verse 6 is the only hint in the psalm that David might be talking about himself, when he refers to the LORD’s “anointed”. Verse 9 contains a reference to “the king”, but it’s ambiguous whether this king is David himself or the great King who rules over the world (God). Otherwise, the psalm is entirely written to us and for us, that we might receive the blessing of God in our day of trouble and our time of need.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Bible Commentary - Psalms 19
This psalm can be neatly divided into two parts. The first part, from verse 1-6, describes God’s glory in creation. This is clearly summarized in verse 1, which says that “the heavens are telling of the glory of God”. The second part, from verse 7-14, suddenly changes course and praises the word of God, which “is perfect” according to v. 7. I will discuss each section in turn, but for now I want to focus on the structure of the psalm as a whole.
It’s such a sudden divergence from the first topic to the second, so sudden and yet so absolute, that one of two possible conclusions seems inevitable. The first possibility is that these two sections came from originally separate psalms and, at some point in antiquity beyond memory or written record, they were combined together into the psalm we now possess. This is possible but unlikely for various reasons which I will not discuss. The second possibility is that, in spite of their apparent differences, there is a deeper symmetry or connection between these two sections. This will be my present focus: how do we find a connection between these two halves of the psalm, if such a connection exists?
The glory of God and the word of God. The glory of God is reflected in natural creation, in the things that God has made. Verses 2-4 are instructive: in verses 2 and 4 we see the “speech” and “utterances” of the heavens filling the whole world. In verse 3, dividing them, we see that “there is no speech”. This is an apparent contradiction with a simple explanation. David is saying that the sun and moon and stars aren’t saying anything, we don’t hear the sun cry out “glory to God!” or anything at all. However, it “speaks” to us in the metaphorical sense that art or music or a movie of any kind can “speak” to people about something. This is still a common figure of speech in english, and David is using this figure of speech in a similar way.
The natural world and the heavens speak to us about the glory of God because they teach us about God’s nature, and they are a reflection of God’s nature.
Going right into verse 7, David says “the law of the LORD is perfect”, or to put it differently, the word of God is perfect. Before David was saying that natural creation speaks about the glory of God, and now he is saying that the word of God is perfect. One clear thread is speech. Before it was the natural world speaking, and now it is God speaking, and David exults in that word.
In verses 7-9 David makes six declarations in turn. Depending on the translation, he describes the law, the testimony, the precepts, the commandment, the fear and the judgments of the LORD. Each one is good, and four of them are described in terms of how they positively affect the people who adhere to them, giving us wisdom, joy and enlightenment. David places a particular emphasis on the value of God’s word to guiding our lives. In verse 10, they are “desirable”, more so than gold (wealth) and honey (sweetness or food). In verse 11 David sees “great reward” in following the law of God, and he also sees the avoidance of catastrophe.
Verses 12-14 shift to a tone of prayer, but it has obvious connections to the preceding description of God’s law. David seeks to be blameless, to be pleasing in God’s sight, by living in accordance with God’s law. David desires to live with God’s blessing as a consequence of his obedience to God’s law. As such, David’s prayer in verses 12-14 is essentially, “help me to live in a way that pleases you by obeying your laws and commands”, such that David might receive all the blessing he just described.
I would like to return to the subject of the connection between the two halves of this psalm. I already mentioned one connecting theme is the concept of speaking. Nature first speaks, and then God speaks. There is another connecting theme that is somewhat more obscure, but still quite powerful. For those who have been following my commentary, remember back to the book of Job. In Job 38-39 I mentioned that God was using the power and glory of nature creation as an argument by proxy.
Job was questioning God’s justice and fairness, because Job felt punished for some sin that he didn’t believe he committed. Job was demanding for God to prove Job’s guilt, to show what he did wrong. God, in turn, answered in a very indirect way, by pointing out the complexity and the glory of the natural world, that far exceeded Job’s power, understanding and wisdom. It’s not clear to most modern readers, but this is an argument by proxy. By showing his wisdom and understanding in the natural world, God was establishing in a tangible way his wisdom and understanding of the intangible realm of justice and fairness. Since we can see God’s great wisdom in the natural world, we can understand by extension that God is also wise and understanding in matters of justice.
The point is that this chapter shares very similar dynamics. First David shows the glory of God in the natural world. Admittedly, it is vastly different in style and vocabulary compared to Job, but the general concept is similar. Then in the second half, he is logically extending from the glory of God in creation to describe and affirm the wisdom and goodness of God’s law. To put it another way, we see the glory of God in creation so that we can understand and believe the glory of God is also manifested in his laws.
The context is completely different, and the conclusion is different, but the structure of the argument between here and Job is remarkably similar. In both cases, the nature of God manifested in creation becomes the logical predicate of some conclusion about an intangible, abstract concept that is otherwise difficult or impossible to prove. With Job, the logic is “we see the wisdom of God in creation, and therefore believe the wisdom of God in justice and fairness.” In Psalm 19, the logic is “we see the glory of God in creation, and therefore believe in the perfection, truth and beauty of God’s laws.” While one could never mistake the first sentence for the second, the similarities are striking nonetheless.
The similarities are all the more striking given the obvious linguistic and historical differences between Job and Psalm 19. It suggests an undercurrent of philosophy or theology that remained over potentially hundreds of years across two books that have no overt literary connection. While I don’t want to overemphasize the point, one of the most likely reasons why we find the argument repeated between such different historical works is that it is leveraging a well-understood, if not common, cultural trope regarding creation. More specifically, that creation is a source of truth regarding God’s nature. This belief is still present in modern society, but not nearly to the same extent or in the same deeply intuitive nature as what is implied by the biblical text.
On the other hand, adoration of the law of God is one of Psalms’ unique characteristics, beginning from the very first psalm. In that sense Psalm 19 is a quintessential Psalmic text. The only way it cuts differently from the other psalms is by the structure and implicit argument presented.
In conclusion, Psalm 19 is clearly consistent with the other psalms throughout the book, but its structural connection to Job shows an implicit cultural argument that is undoubtedly much older. In this way, Psalm 19 shows itself to be a mixture of both new and old, with the old argument from creation redesigned to emphasize the perfection of God’s law.
It’s such a sudden divergence from the first topic to the second, so sudden and yet so absolute, that one of two possible conclusions seems inevitable. The first possibility is that these two sections came from originally separate psalms and, at some point in antiquity beyond memory or written record, they were combined together into the psalm we now possess. This is possible but unlikely for various reasons which I will not discuss. The second possibility is that, in spite of their apparent differences, there is a deeper symmetry or connection between these two sections. This will be my present focus: how do we find a connection between these two halves of the psalm, if such a connection exists?
The glory of God and the word of God. The glory of God is reflected in natural creation, in the things that God has made. Verses 2-4 are instructive: in verses 2 and 4 we see the “speech” and “utterances” of the heavens filling the whole world. In verse 3, dividing them, we see that “there is no speech”. This is an apparent contradiction with a simple explanation. David is saying that the sun and moon and stars aren’t saying anything, we don’t hear the sun cry out “glory to God!” or anything at all. However, it “speaks” to us in the metaphorical sense that art or music or a movie of any kind can “speak” to people about something. This is still a common figure of speech in english, and David is using this figure of speech in a similar way.
The natural world and the heavens speak to us about the glory of God because they teach us about God’s nature, and they are a reflection of God’s nature.
Going right into verse 7, David says “the law of the LORD is perfect”, or to put it differently, the word of God is perfect. Before David was saying that natural creation speaks about the glory of God, and now he is saying that the word of God is perfect. One clear thread is speech. Before it was the natural world speaking, and now it is God speaking, and David exults in that word.
In verses 7-9 David makes six declarations in turn. Depending on the translation, he describes the law, the testimony, the precepts, the commandment, the fear and the judgments of the LORD. Each one is good, and four of them are described in terms of how they positively affect the people who adhere to them, giving us wisdom, joy and enlightenment. David places a particular emphasis on the value of God’s word to guiding our lives. In verse 10, they are “desirable”, more so than gold (wealth) and honey (sweetness or food). In verse 11 David sees “great reward” in following the law of God, and he also sees the avoidance of catastrophe.
Verses 12-14 shift to a tone of prayer, but it has obvious connections to the preceding description of God’s law. David seeks to be blameless, to be pleasing in God’s sight, by living in accordance with God’s law. David desires to live with God’s blessing as a consequence of his obedience to God’s law. As such, David’s prayer in verses 12-14 is essentially, “help me to live in a way that pleases you by obeying your laws and commands”, such that David might receive all the blessing he just described.
I would like to return to the subject of the connection between the two halves of this psalm. I already mentioned one connecting theme is the concept of speaking. Nature first speaks, and then God speaks. There is another connecting theme that is somewhat more obscure, but still quite powerful. For those who have been following my commentary, remember back to the book of Job. In Job 38-39 I mentioned that God was using the power and glory of nature creation as an argument by proxy.
Job was questioning God’s justice and fairness, because Job felt punished for some sin that he didn’t believe he committed. Job was demanding for God to prove Job’s guilt, to show what he did wrong. God, in turn, answered in a very indirect way, by pointing out the complexity and the glory of the natural world, that far exceeded Job’s power, understanding and wisdom. It’s not clear to most modern readers, but this is an argument by proxy. By showing his wisdom and understanding in the natural world, God was establishing in a tangible way his wisdom and understanding of the intangible realm of justice and fairness. Since we can see God’s great wisdom in the natural world, we can understand by extension that God is also wise and understanding in matters of justice.
The point is that this chapter shares very similar dynamics. First David shows the glory of God in the natural world. Admittedly, it is vastly different in style and vocabulary compared to Job, but the general concept is similar. Then in the second half, he is logically extending from the glory of God in creation to describe and affirm the wisdom and goodness of God’s law. To put it another way, we see the glory of God in creation so that we can understand and believe the glory of God is also manifested in his laws.
The context is completely different, and the conclusion is different, but the structure of the argument between here and Job is remarkably similar. In both cases, the nature of God manifested in creation becomes the logical predicate of some conclusion about an intangible, abstract concept that is otherwise difficult or impossible to prove. With Job, the logic is “we see the wisdom of God in creation, and therefore believe the wisdom of God in justice and fairness.” In Psalm 19, the logic is “we see the glory of God in creation, and therefore believe in the perfection, truth and beauty of God’s laws.” While one could never mistake the first sentence for the second, the similarities are striking nonetheless.
The similarities are all the more striking given the obvious linguistic and historical differences between Job and Psalm 19. It suggests an undercurrent of philosophy or theology that remained over potentially hundreds of years across two books that have no overt literary connection. While I don’t want to overemphasize the point, one of the most likely reasons why we find the argument repeated between such different historical works is that it is leveraging a well-understood, if not common, cultural trope regarding creation. More specifically, that creation is a source of truth regarding God’s nature. This belief is still present in modern society, but not nearly to the same extent or in the same deeply intuitive nature as what is implied by the biblical text.
On the other hand, adoration of the law of God is one of Psalms’ unique characteristics, beginning from the very first psalm. In that sense Psalm 19 is a quintessential Psalmic text. The only way it cuts differently from the other psalms is by the structure and implicit argument presented.
In conclusion, Psalm 19 is clearly consistent with the other psalms throughout the book, but its structural connection to Job shows an implicit cultural argument that is undoubtedly much older. In this way, Psalm 19 shows itself to be a mixture of both new and old, with the old argument from creation redesigned to emphasize the perfection of God’s law.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Bible Commentary - Psalms 18
Psalm 18 is an exceptional text compared to the Psalms we have read so far. It is a psalm of David, and it shows similar themes and structure with the other psalms, but it is unique nonetheless. What marks it as different is that Psalm 18 has a parallel textual transmission in 2 Samuel 22. This is one of only a handful of cases in the bible where we can study a long body of text two places in the bible and explore the textual variants to understand some of the history of these two respective books, as well as the transmission process that copied these books down through the centuries until we got the earliest physical copies of the Hebrew bible in the ~10th century CE.
My commentary will consist of two parts. First I will provide a brief summary of the textual variation between Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22, and then I will secondly provide a commentary on the content of the psalm itself. I would also encourage my readers to revisit my commentary on 2 Samuel 22 itself (available in this blog) since that will share a lot of similarity to the current reading. This psalm has multiple layers and I’ll try to explain them as well as I can.
First, the textual variations. In general, there are many variations between Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22, but most of the variations are either minor spelling differences or word replacement (i.e. replacing some word with a synonym). There are a handful of “additions without replacement”, where one version of the psalm contains an additional word or phrase that does not have an equivalent in the other.
The first conclusion we can draw is that there is no substantial difference in meaning or interpretation between the two copies of this psalm. For theological or even literary purposes, it makes little difference if the text uses deflective vs. plene spelling, just to give one out of many examples that I do not understand and could not possibly explain. These are difference related to particular choices in Hebrew grammar and for most people and most purposes, it should be sufficient to understand that such differences exist without scrutinizing the nature of those differences.
The second conclusion we can draw is that 2 Samuel 22 most likely represents an earlier tradition of the psalm. The primary reason is that Psalm 18 generally has more additions, and fewer subtractions, than 2 Samuel 22. In addition, the linguistic variations generally indicate a later date for Psalm 18. It’s not conclusive, but it’s generally suggestive of a later date.
Third, many of the changes in Psalm 18 seem to be a movement towards conformity with the Psalms as a whole. We see this especially with textual similarity between Psalm 18 and Psalm 116, but also with the minor linguistic variants I mentioned. Generally speaking, the variants in Psalm 18 align with the predominant style of Psalms. On the flip side, the textual variants observable in 2 Samuel 22 tend to align with the style of Samuel.
In both cases, it suggests that the text in Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22 represent distinct copies of the same psalm (with the same original text) that have been gradually modified to conform to the larger body of the text in which they reside. This editing process is clearly ancient and predates any extant manuscripts that we possess.
My personal opinion, and I think the evidence generally supports this, is that Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22 represent different textual traditions that existed independently for a long time before they were eventually combined into the Hebrew bible that we have today. Psalms, as its name implies, was a liturgical text centered on the temple in Jerusalem, and for at least a few hundred years it would have existed as an independent work for that purpose. Meanwhile, Samuel also was an independent book, gradually collected into the historical works together with Kings, Judges, Joshua and perhaps the Pentateuch, but not combined with Psalms until much later. As such, these two copies of the same psalm would have been preserved and copied independently for a long time until their eventual combination in the Hebrew bible. The differences in the text are the relics of those distinct traditions.
I will conclude this section by reiterating my first point: while the textual differences are interesting (to people like me) and they illustrate the two historical traditions nicely, they are not theologically substantial in the bigger picture and to most readers they can be ignored entirely with no consequence.
Second, I will now discuss the body of text itself.
For this part I will rely heavily on my commentary on 2 Samuel 22, because as I just mentioned the content of these two chapters is substantially equivalent.
The first thing I’d like to point out is that this psalm has possibly the clearest historical context out of any psalm in the entire book. Not only does this psalm tell us the moment in David’s life that he is praising God for, but the entire story is included in the book of Samuel. Samuel includes a copy of this psalm for that reason, confirming the relationship between the story and the song beyond any doubt. In spite of this, the psalm still follows the general pattern of decontextualization that we’ve seen throughout the Psalms.
For example, even though the title specifically tells us this is about David’s victory over Saul, Saul himself is not named anywhere in the psalm. Verse 17 refers to David’s “great enemy”, who is probably Saul, while the rest of the psalm talks about David’s “enemies” (for instance, v. 2). Both of these groups are mentioned in the title: David was delivered “from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul”. The psalm describes David’s “enemies” and his “great enemy” to refer to these groups respectively, and this language is generally evasive. David mentions himself only in the last verse. The overall style and general effect is consistent with the other psalms we have seen.
The second thing I’d like to discuss is the rule of the first verse. I have repeatedly shown that the first verse of a psalm generally reflects on the theme and purpose of the psalm as a whole, to the extent that we can topically categorize the psalms to a high degree of accuracy by looking strictly at the first verse of each psalm.
In the case of Psalm 18, it mostly holds. Verse 1 says “I love you, LORD, my strength.” This conveys the praise and worship aspect of the psalm, and to an extent it also conveys David’s dependence on God. However, it doesn’t clearly capture the theme of deliverance. Interestingly, verse 2 seems to do a much better job of capturing the theme of the psalm. This is particularly interesting because verse 1 of this psalm is absent from the Samuel rendition, which suggests that it may have been a later addition and not part of the original composition. The fact that verse 2 is a better representation of the theme of the psalm provides additional evidence that verse 1 was not part of the original composition, precisely because it does not summarize the content of the psalm in the same way that we find in the earlier Davidic psalms.
Third, this psalm is notably different from the earlier psalms by its great length. This psalm is 50 verses long, which makes it longer than the previous five psalms combined (which taken together have 44 verses total). Every other psalm we’ve read so far is shorter than this one, usually by a lot. The psalm after this one (Psalm 19) returns to the generally short pattern with 14 verses.
Fourth, as I mentioned in my commentary on 2 Samuel 22, there are several allusions to the Exodus story. This whole psalm is ostensibly about David, but it could easily be transferred to a description of Israel as a whole during the Exodus. They were in great distress, and from that distress God sent plagues on Egypt, plagues of hail and lightning (v. 12-13). Most importantly, crossing the Red Sea is implied in v. 15 when the breath of the LORD “lays bare” the foundation of the world, making channels in the water (i.e. walkable pathways). Similarly, verse 16 speaks of God “[drawing] me out of many waters”, which is a clear allusion to Moses, whose birth story describes him being drawn out of the waters and his name roughly means “drawn out” in Hebrew (Exodus 2).
Fifth, I find many similarities between the depiction of God in this chapter and the way God is described in Job, particularly Job 37. Job 37 uses the language of a thunderstorm to describe God’s power and glory; for instance, Job 37:2-5 describes God’s voice as being like thunder. Psalm 18 uses very similar language, with verses 11-12 describing the clouds surrounding God and verse 13 describing the thunder of his voice.
There are some differences, of course. While Job 37 does use thunder to describe God’s voice, the main theme of that chapter (and Job as a whole) is using the natural world as a demonstration of God’s power. The storm is not meant so much to signify the arrival of God’s presence as it signifies the glory of God’s creation (and by extension, the creator). In Psalm 18, the storm itself conveys God’s presence with God dwelling in thunderclouds, and thereby traveling along with storms as they move over the earth. That said, Job 38:1 clearly states that God speaks to Job out of the “whirlwind”, so in that instance it is as if God himself came to visit Job and his three friends in the approaching stormcloud. The notion of God “traveling” in the stormcloud is what unites these two chapters more than anything else, even though they have slightly differing emphases elsewhere.
Structurally, after a brief introduction (verses 1-3), the main “story” of this psalm is from verses 4-19. This section follows a simple three-part structure with an introduction to David’s crisis in verses 4-6, a description of God’s glory and impending intervention in verses 7-15, and a concluding statement of David’s deliverance in verses 16-19. Out of this three-part structure, the longest and most significant section is the middle, the description of God’s glory and movement towards David’s deliverance. I’ve already mentioned that this description uses the metaphor of a stormcloud, and also contains allusions to God’s deliverance in the Exodus from Egypt, so I won’t repeat those points here.
One other thing I would add is the overall sense of God’s power and fury. It is almost terrifying, if it weren’t friendly and a wrath that is acting on David’s behalf. The earth is shaking, there is smoke and fire, lightning and thunder; the imagery is really scary; once again, it contains allusions to Exodus 19:18-19 when God’s glory descended on Mount Sinai with earthquakes, fire and smoke, and a loud trumpet sound. It was so scary that people thought Moses died when he went up the mountain. They thought anyone who went into that stormcloud was certainly not coming back alive, because they feared God’s wrath. What we see in this psalm is that God’s wrath is terrifying, but it is a wrath that fights on our behalf because God “delights” in us (v. 19).
The deliverance in verses 16-19 is striking because it is so rapid. David was in the midst of these turbulent waters of doom, and God yanks him out in one swift verse (v. 16).
Beginning in verse 20, the deliverance continues but changes direction and theme several times, so I find it much harder to draw generalizations over the remainder of this psalm, especially because it is still so long. In fact, more than half the psalm is the “remainder” after the primary deliverance story.
Broadly speaking, the themes of this section (verses 20-50) are David’s righteous standing before God as a justification for his deliverance, and God’s power to deliver and destroy David’s enemies. The basic assumption behind all this is that God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. We see this on verses 20 and 24: “The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness.” Righteousness is the standard that justifies a reward from God.
Verses 25-26 continue on the same theme but in a more general way. In these verses, David is asserting that God’s response to people depend chiefly on the moral character of the person involved. God “shows himself” to the righteous as a reflection of that righteousness; to the “crooked”, he reflects that crookedness in how he deals with them. Verse 27 continues that God saves the “afflicted” but punishes the prideful. It’s not quite the same thing as the dichotomy between righteous and wicked, but the contrast between “afflicted” and wicked emerges regularly as part of the same social justice framework in the bible. In many cases “the wicked” is interchanged with “strong” or “prideful”, while “the righteous” are interchanged with poor, afflicted or weak. In many cases, God blesses the righteous, but we also see God bless or protect the poor, afflicted and vulnerable. These are obviously different concepts, but in the biblical text they are interchanged frequently.
Beginning in verse 30, David praises God for giving him strength to defeat his enemies. This is an extension of the social justice narrative, because David clearly views himself as a righteous person who is receiving this strength as a reward for his righteousness. It continues on this theme until the end of the psalm. I could add a few more comments but this is already long enough so I think I will stop here. For all of the details of the remaining verses, I leave it as an exercise for the reader.
My commentary will consist of two parts. First I will provide a brief summary of the textual variation between Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22, and then I will secondly provide a commentary on the content of the psalm itself. I would also encourage my readers to revisit my commentary on 2 Samuel 22 itself (available in this blog) since that will share a lot of similarity to the current reading. This psalm has multiple layers and I’ll try to explain them as well as I can.
First, the textual variations. In general, there are many variations between Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22, but most of the variations are either minor spelling differences or word replacement (i.e. replacing some word with a synonym). There are a handful of “additions without replacement”, where one version of the psalm contains an additional word or phrase that does not have an equivalent in the other.
The first conclusion we can draw is that there is no substantial difference in meaning or interpretation between the two copies of this psalm. For theological or even literary purposes, it makes little difference if the text uses deflective vs. plene spelling, just to give one out of many examples that I do not understand and could not possibly explain. These are difference related to particular choices in Hebrew grammar and for most people and most purposes, it should be sufficient to understand that such differences exist without scrutinizing the nature of those differences.
The second conclusion we can draw is that 2 Samuel 22 most likely represents an earlier tradition of the psalm. The primary reason is that Psalm 18 generally has more additions, and fewer subtractions, than 2 Samuel 22. In addition, the linguistic variations generally indicate a later date for Psalm 18. It’s not conclusive, but it’s generally suggestive of a later date.
Third, many of the changes in Psalm 18 seem to be a movement towards conformity with the Psalms as a whole. We see this especially with textual similarity between Psalm 18 and Psalm 116, but also with the minor linguistic variants I mentioned. Generally speaking, the variants in Psalm 18 align with the predominant style of Psalms. On the flip side, the textual variants observable in 2 Samuel 22 tend to align with the style of Samuel.
In both cases, it suggests that the text in Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22 represent distinct copies of the same psalm (with the same original text) that have been gradually modified to conform to the larger body of the text in which they reside. This editing process is clearly ancient and predates any extant manuscripts that we possess.
My personal opinion, and I think the evidence generally supports this, is that Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22 represent different textual traditions that existed independently for a long time before they were eventually combined into the Hebrew bible that we have today. Psalms, as its name implies, was a liturgical text centered on the temple in Jerusalem, and for at least a few hundred years it would have existed as an independent work for that purpose. Meanwhile, Samuel also was an independent book, gradually collected into the historical works together with Kings, Judges, Joshua and perhaps the Pentateuch, but not combined with Psalms until much later. As such, these two copies of the same psalm would have been preserved and copied independently for a long time until their eventual combination in the Hebrew bible. The differences in the text are the relics of those distinct traditions.
I will conclude this section by reiterating my first point: while the textual differences are interesting (to people like me) and they illustrate the two historical traditions nicely, they are not theologically substantial in the bigger picture and to most readers they can be ignored entirely with no consequence.
Second, I will now discuss the body of text itself.
For this part I will rely heavily on my commentary on 2 Samuel 22, because as I just mentioned the content of these two chapters is substantially equivalent.
The first thing I’d like to point out is that this psalm has possibly the clearest historical context out of any psalm in the entire book. Not only does this psalm tell us the moment in David’s life that he is praising God for, but the entire story is included in the book of Samuel. Samuel includes a copy of this psalm for that reason, confirming the relationship between the story and the song beyond any doubt. In spite of this, the psalm still follows the general pattern of decontextualization that we’ve seen throughout the Psalms.
For example, even though the title specifically tells us this is about David’s victory over Saul, Saul himself is not named anywhere in the psalm. Verse 17 refers to David’s “great enemy”, who is probably Saul, while the rest of the psalm talks about David’s “enemies” (for instance, v. 2). Both of these groups are mentioned in the title: David was delivered “from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul”. The psalm describes David’s “enemies” and his “great enemy” to refer to these groups respectively, and this language is generally evasive. David mentions himself only in the last verse. The overall style and general effect is consistent with the other psalms we have seen.
The second thing I’d like to discuss is the rule of the first verse. I have repeatedly shown that the first verse of a psalm generally reflects on the theme and purpose of the psalm as a whole, to the extent that we can topically categorize the psalms to a high degree of accuracy by looking strictly at the first verse of each psalm.
In the case of Psalm 18, it mostly holds. Verse 1 says “I love you, LORD, my strength.” This conveys the praise and worship aspect of the psalm, and to an extent it also conveys David’s dependence on God. However, it doesn’t clearly capture the theme of deliverance. Interestingly, verse 2 seems to do a much better job of capturing the theme of the psalm. This is particularly interesting because verse 1 of this psalm is absent from the Samuel rendition, which suggests that it may have been a later addition and not part of the original composition. The fact that verse 2 is a better representation of the theme of the psalm provides additional evidence that verse 1 was not part of the original composition, precisely because it does not summarize the content of the psalm in the same way that we find in the earlier Davidic psalms.
Third, this psalm is notably different from the earlier psalms by its great length. This psalm is 50 verses long, which makes it longer than the previous five psalms combined (which taken together have 44 verses total). Every other psalm we’ve read so far is shorter than this one, usually by a lot. The psalm after this one (Psalm 19) returns to the generally short pattern with 14 verses.
Fourth, as I mentioned in my commentary on 2 Samuel 22, there are several allusions to the Exodus story. This whole psalm is ostensibly about David, but it could easily be transferred to a description of Israel as a whole during the Exodus. They were in great distress, and from that distress God sent plagues on Egypt, plagues of hail and lightning (v. 12-13). Most importantly, crossing the Red Sea is implied in v. 15 when the breath of the LORD “lays bare” the foundation of the world, making channels in the water (i.e. walkable pathways). Similarly, verse 16 speaks of God “[drawing] me out of many waters”, which is a clear allusion to Moses, whose birth story describes him being drawn out of the waters and his name roughly means “drawn out” in Hebrew (Exodus 2).
Fifth, I find many similarities between the depiction of God in this chapter and the way God is described in Job, particularly Job 37. Job 37 uses the language of a thunderstorm to describe God’s power and glory; for instance, Job 37:2-5 describes God’s voice as being like thunder. Psalm 18 uses very similar language, with verses 11-12 describing the clouds surrounding God and verse 13 describing the thunder of his voice.
There are some differences, of course. While Job 37 does use thunder to describe God’s voice, the main theme of that chapter (and Job as a whole) is using the natural world as a demonstration of God’s power. The storm is not meant so much to signify the arrival of God’s presence as it signifies the glory of God’s creation (and by extension, the creator). In Psalm 18, the storm itself conveys God’s presence with God dwelling in thunderclouds, and thereby traveling along with storms as they move over the earth. That said, Job 38:1 clearly states that God speaks to Job out of the “whirlwind”, so in that instance it is as if God himself came to visit Job and his three friends in the approaching stormcloud. The notion of God “traveling” in the stormcloud is what unites these two chapters more than anything else, even though they have slightly differing emphases elsewhere.
Structurally, after a brief introduction (verses 1-3), the main “story” of this psalm is from verses 4-19. This section follows a simple three-part structure with an introduction to David’s crisis in verses 4-6, a description of God’s glory and impending intervention in verses 7-15, and a concluding statement of David’s deliverance in verses 16-19. Out of this three-part structure, the longest and most significant section is the middle, the description of God’s glory and movement towards David’s deliverance. I’ve already mentioned that this description uses the metaphor of a stormcloud, and also contains allusions to God’s deliverance in the Exodus from Egypt, so I won’t repeat those points here.
One other thing I would add is the overall sense of God’s power and fury. It is almost terrifying, if it weren’t friendly and a wrath that is acting on David’s behalf. The earth is shaking, there is smoke and fire, lightning and thunder; the imagery is really scary; once again, it contains allusions to Exodus 19:18-19 when God’s glory descended on Mount Sinai with earthquakes, fire and smoke, and a loud trumpet sound. It was so scary that people thought Moses died when he went up the mountain. They thought anyone who went into that stormcloud was certainly not coming back alive, because they feared God’s wrath. What we see in this psalm is that God’s wrath is terrifying, but it is a wrath that fights on our behalf because God “delights” in us (v. 19).
The deliverance in verses 16-19 is striking because it is so rapid. David was in the midst of these turbulent waters of doom, and God yanks him out in one swift verse (v. 16).
Beginning in verse 20, the deliverance continues but changes direction and theme several times, so I find it much harder to draw generalizations over the remainder of this psalm, especially because it is still so long. In fact, more than half the psalm is the “remainder” after the primary deliverance story.
Broadly speaking, the themes of this section (verses 20-50) are David’s righteous standing before God as a justification for his deliverance, and God’s power to deliver and destroy David’s enemies. The basic assumption behind all this is that God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. We see this on verses 20 and 24: “The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness.” Righteousness is the standard that justifies a reward from God.
Verses 25-26 continue on the same theme but in a more general way. In these verses, David is asserting that God’s response to people depend chiefly on the moral character of the person involved. God “shows himself” to the righteous as a reflection of that righteousness; to the “crooked”, he reflects that crookedness in how he deals with them. Verse 27 continues that God saves the “afflicted” but punishes the prideful. It’s not quite the same thing as the dichotomy between righteous and wicked, but the contrast between “afflicted” and wicked emerges regularly as part of the same social justice framework in the bible. In many cases “the wicked” is interchanged with “strong” or “prideful”, while “the righteous” are interchanged with poor, afflicted or weak. In many cases, God blesses the righteous, but we also see God bless or protect the poor, afflicted and vulnerable. These are obviously different concepts, but in the biblical text they are interchanged frequently.
Beginning in verse 30, David praises God for giving him strength to defeat his enemies. This is an extension of the social justice narrative, because David clearly views himself as a righteous person who is receiving this strength as a reward for his righteousness. It continues on this theme until the end of the psalm. I could add a few more comments but this is already long enough so I think I will stop here. For all of the details of the remaining verses, I leave it as an exercise for the reader.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Bible Commentary - Psalms 17
This psalm is quite simply a prayer. In keeping with tradition, we should read the first verse first, and we will see that David is bringing some kind of request to God.
The conventional structure for prayers in the Psalms is to first state the nature of the problem, then to declare God’s faithfulness and salvation, and to close by offering thanksgiving in anticipation of God’s deliverance. Some examples of this pattern are Psalm 3 and Psalm 10. Though not every prayer follows this structure, it is common enough that I wanted to call it out.
Meanwhile, this psalm does not quite follow the conventional structure either, though it has some similarities. In broad strokes, this psalm begins with David’s “standing” to pray. Verses 3-5 describe the reasons why David thinks the LORD should answer his prayer, and it is because the LORD has “tested” David and David has held fast to do what is right and avoid “the paths of the violent”. In effect David is saying that God should answer his prayer because he has maintained his righteousness.
David also says he does not have “deceitful lips” (v. 1). Remember Psalm 12:2-4 that lament the flattering and deceitful words of the wicked? Here David is tying that to prayer. The same lips that speak deceitful words also speak prayers to God, and David is implying that God should not answer the prayers that come from those deceitful lips. However, the prayers that come from truthful lips should be answered.
After justifying his standing to pray to God, David gives his problem statement in verses 8-12. David’s core problem is that he is surrounded by deadly enemies, speaking proud words, determined to cast him down.
There are several statements of the prayer itself scattered throughout the psalm. Verse 2 is a request for God’s judgment, verses 7-8 request for God to hide and protect David from his adversaries, and verse 13 requests God to arise and confront the “young lion” that is seeking to destroy David. It’s three different prayers all in the same psalm, and largely directed towards the same “problem”, or adversity, that David is facing.
This psalm does not conclude with the usual doxology (declaration of praise). Instead, it concludes by describing the “portion” of the wicked. The “portion”, or destiny or inheritance or however you want to describe it, of the wicked is that they are satisfied to leave their wealth to their children. This is the ordinary human dream. Who doesn’t imagine having a pile of children and acquired wealth, eventually leaving said wealth to said children? Well in contrast, verse 15 says that the “portion” of David is that he would behold the face of God “when I awake”. It is not clear whether that means while David is still alive or when he “awakes” to a life after death. Either way, the contrast with the “portion” of the wicked could not be stronger.
David is saying that the wicked dream of having a great life, family and money. But David dreams of something even greater; David dreams of entering the presence of God and beholding God’s face. Remember when Moses asked to see the glory of God in Exodus 33, and God exclaimed that “no man can see me and live” (Ex 33:20)? David is saying that he can do the impossible: he can see the face of God and yet live. That is how this psalm ends, and it’s well enough that it end here because this is a stunning claim. Can we really behold the face of God while we live? I don’t know either way, but the fact that it’s here in the Psalms seems to open up the possibility.
Either way, one thing is clear. Verses 14-15 call us to dream bigger and seek more than perhaps we were seeking before. We should not be content, like the wicked, to a good life. We should seek more than children and an abundance of wealth to share with them. We should not be men of this world, whose portion is the things of this world. We should seek our portion in the presence of God; we should seek to behold the face of God, even while we live.
How do we seek the face of God? This psalm gives us few answers. Perhaps we simply focus on righteous living the way David described in verses 1-5. More likely we have to read the bible broadly and seek God by following his commands and laws throughout the entire book. We won’t find the answer in any one passage, any more than we could describe righteousness in any one phrase or sentence. Righteousness is following the ways of God, and we do that by first understanding God’s ways and then secondly following them. It defies summarization the same way that God himself defies summarization.
One thing is clear, however: it is a passion for God that empowers us to seek God and to find him in this way. We find him because we seek him, and we seek him because of a desire deep inside. It is a desire that refuses to give up in the midst of disappointment and discouragement. We see this persistence in the prayers of David where he acknowledges the difficult circumstances that he faces, but he refuses to give up. It is an iron will that is not motivated by material comforts, but only by a desire to see God. If it were material comforts that he sought, it would be far too easy for David to give up and submit to death because material comfort simply isn’t worth the suffering that he endured during his struggles with Saul and the foreign kingdoms surrounding him. Similarly, we will not find enough motivation to go through hardships if our dream is simply material comfort or the things of this world. Life is too hard and filled with too much sorrow to find meaning in such things.
The conventional structure for prayers in the Psalms is to first state the nature of the problem, then to declare God’s faithfulness and salvation, and to close by offering thanksgiving in anticipation of God’s deliverance. Some examples of this pattern are Psalm 3 and Psalm 10. Though not every prayer follows this structure, it is common enough that I wanted to call it out.
Meanwhile, this psalm does not quite follow the conventional structure either, though it has some similarities. In broad strokes, this psalm begins with David’s “standing” to pray. Verses 3-5 describe the reasons why David thinks the LORD should answer his prayer, and it is because the LORD has “tested” David and David has held fast to do what is right and avoid “the paths of the violent”. In effect David is saying that God should answer his prayer because he has maintained his righteousness.
David also says he does not have “deceitful lips” (v. 1). Remember Psalm 12:2-4 that lament the flattering and deceitful words of the wicked? Here David is tying that to prayer. The same lips that speak deceitful words also speak prayers to God, and David is implying that God should not answer the prayers that come from those deceitful lips. However, the prayers that come from truthful lips should be answered.
After justifying his standing to pray to God, David gives his problem statement in verses 8-12. David’s core problem is that he is surrounded by deadly enemies, speaking proud words, determined to cast him down.
There are several statements of the prayer itself scattered throughout the psalm. Verse 2 is a request for God’s judgment, verses 7-8 request for God to hide and protect David from his adversaries, and verse 13 requests God to arise and confront the “young lion” that is seeking to destroy David. It’s three different prayers all in the same psalm, and largely directed towards the same “problem”, or adversity, that David is facing.
This psalm does not conclude with the usual doxology (declaration of praise). Instead, it concludes by describing the “portion” of the wicked. The “portion”, or destiny or inheritance or however you want to describe it, of the wicked is that they are satisfied to leave their wealth to their children. This is the ordinary human dream. Who doesn’t imagine having a pile of children and acquired wealth, eventually leaving said wealth to said children? Well in contrast, verse 15 says that the “portion” of David is that he would behold the face of God “when I awake”. It is not clear whether that means while David is still alive or when he “awakes” to a life after death. Either way, the contrast with the “portion” of the wicked could not be stronger.
David is saying that the wicked dream of having a great life, family and money. But David dreams of something even greater; David dreams of entering the presence of God and beholding God’s face. Remember when Moses asked to see the glory of God in Exodus 33, and God exclaimed that “no man can see me and live” (Ex 33:20)? David is saying that he can do the impossible: he can see the face of God and yet live. That is how this psalm ends, and it’s well enough that it end here because this is a stunning claim. Can we really behold the face of God while we live? I don’t know either way, but the fact that it’s here in the Psalms seems to open up the possibility.
Either way, one thing is clear. Verses 14-15 call us to dream bigger and seek more than perhaps we were seeking before. We should not be content, like the wicked, to a good life. We should seek more than children and an abundance of wealth to share with them. We should not be men of this world, whose portion is the things of this world. We should seek our portion in the presence of God; we should seek to behold the face of God, even while we live.
How do we seek the face of God? This psalm gives us few answers. Perhaps we simply focus on righteous living the way David described in verses 1-5. More likely we have to read the bible broadly and seek God by following his commands and laws throughout the entire book. We won’t find the answer in any one passage, any more than we could describe righteousness in any one phrase or sentence. Righteousness is following the ways of God, and we do that by first understanding God’s ways and then secondly following them. It defies summarization the same way that God himself defies summarization.
One thing is clear, however: it is a passion for God that empowers us to seek God and to find him in this way. We find him because we seek him, and we seek him because of a desire deep inside. It is a desire that refuses to give up in the midst of disappointment and discouragement. We see this persistence in the prayers of David where he acknowledges the difficult circumstances that he faces, but he refuses to give up. It is an iron will that is not motivated by material comforts, but only by a desire to see God. If it were material comforts that he sought, it would be far too easy for David to give up and submit to death because material comfort simply isn’t worth the suffering that he endured during his struggles with Saul and the foreign kingdoms surrounding him. Similarly, we will not find enough motivation to go through hardships if our dream is simply material comfort or the things of this world. Life is too hard and filled with too much sorrow to find meaning in such things.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Bible Commentary - Psalms 16
This psalm defies simple interpretations. If we follow my usual exercise of weighing the overall message by looking at the first verse, we should think that this psalm is a prayer for God’s protection or deliverance. To an extent, I think that it is. However, I don’t think it fits neatly into that category.
Structurally, it does not follow the usual prayer pattern of “problem statement”, followed by petition, followed by thanksgiving. Instead, this psalm has two distinct sections. The first section is verses 2-4, which is David’s claim of righteous behavior. It might not be obvious why this is a claim of righteous behavior, but when we look at similar passages in other psalms I hope it will become more clear.
In particular, it is very similar thematically to Psalm 15. David is declaring that first, he “delights” in the holy people (v. 3). Second, David is saying that he will not “take up the names” of those who “run after other gods” (v. 4). I see this as another way of saying that David does not want to have any association with idolaters (i.e. the wicked), while he rejoices in those who do good. It’s phrased differently, but the sentiment is similar to Psalm 15:4, where the righteous man “despises a vile man, but honors those who fear the LORD.” Earlier in Psalm 12:8, David was lamenting how the wicked “freely strut about when what is vile is honored by the sons of men.” This is something I discussed at length in my commentary on Psalm 15, but the basic idea is that honoring the righteous and despising the wicked are traits that David values as a characteristic of righteousness. Here, we can see that it is a trait that David claims for himself as well.
The second, and longer, section of this psalm is verses 5-11 where David colorfully praises God for his “counsel” (v. 7) and because God will not “abandon me” (v. 10).
In a sense, this section is a continuation of the theme from verse 1 which is that God is David’s refuge, but it also seems like more than that. Verses 5-6 establish that the LORD is the “portion” or “inheritance” of David. Interestingly, the last time this kind of language was used was all the way back in Deuteronomy 10:9 (repeated in Deut 18:2) when Moses said that the inheritance of the Levites was the LORD.
This made sense in their case because the Levites did not receive any inheritance in the promised land, besides the Levitical cities. Therefore in exchange for an inheritance of land, the Levites received an “inheritance” of the sacrificial offerings that the people bring to the temple to offer to God. The Levites also received a tithe from their fellow tribes, which was perhaps an even more significant amount of food and substituted for the agricultural work that the rest of the tribes would have engaged in (with their inheritance of land as the basis of that agriculture). In that sense, swapping out an inheritance of land for sacrifices and tithes for the Levites made sense, and it also conveniently freed up the Levites’ time such that they could administrate the temple worship system. They were, to put it simply, religious professionals, clerks, etc. in assistance to the Aaronic priesthood.
In the case of this psalm, it says that the LORD is “my portion”, but this is almost certainly intended metaphorically to mean that God’s presence or acceptance is the “portion” that we receive. It begs the question of who we receive this inheritance from. Does it come from our parents? For the Jews, it seems like a plausible answer as their faith was very clearly a national and ethnic faith. I think it’s more likely that the giver is God himself. I doubt that David was viewing God’s presence as an inheritance in any traditional sense. I doubt that David was thinking to himself, “when I die I will leave God’s presence for my children”, as you might otherwise leave a house or fields or other property.
Instead, I think David is using the term inheritance in an almost mystical sense to refer to the “good thing” that he possesses in his life, quite similar to verse 2. More often than not, the promised land itself serves as a metaphor for God’s dwelling in the midst of Israel, and I believe David is extending that into a personal sense by referring to God as his own inheritance, rather than the collective inheritance of his whole people.
Verses 7-8 discuss how God “counsels” David and instructs him, while David in turn keeps his “eyes always on the LORD”, both to receive his instruction as well as to maintain his personal connection to God’s presence (his inheritance).
Moving on to verses 9-11, this is where David offers thanksgiving in response to his initial prayer in v. 1. We see a contrast between life and death, with David spared from death and delivered into “the path of life” and the promise of “eternal pleasures” at the right hand of God.
Taking this psalm as a whole, I feel like this psalm as a whole is really about David’s central focus on God in his life. Verses 2 and 5 in particular carry a strongly exclusive tone where he says that God alone is his good thing, God alone is his portion and inheritance. God alone is his refuge (v. 1), and in this David rejoices because he knows that he can trust God to bring him through the challenges of life.
Structurally, it does not follow the usual prayer pattern of “problem statement”, followed by petition, followed by thanksgiving. Instead, this psalm has two distinct sections. The first section is verses 2-4, which is David’s claim of righteous behavior. It might not be obvious why this is a claim of righteous behavior, but when we look at similar passages in other psalms I hope it will become more clear.
In particular, it is very similar thematically to Psalm 15. David is declaring that first, he “delights” in the holy people (v. 3). Second, David is saying that he will not “take up the names” of those who “run after other gods” (v. 4). I see this as another way of saying that David does not want to have any association with idolaters (i.e. the wicked), while he rejoices in those who do good. It’s phrased differently, but the sentiment is similar to Psalm 15:4, where the righteous man “despises a vile man, but honors those who fear the LORD.” Earlier in Psalm 12:8, David was lamenting how the wicked “freely strut about when what is vile is honored by the sons of men.” This is something I discussed at length in my commentary on Psalm 15, but the basic idea is that honoring the righteous and despising the wicked are traits that David values as a characteristic of righteousness. Here, we can see that it is a trait that David claims for himself as well.
The second, and longer, section of this psalm is verses 5-11 where David colorfully praises God for his “counsel” (v. 7) and because God will not “abandon me” (v. 10).
In a sense, this section is a continuation of the theme from verse 1 which is that God is David’s refuge, but it also seems like more than that. Verses 5-6 establish that the LORD is the “portion” or “inheritance” of David. Interestingly, the last time this kind of language was used was all the way back in Deuteronomy 10:9 (repeated in Deut 18:2) when Moses said that the inheritance of the Levites was the LORD.
This made sense in their case because the Levites did not receive any inheritance in the promised land, besides the Levitical cities. Therefore in exchange for an inheritance of land, the Levites received an “inheritance” of the sacrificial offerings that the people bring to the temple to offer to God. The Levites also received a tithe from their fellow tribes, which was perhaps an even more significant amount of food and substituted for the agricultural work that the rest of the tribes would have engaged in (with their inheritance of land as the basis of that agriculture). In that sense, swapping out an inheritance of land for sacrifices and tithes for the Levites made sense, and it also conveniently freed up the Levites’ time such that they could administrate the temple worship system. They were, to put it simply, religious professionals, clerks, etc. in assistance to the Aaronic priesthood.
In the case of this psalm, it says that the LORD is “my portion”, but this is almost certainly intended metaphorically to mean that God’s presence or acceptance is the “portion” that we receive. It begs the question of who we receive this inheritance from. Does it come from our parents? For the Jews, it seems like a plausible answer as their faith was very clearly a national and ethnic faith. I think it’s more likely that the giver is God himself. I doubt that David was viewing God’s presence as an inheritance in any traditional sense. I doubt that David was thinking to himself, “when I die I will leave God’s presence for my children”, as you might otherwise leave a house or fields or other property.
Instead, I think David is using the term inheritance in an almost mystical sense to refer to the “good thing” that he possesses in his life, quite similar to verse 2. More often than not, the promised land itself serves as a metaphor for God’s dwelling in the midst of Israel, and I believe David is extending that into a personal sense by referring to God as his own inheritance, rather than the collective inheritance of his whole people.
Verses 7-8 discuss how God “counsels” David and instructs him, while David in turn keeps his “eyes always on the LORD”, both to receive his instruction as well as to maintain his personal connection to God’s presence (his inheritance).
Moving on to verses 9-11, this is where David offers thanksgiving in response to his initial prayer in v. 1. We see a contrast between life and death, with David spared from death and delivered into “the path of life” and the promise of “eternal pleasures” at the right hand of God.
Taking this psalm as a whole, I feel like this psalm as a whole is really about David’s central focus on God in his life. Verses 2 and 5 in particular carry a strongly exclusive tone where he says that God alone is his good thing, God alone is his portion and inheritance. God alone is his refuge (v. 1), and in this David rejoices because he knows that he can trust God to bring him through the challenges of life.
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