A Song of Praise. Davidic.
The final six psalms of the book of Psalms are about one thing: Praising God. The other five songs are entitled “hallelu-yah” which means, “Praise Yahweh.” Every line of these psalms are either describing God, describing His great deeds or are a command to give praise to God.
I will extol You, my God the King.
And bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You
And praise Your name forever and ever.
Great is Yahweh and much praised.
And His greatness is unsearchable.
This section is stating two facts: First, God is great. This means not just that He is important, but that He is immeasurably important. No one is next to Him in greatness and power. Secondly, God deserves the honor due to His greatness. Even as an ancient king was praised for His greatness, surely the King of the Universe deserves even greater praise. All that He did, all that He is should be spoken well of without ceasing.
Generation to generation will praise your deeds
And acclaim your heroic acts.
The glorious splendor of Your majesty
And your miraculous deeds I will relate.
People will speak of your mighty awesome deeds
And I will tell of your greatness
They will spread the reputation of your abundant goodness
And celebrate your righteousness.
This section is prophetic. It is speaking toward the future, announcing that there will never be a generation that will forget Yahweh, that His deeds will be told eternally. Amazingly enough, this prophecy has been fulfilled in a very complete way. God’s deeds of the past, and His deeds today are the greater part of the stories that are told today. In every church, in every synagogue, in every mosque, God’s deeds are being spoken. Not only his acts of the past, but his miracles of the present. God’s fame continues on eternally.
Yahweh is gracious and merciful
Slow to anger and great in faithful love.
Yahweh is good to all
And His mercy is over all his deeds.
All your works will praise You, Yahweh
And your faithful will bless you.
They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom
And tell of Your might
To make known to the people your mighty deeds
And the glory of your kingship.
In the ancient times God showed himself to Moses and he spoke the first two verses of this stanza. It is not God’s power by which He wishes to be remembered. It is not His justice. Rather it is His mercy and grace and forgiveness. That is the reputation God wishes in the world. We should remember how powerful God is and how He hates oppression. But even more than that, we should remember God’s deeds of mercy, of kindness and how He turns away from judgment. He wants us to remember how He delivered the children of Israel from slavery, how He brought them across the Red Sea, how He fed the five thousand, how He healed masses from illness, how He forgave even his worst enemies, such as Ahab. God’s mercies should be praise first and foremost.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom
And your dominion prevails through all generations.
Yahweh sustains all who fall
And raises up those who are bent down.
They eyes of all look to You expectantly
And You give them their food on time.
You open your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
God’s power is great. He is a king and His rule will never end. He will rule for eternity. But God does not use His authority over the world to prop himself up or to support the strong. Rather, He looks to the weak and the frail, even the smallest animal. He does not forget a one to feed them, to help them live. God’s main work in sustaining creation is to feed and populate, and this He does without ceasing, every creature on earth.
Yahweh is righteous in all His ways
And faithful in all His deeds.
Yahweh is near to all who call to Him
To all who call to Him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him,
And He hears their cry and delivers them.
Yahweh keeps watch over all who love Him
But the wicked He will destroy.
Finally, God wishes to be remembered for His faithfulness. This means, first of all, that His deeds are true to his merciful nature. Secondly, God is always keeping his promises. If God promises judgment, then at a single repentance He will forget it. But if God makes a promise of mercy or blessing, He never forgets it for as long as the heavens and earth remain. God will never take away a blessing He has promised for eternity. God will always have a human in charge of the earth. God will never destroy the whole of humanity again. God will always bless the children of Abraham. God will always have a king in the line of David. God will always offer people a chance at forgiveness through commitment to the Lord Jesus. These promises will never change, never be overcome in wrath.
My mouth will speak the praise of Yahweh
And all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.
All living things praise God, whether they want to or not. They all enjoy that which He gave them, from food to sexual pleasure. They all honor Him in their living. They all follow the basic instructions he gave their bodies. And in the end, every living human will verbally confess their praise to Yahweh, the God of gods, the King of kings. It is our responsibility now to praise Him for who He is so that we might gain the blessing now.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Psalm 139-- God the Stalker
For the Leader. Davidic. A Psalm
One of the most important questions in this psalm is Who is speaking? We know who is being addressed: God. But is the psalmist speaking as a person who has been especially chosen by God, such as David or Jeremiah who have a special task appointed to them from God? Is the psalmist speaking for all who are of God’s people? Is the psalmist speaking of all humanity? Or is the psalmist speaking of all creation, because God has knowledge and care for us all? The psalm does not answer that question. What we need to understand is that the psalmist is expressing a feeling of the care and attention of God on his person, and often we feel that way as well. Jesus said that God gives his care and attention to all animals, but especially to those who are chosen by God (Matthew 6:26). So we can use this psalm to express our feelings of God’s love for us as well.
Yahweh you have examined me and know me
You know my sitting and my rising.
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down.
You are familiar with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue
But that You, Yahweh, know it fully.
From rear to front you hemmed me in
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too lofty for me,
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
God understands the psalmist fully and completely. There is nothing about us that God does not understand and focus on. Every word, every direction of life, every thought—God is there and is aware of it, before we are. In a sense, God’s love is smothering—we can’t get away from it to get a little breathing room. But it doesn’t matter because if we lost the love of God, we would be like an infant without her mother—completely lost and at bay.
Where can I go from Your spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I soar to the heaven, You are there,
Should I bed down in Sheol, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn
If I come to dwell in the remotest part of the sea
Even there Your hand will lead me
And your right hand takes hold of me.
If I say, “The darkness will envelope me
And the night will be light for me.”
Even the darkness is not dark to You
And the night is as bright as day
The darkness is as the light.
Perhaps the psalmist was feeling smothered, because he talks about the attempt to run and hide from God. We might all want to do this, especially when we are doing something displeasing to Him. We might try to run from God, go where God cannot be. The problem with this is that we cannot. God is wherever we would choose to hide from Him. Sometimes we might think that we have hidden from God, like a rhino who thinks that if he can’t see someone that the one can’t see it. Of course, we can’t hide from God, no matter how much we would like to. God is always there, always watching, always caring, despite the fact that we may not want Him to.
For it was you who formed my inner being
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I give thanks to you,
For I am fearfully and wonderfully made
Your deeds are amazing,
And my soul knows this well.
My bones were not concealed from You
When I was shaped unseen
Knitted together in the nethermost parts of the earth
Your eyes beheld my unformed limbs
They were all written in your book
The full number of days in which they were formed
When as yet there was not one of them.
God created every part of us. We might not like all of our parts or understand why God gave us one part over another. But the fact is, God made us for a reason. We may not like the reason He made us the way He did. We may prefer that He made us in a different way, for a different purpose. But God made us who we are because He cares for us. He pours loving attention on us, from the womb.
How precious are Your thoughts O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they outnumber the sand.
I am preoccupied with them, even to my arising.
This passage summarizes the whole intention of the psalmist. God thinks about us so much because He loves us. He is like a new lover who is obsessed with thinking of his love. God is like a father who can’t stop thinking about his infant child. He can’t stop thinking about us. And these thoughts display His care, His love for us.
If you would only slay the wicked, O God!
And you men of bloodshed, away from me!
You who speak to deceive
Your enemies pervert You to blasphemy
Surely those who hate you, Yahweh, I hate
And with those who rise up against you, I contend.
I hate them with a full hatred
For me they have become enemies.
Then the psalmist gets to his point. “So, God, if you really care about me so much, why do you let me suffer so much? I’ve got bad guys here and they want to kill me. Why doesn’t God take care of them?” These enemies are not just enemies of the psalmist, but enemies of God. The psalmist stands up for God, because of His care for him.
Search me, O God and know my heart
Try me and know my thoughts
And see if I have any grievous way
And lead me in the everlasting way.
Yet the psalmist perhaps realizes that his thoughts against his enemies are unworthy. He recognizes that he is human as well and so has at times failed God. So the psalmist begs God to not only know him, but to test his thoughts. “God, look in my head and see if there is anything opposed to you in there.” And the final prayer is asking God to change the thoughts from evil to God’s way.
One of the most important questions in this psalm is Who is speaking? We know who is being addressed: God. But is the psalmist speaking as a person who has been especially chosen by God, such as David or Jeremiah who have a special task appointed to them from God? Is the psalmist speaking for all who are of God’s people? Is the psalmist speaking of all humanity? Or is the psalmist speaking of all creation, because God has knowledge and care for us all? The psalm does not answer that question. What we need to understand is that the psalmist is expressing a feeling of the care and attention of God on his person, and often we feel that way as well. Jesus said that God gives his care and attention to all animals, but especially to those who are chosen by God (Matthew 6:26). So we can use this psalm to express our feelings of God’s love for us as well.
Yahweh you have examined me and know me
You know my sitting and my rising.
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down.
You are familiar with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue
But that You, Yahweh, know it fully.
From rear to front you hemmed me in
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too lofty for me,
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
God understands the psalmist fully and completely. There is nothing about us that God does not understand and focus on. Every word, every direction of life, every thought—God is there and is aware of it, before we are. In a sense, God’s love is smothering—we can’t get away from it to get a little breathing room. But it doesn’t matter because if we lost the love of God, we would be like an infant without her mother—completely lost and at bay.
Where can I go from Your spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I soar to the heaven, You are there,
Should I bed down in Sheol, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn
If I come to dwell in the remotest part of the sea
Even there Your hand will lead me
And your right hand takes hold of me.
If I say, “The darkness will envelope me
And the night will be light for me.”
Even the darkness is not dark to You
And the night is as bright as day
The darkness is as the light.
Perhaps the psalmist was feeling smothered, because he talks about the attempt to run and hide from God. We might all want to do this, especially when we are doing something displeasing to Him. We might try to run from God, go where God cannot be. The problem with this is that we cannot. God is wherever we would choose to hide from Him. Sometimes we might think that we have hidden from God, like a rhino who thinks that if he can’t see someone that the one can’t see it. Of course, we can’t hide from God, no matter how much we would like to. God is always there, always watching, always caring, despite the fact that we may not want Him to.
For it was you who formed my inner being
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I give thanks to you,
For I am fearfully and wonderfully made
Your deeds are amazing,
And my soul knows this well.
My bones were not concealed from You
When I was shaped unseen
Knitted together in the nethermost parts of the earth
Your eyes beheld my unformed limbs
They were all written in your book
The full number of days in which they were formed
When as yet there was not one of them.
God created every part of us. We might not like all of our parts or understand why God gave us one part over another. But the fact is, God made us for a reason. We may not like the reason He made us the way He did. We may prefer that He made us in a different way, for a different purpose. But God made us who we are because He cares for us. He pours loving attention on us, from the womb.
How precious are Your thoughts O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they outnumber the sand.
I am preoccupied with them, even to my arising.
This passage summarizes the whole intention of the psalmist. God thinks about us so much because He loves us. He is like a new lover who is obsessed with thinking of his love. God is like a father who can’t stop thinking about his infant child. He can’t stop thinking about us. And these thoughts display His care, His love for us.
If you would only slay the wicked, O God!
And you men of bloodshed, away from me!
You who speak to deceive
Your enemies pervert You to blasphemy
Surely those who hate you, Yahweh, I hate
And with those who rise up against you, I contend.
I hate them with a full hatred
For me they have become enemies.
Then the psalmist gets to his point. “So, God, if you really care about me so much, why do you let me suffer so much? I’ve got bad guys here and they want to kill me. Why doesn’t God take care of them?” These enemies are not just enemies of the psalmist, but enemies of God. The psalmist stands up for God, because of His care for him.
Search me, O God and know my heart
Try me and know my thoughts
And see if I have any grievous way
And lead me in the everlasting way.
Yet the psalmist perhaps realizes that his thoughts against his enemies are unworthy. He recognizes that he is human as well and so has at times failed God. So the psalmist begs God to not only know him, but to test his thoughts. “God, look in my head and see if there is anything opposed to you in there.” And the final prayer is asking God to change the thoughts from evil to God’s way.
Psalm 131-- Lean On Me
A song of Ascents. Davidic.
Yahweh, my heart is not proud
Nor my eyes haughty.
And I do not involve myself in ambitious matters
Or things too amazing for me.
I have determined to become serene
And quieted my soul
As a child weaned of its mother
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
O Israel, hope in Yahweh
From this time and forever
More and More and More and More and…As human beings we are never satisfied. What we have is never enough. It must be something in the human psyche that insists that we aren’t satisfied, we don’t yet have what we need. We just need a little more. A little more justice, a little more peace, a little more stuff, a little more respect, a little more food, a little more love, a little more authority, a little more wealth. We say we need this because we figure we will be satisfied if we get just a little more. But we never are. Every time we get a little more, we always are looking for the next little more.
Screw ups
But when we get a little more, then, more often than not, we screw up what we get. If we get a little more money, we use it on our greed or addiction. If we get a little more stuff, it just clutters up our living space. If we get a little more authority, we abuse it and hurt others. If we get a little more respect, we assume that we deserved it to begin with and so disrespect those who don’t give it to us. It isn’t because we want to screw things up. It just happens that way.
This psalm is a commitment to stop the cycle of get, screw it up, so get more only to screw it up again. This psalm says, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I chose to be content with what I have.” This psalm isn’t a sermon, nor is it a claim that everyone should be like this. It is a simple prayer for simplicity.
Climbing The Ladder
The psalmist prays against pride. Pride, in the ancient world, wasn’t so much an attitude of being more important than one is, but it was a striving for a higher position than what one has. Pride could be seeking to be wealthy, or seeking to be powerful or seeking to be more famous than one is. This does not mean that one could not receive from others more wealth or power—one could be humble and obtain wealth or power from another source, as long as one was not seeking for oneself. Pride is the grasping of power or wealth on one’s own, whether one deserves it or not.
The psalmist is separating himself from pride, from grasping, from personal ambition. He is determining that he will not seek more. He sees his own weakness, and how the world is full of things that he cannot grasp, cannot control. So he will let God control things and he will not try to take the reigns himself.
Peace of Mind
Instead, he devotes himself to quietness and humility. This is not the same as being silent. One may be boldly speaking justice, yet be quiet in one’s soul. This is a picture of contentment, of repose. It does not depend on one’s circumstances. One of the best examples of humility is Joseph. He was sold into slavery, thrown into jail, yet in all things he trusted that God was leading him. In the end, Joseph ended up being the ruler of Egypt and the savior of the world at that time. But he did nothing to achieve that position. Rather, he remained quiet and faithful to God.
Daddy!
The psalmist uses the image of a child trusting in his parent. This is not an infant, nor is it a grade school child. Rather it is a preschooler, a child who can walk and do things, but is still completely dependent on her parent. This is the kind of life the psalmist seeks. A life of dependence, of reliance on God’s power. God is the one who has great power, and will meet the needs of those under his care.
Life of A Nation
Finally, the psalmist calls out to all the people of God, all the people in His kingdom. He says that a life of humility and trust is the kind of attitude we should all have. This is the lifestyle of eternity, this is the life which all of God’s people will be dependent on, forever. So we might as well practice it now!
“Now you’re climbing to the top of the company ladder
Hope it doesn’t take too long
Don’t you see they’ll come a day when it doesn’t matter
See a day when you’ll be gone?
I understand about indecision
But I don’t care if I get behind
People living in competition
All I want is to have my peace of mind”
Yahweh, my heart is not proud
Nor my eyes haughty.
And I do not involve myself in ambitious matters
Or things too amazing for me.
I have determined to become serene
And quieted my soul
As a child weaned of its mother
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
O Israel, hope in Yahweh
From this time and forever
More and More and More and More and…As human beings we are never satisfied. What we have is never enough. It must be something in the human psyche that insists that we aren’t satisfied, we don’t yet have what we need. We just need a little more. A little more justice, a little more peace, a little more stuff, a little more respect, a little more food, a little more love, a little more authority, a little more wealth. We say we need this because we figure we will be satisfied if we get just a little more. But we never are. Every time we get a little more, we always are looking for the next little more.
Screw ups
But when we get a little more, then, more often than not, we screw up what we get. If we get a little more money, we use it on our greed or addiction. If we get a little more stuff, it just clutters up our living space. If we get a little more authority, we abuse it and hurt others. If we get a little more respect, we assume that we deserved it to begin with and so disrespect those who don’t give it to us. It isn’t because we want to screw things up. It just happens that way.
This psalm is a commitment to stop the cycle of get, screw it up, so get more only to screw it up again. This psalm says, “Okay, I’ve had enough. I chose to be content with what I have.” This psalm isn’t a sermon, nor is it a claim that everyone should be like this. It is a simple prayer for simplicity.
Climbing The Ladder
The psalmist prays against pride. Pride, in the ancient world, wasn’t so much an attitude of being more important than one is, but it was a striving for a higher position than what one has. Pride could be seeking to be wealthy, or seeking to be powerful or seeking to be more famous than one is. This does not mean that one could not receive from others more wealth or power—one could be humble and obtain wealth or power from another source, as long as one was not seeking for oneself. Pride is the grasping of power or wealth on one’s own, whether one deserves it or not.
The psalmist is separating himself from pride, from grasping, from personal ambition. He is determining that he will not seek more. He sees his own weakness, and how the world is full of things that he cannot grasp, cannot control. So he will let God control things and he will not try to take the reigns himself.
Peace of Mind
Instead, he devotes himself to quietness and humility. This is not the same as being silent. One may be boldly speaking justice, yet be quiet in one’s soul. This is a picture of contentment, of repose. It does not depend on one’s circumstances. One of the best examples of humility is Joseph. He was sold into slavery, thrown into jail, yet in all things he trusted that God was leading him. In the end, Joseph ended up being the ruler of Egypt and the savior of the world at that time. But he did nothing to achieve that position. Rather, he remained quiet and faithful to God.
Daddy!
The psalmist uses the image of a child trusting in his parent. This is not an infant, nor is it a grade school child. Rather it is a preschooler, a child who can walk and do things, but is still completely dependent on her parent. This is the kind of life the psalmist seeks. A life of dependence, of reliance on God’s power. God is the one who has great power, and will meet the needs of those under his care.
Life of A Nation
Finally, the psalmist calls out to all the people of God, all the people in His kingdom. He says that a life of humility and trust is the kind of attitude we should all have. This is the lifestyle of eternity, this is the life which all of God’s people will be dependent on, forever. So we might as well practice it now!
“Now you’re climbing to the top of the company ladder
Hope it doesn’t take too long
Don’t you see they’ll come a day when it doesn’t matter
See a day when you’ll be gone?
I understand about indecision
But I don’t care if I get behind
People living in competition
All I want is to have my peace of mind”
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