Book Write-Up: Discovering Delight, by Glenda Mathes

Glenda Mathes.  Discovering Delight: 31 Meditations on Loving God’s Law.  Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014.

In Discovering Delight, Glenda Mathes offers spiritual insights, using as her starting point verses from the Book of Psalms, particularly Psalm 119.  Occasionally, Mathes draws from Reformed Confessions.  As the book’s title indicates, it has thirty-one meditations.

The positive to this book is that, overall, it has good insights.  These insights include the importance of giving one’s problems to God rather than retaliating, how problems can be an opportunity to draw closer to God, and how one should use one’s talents for God’s glory rather than to make a name for oneself.  I found these insights to be edifying.  At times, Mathes raises a profound question, such as how impatience can be appropriate and inappropriate.  There are also times when she acknowledges her own flaws and how love for God’s word is not necessarily automatic but needs to be cultivated.

The book would have benefited, in my opinion, from more anecdotes, which would have allowed Mathes to show the reader what she was talking about, not just tell.  I appreciated her story about how the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” was a reaction against Arminianism, but I would have liked to have seen more anecdotes, perhaps even some personal ones.  That would have made the book more interesting and given it a greater personal dimension.  Moreover, since the title of the book says that it is about loving God’s law, it would have been nice had Mathes shown us what meditating on God’s law is like—-by picking laws from the Torah and showing how they illustrate God’s character, for example.

The book could have been better, but I still felt in reading the book that I was sitting at the feet of a wise teacher, one with a deep love for God.

I received this book from the publisher through Cross Focused Reviews in exchange for an honest review.

Ramblings on Anonymity, Being Alone with God, and Forgiveness

Sirach 16:17 states (in the NRSV): “Do not say, “I am hidden from the Lord, and who from on high has me in mind? Among so many people I am unknown, for what am I in a boundless creation?”

The point of this passage, of course, is that sinners should not think that God does not notice their sins and will not punish them.  But the passage stood out to me because it highlights how it is possible to feel lost in the big world—-to be anonymous.

Some people feel comforted that there is a God who notices them personally.  I think of the song, “His Eye Is On the Sparrow.”  But there are others who do not like such an idea: they feel that it invades their privacy, or they recoil from the prospect of being under someone’s judgmental eye all of the time.

Both ideas are in Scripture, in some sense.  Psalm 8 marvels that God notices man amidst the vast creation, and it goes on to talk about how God exalts and dignifies human beings.  On the other hand, Job, while he was suffering and thinking that God was afflicting him, was wondering why God pays so much attention to human beings (Job 7:17).  God is great and powerful, right?  Human beings are no threat to God, right?  Why, then, does Job have to be under God’s watchful eye, suffering affliction from God?

Anonymity itself can be a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, when we are anonymous, we don’t have to meet other people’s expectations.  On the other hand, when we are anonymous, we may feel lonely and unloved.

After I read Sirach 16:17, I was thinking about the concept of being alone with God.  I remembered a sermon that I heard years ago.  The pastor was referring to Max Weber’s study that showed that suicide was higher among Protestants than among Catholics.  The reason, Weber said, was that Catholics had a greater sense of community, whereas Protestants felt alone with God.  I would not say that Catholics have “community” in the manner that is pushed by evangelicals—-you have to have “intentional” community, socialize, and be vulnerable (sometimes, perhaps often, to judgmental people who may think that you don’t have the Spirit if you have certain issues).  But Catholics have a confessional where people can confess to a human being and receive absolution.  In the book that I recently read, The Sacred Year, Michael Yankoski talked about how he suggested to his Protestant pastors that they set up a confessional!

It would help me to be told by an authoritative human being that my sins are forgiven.  Trying to get that assurance in a setting where it is just me and God is difficult, especially since God in the Bible sets up so many conditions to receive forgiveness, and it is hard to know if I have truly met them: I need to forgive others, I need to repent (turn away from sin), etc.  It would be nice to go to a priest, confess my sin, and go back out feeling forgiven and trying to be good.

Of course, many have had problems with the Catholic system.  When forgiveness of sins is vested in a church, what happens when a church abuses that authority?  Consider the kings who got excommunicated by popes for not doing what the popes wanted.  Because human beings can be so judgmental, I can understand why some would like to make confession and forgiveness solely a matter of them and God: they figure that God will cut them more of a break.  And then there is the potential of abusing forgiveness.  You know of the stereotypical Catholic mafia boss, who kills others yet receives absolution because he confesses his sins to a priest.  Of course, Catholicism may say that it is not for that, that it promotes repentance and good works, and some Catholics may even say that it is Protestantism that gives people cheap grace—-the hope that they will go to heaven as long as they believe in Jesus, even if their lives are full of sin.

Anyway, those are some ramblings for today.

Book Write-Up: Songs of a Suffering King

J.V. Fesko.  Songs of a Suffering King: The Grand Christ Hymn of Psalms 1-8.  Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014.

J.V. Fesko is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and he is the academic dean at Westminster Seminary California, where he also teaches systematic theology.  In Songs of a Suffering King, Fesko maintains that Jesus Christ is the central figure in Psalms 1-8.

Fesko successfully demonstrates that the New Testament either treats a number of passages in the Psalms as Christ’s words, or applies passages in the Psalms to Christ’s work.  Consequently, Fesko holds that Psalm 1-8 concerns Christ’s faithful obedience to God the Father, Christ’s exaltation, and Christ’s suffering.

At the same time, Fesko believes that some of Psalms 1-8 concern David and his sufferings.  For one, Fesko claims that David was a type or a foreshadowing of Christ.  Second, Fesko thinks that David trusted in God’s promise of a coming Messiah and relied on God’s mercy rather than his own good works to receive God’s approval.

Putting the Psalms in the mouth of Jesus Christ and treating them as Jesus’ words can pose challenges.  What about the passages in which the Psalmist claims that he has sinned, something that Christian Christology says that Jesus did not do?  What about the passages in which the Psalmist appears to wish harm on his enemies?  Does that contradict the attitude of Jesus, who preached love for enemies and asked his Father to forgive those who were putting him to death?

On the other hand, treating the Psalms as the words of David can pose its own challenges to evangelical Christianity.  While Fesko depicts David as one who threw himself on the mercy of God and did not trust in his own inadequate righteousness to earn God’s approval, there are passages in which the Psalmist actually presents himself as righteous and thinks that God rewarded him for that (see Psalm 18:19-26).

I respect Fesko’s project because he is correct to note that the New Testament treats many words of the Psalms as the words of Christ.  I also respect Fesko for the times when he attempted to wrestle with hard questions, such as whether Christ would endorse the desire for retribution in the Psalms, or encourage believers to have that sort of attitude.  Even if some of Fesko’s solutions are a bit muddled, he offers decent practical insights (i.e., one should not pray against specific individuals but should hope for their repentance).

My main problem with Fesko’s book is that he applies some parts of Psalms 1-8 to David, and other parts to Jesus, and I think that is rather arbitrary.  If Fesko wanted to argue that Psalms 1-8 were originally about David but foreshadowed Christ, that would be one thing.  But, even though he goes that route, on some level, he seems to apply some things to David rather than to Christ.  My guess is that this is because he believes that some parts of Psalms 1-8 cannot apply to Christ: Why would Christ need to throw himself on God’s mercy, for example, when Christ has never sinned?  In my opinion, Fesko should have been more explicit in laying out a methodology of what he was applying to David alone, and what he was applying to Christ.

I received this book from the publisher through Cross Focused Reviews in exchange for an honest review.

Church Picnic Reflections

My church had its annual picnic this morning!  There was some rain, but we were under a roof, and we still did the water-balloon toss.  And, as happened last year, my water balloon broke, even though I caught it!  Last year, it just unravelled, squirting in mid-air.  This year, it burst in my hands when I caught it.

The sermon was good.  The pastor was envisioning David, watching sheep alone and having time to think, contemplating the design of himself and the world around him.  I can identify with that, even though I believe in evolution.  The world is wonderful, however it came to be as it is.  Yet, there are evolutionists who point to things in nature that do not work that well.  Evolution can lead to a design that is good, yet flawed.

We were reading Psalm 139.  The Vacation Bible School this coming week will be focusing on Psalm 139.  Psalm 139 has beautiful verses about God’s omnipresence and creation of each and every one of us.  The Psalmist calls himself fearfully and wonderfully made!  Yet, vv 19-22 have things about God destroying the wicked and the Psalmist’s hatred of God’s enemies.  I doubt these verses will be mentioned in Vacation Bible School!  I remember being in a Bible study group, and we read Psalm 139.  Someone in the group noted that the Psalmist says that he hates God’s enemies with perfect hatred.  His hatred was perfect.  Was it?  Well, Jesus talks about the importance of loving our enemies.  Still, I can identify with the Psalmist’s sentiment that murderers were disturbing his own peace and the peace of the people, and his desire for God to stop that.

I one time attended a liberal Seventh-Day Adventist church.  We would do a liturgy, and the liturgy would quote a Bible passage while omitting the violent parts.  For some reason, one reader would intentionally read aloud those omitted verses as part of the liturgy!  Why, I do not know.  He himself was rather liberal.  Maybe he wanted us just to be real about what the Bible said, rather than putting the Bible into some soothing package.

Still, maybe it is not that bad that kids next week at the Vacation Bible School will be focusing on the soothing, positive aspects of Psalm 139.  These parts reinforce attitudes that can encourage them not to be like the wicked whom Psalm 139 criticizes!

Book Write-Up: The Psalms

Andrew J. Schmutzer and David M. Howard, Jr., ed.  The Psalms: Language for All Seasons of the Soul.  Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2013.

I would like to thank Moody Publishers for sending me a review copy of this book.  See here for Moody’s page about it.

This book contains essays by evangelical scholars and pastors.  The contributors include Bruce K. Waltke, Willem A. VanGemeren, C. Hassell Bullock, Francis X. Kimmitt, Robert B. Chisholm Jr., Andrew J. Schmutzer, Michael E. Travers, Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Allen P. Ross, Daniel J. Estes, Randall X. Gauthier, Robert L. Cole, David M. Howard Jr., Michael K. Snearly, Tremper Longman III, Mark D. Futato, Daniel A. Ridder, and John Piper.

Some of the essays made points that I have heard or read over and over again in discussions about the Psalms.   Another essay, which compared the Masoretic and LXX for Psalm 54, made interesting points but was very technical and could have done a better job in summarizing the differences between the two versions of the Psalm.  A few of the essays are valuable to me in that they summarized scholarship about the Psalms, such as different opinions about the Psalms’ settings, parallelism, and interpreting the Psalms canonically.  Some essays in the book appeared to accept the Davidic authorship of a number of Psalms, whereas at least one essay seemed to posit that a Psalm was later attributed to Moses but was not actually by him.

There were essays in the book that I really enjoyed.  My particular favorites were Robert Cole’s essay about the connections between Psalm 1 and Psalm 2, as well as David Ridder’s speculation that the Psalmist in Psalm 84 was especially longing to worship God in Jerusalem because the Assyrians were inhibiting him from traveling there.  Tremper Longman III’s defense of Contemporary Christian music also resonated with me: “Not every song has to teach profound theology; sometimes it is best to simply express adoration” (page 223).

Psalm 150

Well, this is my last post about the Book of Psalms for my weekly quiet time!  My first post of this series was published (on my blog, of course) on December 4, 2010.  That means that I have been doing weekly posts on the Book of Psalms for over three years.  Time went by fast!  Near the end of this post, I will talk about what I have learned, overall, but, first of all, I want to mention some items from my study of Psalm 150.  Interestingly, the items do not concern Psalm 150 so much, but rather points that intrigued me as I was reading interpretations of Psalm 150.

For one, there was an article by Anthony Ceresko: “Endings and beginnings: alphabetic thinking and the shaping of Psalms 106 and 150.”  It appeared in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly 68/1 January 2006, pages 32-46.  In a footnote, Ceresko quotes from page 598 of Norman Gottwald’s The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel.  Gottwald was contending that ancient Israel’s reliance on the alphabet was consistent with its more democratic set-up.  Gottwald states that “The older hieroglyphic and syllabic scripts with their complex burden on the memory were well suited to imperial-feudal monopoly, whereas the alphabetic script contributed to a democratization of language and thus to the celebration of a people and its deity in a new social system.”  This is an intriguing proposal.  I have some difficulty accepting it, since the Canaanite city-states which Israelite peasants supposedly revolted against or left also used an alphabetic script, and my understanding is that they were not exactly democratic or egalitarian.  But it is still intriguing.  Admittedly, the alphabet was probably easier to remember than the hieroglyphic and syllabic scripts, and that could be why it was invented: so that people outside of the elites of the elites, such as traders, could have access to written language.

Second, there was a comment by Cyril of Jerusalem, which I read in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, the one about Psalms 51-150.  Essentially, Cyril was responding to a question: How can we even talk about God, if God is incomprehensible?  Cyril’s response is that we cannot drink down an entire stream, yet we can still drink what we need.  Our eyes cannot take in all of the sunlight, but sunlight can still benefit us.  Of course we will fall short of a perfect understanding of God when we worship, but that does not mean that we should not worship.  Cyril quotes Psalm 150, which exhorts all that has breath to praise the Lord.  I would not say that Cyril answers the question adequately, but he does mention things that are worth thinking about.  I would say that we do have enough understanding of God to worship, even if our understanding falls short, due both to the greatness of God, and also our subjectivity in conceptualizing God.

Now, for what I learned about Psalms.  What particularly interested me was the different settings that interpreters have ascribed to the Psalms.  In my younger years, I would interpret the Psalms in reference to David, as if David were the author.  In some of my graduate school years, I interpreted many of them in light of the annual creation-and-renewal festival, in which God defeated chaos and renewed the cosmos, a la Mowinckel.  These past three years, however, I have learned about different views: views that regarded certain Psalms as eschatological, views that dated them to the time of the Maccabees, views that related them to David’s life, views that said certain Psalms concerned Hezekiah’s time, views that dated certain Psalms to the exile or post-exilic periods, and views that sought to apply them to Christ, while employing creative interpretations when that did not appear to work.  A question that I have long had is why there is so much in the Psalms about oppressors, or enemies conspiring against the Psalmist.  Who would write a piece about this?  Who would have the power to do so?  What purpose would such a piece serve?  Well, I encountered a variety of scenarios: such Psalms were about David on the run from Saul or Absalom, Israel suffering under foreign oppressors, some king trying to deal with palace intrigue, a bloke with complaints coming to the Temple to pray, or Christ.

I have said this more than once, but I will say it again: I was not expecting to enjoy my study of the Psalms as much as I did.  I long regarded the Psalms as rather boring, as the same praises or complaints repeated over and over.  I do not want to minimize the euphoria or the harsh conditions that stimulated the creation of many of the Psalms, but I thought that I would get bored reading the Book, and that I would not find much to write about the Psalms.  But I turned out to be wrong.  The vast majority of Psalms had something interesting, largely because there is disagreement or ambiguity about what some of the verses mean.

One thing that I did not do in my study was to address the story that all of the Psalms as a whole try to communicate.  I focused on each individual Psalm, rather than what all of them may say when one considers them all together, in terms of their order, for example.  I am not beating myself up over this, but I am just noting it as one deficiency in my study.  There are people who have sought to explain the order: E.W. Bullinger did so in light of the Pentateuch, Bob MacDonald sees a story throughout the Psalms, and some argue that there is an overall Messianic pattern in the Psalms’ arrangement: that the Psalms are arranged so as to communicate Israel’s desire for a Messiah.  This may be something for me to probe in years to come.

The next book that I will study for my weekly quiet time is I Chronicles.  I chose this book largely for practical reasons.  I already have the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture for this book, which is convenient.  The Word Bible Commentary for I Chronicles was inexpensive.  So I Chronicles it is!

Psalm 149

In this blog post about Psalm 149, I will post the entire Psalm in the King James Version (which is in the public domain), then I will comment on select verses.

1 Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints.
2 Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
3 Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.
4 For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.

It is interesting that God’s people are called “meek” here, considering the aggressive warfare that they wage in vv 6-8.  Perhaps they are meek in that they rely on God, or because they are oppressed people who are merely rising up against their oppressors.

5 Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.

Why do they sing aloud on their beds?  One proposal is that they sing on their beds because they can finally relax, since they no longer have to worry about being attacked by enemies.  Maybe there is something to that, but I am not entirely convinced.  Shouldn’t they be relaxing after their enemies have been defeated?  But vv 6-9 seem to indicate that God’s people are still in the process of waging war against their enemies, or have yet to do so.  Why would they relax on their beds, if they have not even won yet?  Perhaps I should not regard this Psalm as rigidly chronological, however.

Another proposal is that the saints sing on their beds because, within the Psalms, the time of rest at night is “a time of intensified spiritual activity and receptivity.”  I quote here from Thijs Booij’s “Psalm 149, 5: ‘they should for joy on their couches,’” which appeared in Biblica 89 no. 1 2008.  Booij states that “the faithful in their beds are to punish the nations”, which intrigues me.  Is Booij saying that the warfare that God’s people wage is spiritual rather than physical: that God’s people are defeating their enemies, not by literally going out with a literal sword and waging literal warfare, but rather by praying to God?  Is the sword in v 6 spiritual rather than physical and literal?

6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand;
7 To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;
8 To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;

Maybe the warfare that God’s people wage in Psalm 149 is spiritual, but I can still think of reasons to view the warfare as physical and literal.  There are places in the Hebrew Bible in which God’s people actually participate in the restoration of Israel by fighting their enemies: see Zechariah 12:8 and Micah 5.  Perhaps Psalm 149 is reflecting that sort of tradition.

The United Church of God’s commentary on Psalm 149 attempts to apply Psalm 149 to Christians at Christ’s Second Coming:

“Of course, the Church in this age is not to take up arms and fight, because Christ’s Kingdom for which we wait is not of this world (see John 18:36). Yet when Jesus returns to set His Kingdom up on this earth, His saints, then glorified in divine power, will fight alongside Him-as this psalm makes clear. Indeed, as the patriarch Enoch prophesied, ‘The Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all’ (Jude 14-15). The two-edged sword here (Psalm 149:6) would seem to parallel the book of Revelation’s figurative portrayal of a sharp sword coming out of Christ’s mouth at His return (Revelation 19:15; compare 1:16; Isaiah 11:4-5; 49:2). And the imagery of a two-edged sword is used to represent the Word of God (compare Hebrews 4:12-13).”

Is there a tension here between understanding the sword as literal, or as spiritual?  Is the sword a literal object that Christ and the saints use to slaughter the enemies of God, or is the sword rather symbolic for the word of God?  There are interpreters of the Book of Revelation who do not take all of its bloody material literally, but rather contend that Revelation is about the saints of God overcoming through spiritual means: meek suffering, staying faithful to their testimony to Jesus, praying, etc.  I am open to that interpretation, but I have a hard time saying that Revelation is not about God’s literal wrath on the wicked, a theme that appears so often in the Bible.  Moreover, the word of God that Jesus’ sword represents may be consistent with God’s literal wrath: the word could concern God’s wrath, or God is judging the wicked for transgressing God’s righteous word, and so, in that sense, the word is smiting them.

9 To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.

Where is this judgment written?  Leslie Allen states in his Word Commentary: “It may be a reference to the Holy War traditions fixed in writing, such as those which enjoined the destruction of the nations of Canaan (e.g., Deut 7:1-2; A. Weiser, Psalms 840) and/or to prophetic passages which promised eschatological victory (e.g., Isa 24:21-22; 45:14; Joel 4 (3):9-16, 19-21); or it may refer to decrees written in God’s heavenly records for past offenses against his people (cf. Dan 7:10; Anderson, Psalms, 954).  J. Schreiner has suggested a reference to an old victory Psalm (Sion-Jerusalem, 208).”

Psalm 148

In Psalm 148, the Psalmist exhorts the angels and various sorts of creatures and phenomena of nature to praise the LORD.  Leslie Allen states that nature is summoned to praise the LORD because “God’s people need helpers, as it were, in their own praise” as they attempt to match God’s work, status, and majesty.  Perhaps Israel is so glad about who God is and what God has done for her, that she sees a need to marshal the assistance of creation to mount a praise of God that does God justice, or that adequately expresses her worship.  Imagine feeling that way about God!

Allen mentions another view, that of D.R. Hillers, that Psalm 148 is echoing a tradition about the deified state of parts of the creation: that gods are praising the LORD, as gods praise a particular god in Egyptian and Mesopotamian hymns.  That brings me to another point, that of W.O.E. Oesterley.  Oesterley notes v 7, which exhorts the dragons and the deeps to praise the LORD.  These often embodied evil in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East.  Is evil being called upon to praise the LORD?  Oesterley mentions the elimination of evil, but does this elimination occur because evil becomes transformed into good as it praises God? 

Is this praise joyful and willing, or begrudging and unwilling?  The hymn in Philippians 2 talks about every knee bowing down and every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord.  There are universalists who have appealed to this passage to argue that everyone will one day be saved.  Traditionalists, who believe that non-Christians will burn in hell, do not accept this: some of them may believe that the confession by the wicked is begrudging, reluctant, or perhaps even forced, but I have heard some traditionalists who have contended that the worship indeed is sincere, on some level: the unsaved will recognize the glory of Jesus Christ, but it will be too late for them to be saved.

I thought of Colossians 1:20, which states that God through Christ is pleased to reconcile all things—-in both earth and heaven.  Imagine that.  Is that saying that Christ’s work was not just for human beings on earth, but also for heavenly or spiritual beings, or perhaps also nature itself?  The natural phenomena that are called upon to praise the LORD in Psalm 148.  The “gods.”  Even the forces of evil.  What a vision!

Psalm 147

I have three items for my blog post today about Psalm 147.

1.  I liked John MacArthur’s comment in his MacArthur Study Bible: “This seems to be a post-Exilic psalm (cf. 147:2, 3) which might have been used to celebrate the rebuilt walls of Jerusalem (cf. Ps. 147:2, 13; Neh. 12:27, 43).  The hard questions that God posed to Job (Job 38-41) and Israel (Is. 40), the psalmist here turns into declarations worthy of praise.”

I appreciate MacArthur’s statement that there is intertextual activity going on here: that Psalm 147 is using elements of God’s speeches to Job and to exilic Israel to praise God, to convey the message that the God who is powerful yet kind in relationship to nature has intervened for the benefit of Israel.  I’ve long found God’s speeches to Job to be like cold water splashed on Job while he was suffering: not particularly comforting, I thought!  But Psalm 147 may be using them for the purpose of praise, if what MacArthur says is correct.

2.  In my reading of Augustine’s comments on Psalm 147, I saw Augustine refer to a Scriptural passage that is not in our Bible.  The passage states (and I am using J.E. Tweed’s translation here), “Let alms sweat in your hand, till you find a righteous man to whom to give it.”  Augustine calls this Scripture.  Didache 1:23 also quotes it.  I could not find it in my Bible, and, when I checked scholarly notes to Augustine’s comments, I found that others could not, either.  I may have found a similar concept in Tobit 4:7—-the concept of giving alms to the righteous—-but there was nothing there about alms sweating in one’s hands, plus there may be ambiguity about the clause with which “and to all doing righteousness” goes.

3.  Psalm 147:10b states that God is not pleased with the legs of man, which probably means that God is not impressed by human power or skill in warfare.  The Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Masoretic Text all understand Psalm 147:10b to be about God not being pleased with men’s legs.  Augustine, however, thinks that the verse is saying something else: that God will not be pleased with the tabernacles of men, which Augustine interprets as the tabernacles of worship that heretics establish.  The Greek word for “legs” in the LXX of Psalm 147:10b is knemais, and the Greek word for “tent” is skene.  The two words have similar letters, even though the words are quite different.  Perhaps Augustine was working with a manuscript that had mixed the letters up.

Psalm 146

Psalm 146:3-4 exhorts people not to put their trust in princes and men, and it then goes on to say that men die and their thoughts perish with them.  Later, in vv 7-9, we read that God judges for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, releases prisoners, opens blind eyes, takes care of strangers, and relieves orphans and widows.

I can imagine one appealing to this Psalm to argue that we shouldn’t look to the government to help the poor or to ameliorate social problems, for God will take care of the poor, if they trust in him.  We don’t need Obamacare, one may argue: those with health problems should trust in God alone to provide for their needs!
I cannot ignore that vv 3-4 exhort people not to trust in princes and human beings.  A variety of historical contexts have been proposed to explain this passage.  One view is that the verses reflect disappointment in the pre-exilic Judean monarchy’s failure to live up to its mandate of justice (Jeremiah 22:3).

Could vv 3-4 reflect a post-exilic setting, however?  Not only have scholars observed post-exilic Hebrew in Psalm 146, but the Septuagint locates the Psalm in the time of Haggai and Zechariah.  There were plenty of times in Israel’s post-exilic history when she would have become disappointed in rulers: a Persian king would be favorable to the post-exilic Jews, then a later Persian king would come along who would be unfavorable (Ezra 4).   There were post-exilic Jews who had high hopes about the Jewish leader Zerubbabel, but he passed from the scene.  Psalm 146:4 notes that human beings perish, perhaps as an argument for why we should not place our trust in them, but in the eternal creator God instead: a ruler may be good, but that ruler will not live forever.

I do not believe that people should check out of supporting just policies and rulers, however, for there is a lot in the Bible about societal justice and people taking concrete action to help the poor.

Psalm 145

Psalm 145 is an acrostic Psalm, which means that it is arranged alphabetically, according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

The Masoretic Text for Psalm 145 does not have a verse that begins with the Hebrew letter nun, however.  The Septuagint of Psalm 145 has what may have been the nun-verse that would later drop out.  It states: “The LORD is faithful in his words, and holy in all his works” (Brenton’s translation).  According to Leslie Allen, this also appears in the Syriac and 11QPs-a (which has “Elohim” for God rather than “YHVH”), and E.W. Bullinger states that it is present in the Arabic, the Ethiopic, the Vulgate, and a Hebrew codex.  Meanwhile, the Targum, apparently following what would become the MT, lacks the nun-verse.

There is discussion within rabbinic literature about why the nun-verse is absent from Psalm 145.  I learned about this from Chaim Pearl’s “The Theology of Psalm 145: Part II,” which appeared in the Winter 1991-1992 Jewish Bible Quarterly.  This discussion is in Babylonian Talmud Berachot 4b.  A reason that was advanced for why there was no nun-verse in Psalm 145 was that Psalm 145 is a positive Psalm, so it was deliberately omitting Amos 5:2, which starts with a nun.  Amos 5:2 conveys a message of apparent hopelessness: “The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up” (KJV).  The verse starts with the Hebrew word naphelah, “she fell.”

According to Pearl, an epilogue to the Talmudic discussion stated that David included v 14 to compensate for the absence of the nun-verse.  Psalm 145:14 affirms: “The LORD upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down” (KJV).  Psalm 145:14 contains the word n-ph-l (“fall”), yet, whereas Amos 5:2 paints a picture of Israel falling and neither getting up nor having someone to lift her up, Psalm 145:14 says that God supports those who fall, and raises up the bowed down.

How could the rabbis have repudiated Amos 5:2, which was God’s word?  Did they believe that God had changed his mind about permanently casting down Israel?  Did they see Amos 5:2 as hyperbole, yet they believed that David was excluding it from Psalm 145 to avoid giving the impression that Israel’s downfall was permanent, and to avoid spoiling the positive, upbeat Psalm of praise that is Psalm 145?

Psalm 144

In Psalm 144, there are two parts.  Vv 1-11 concern deliverance from battle, and v 10 affirms that God “giveth salvation unto kings: who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword” (KJV).  Vv 12-15 are about prosperity.

There has been scholarly speculation that these two sections were originally separate Psalms, and that they were later combined into one.  Maybe that’s true.  It does appear that vv 1-11 are about one topic, whereas vv 12-15 are about another topic.  And yet, I do believe that the theme of prosperity is connected with the theme of deliverance from foreign enemies in Psalm 144, for, when God delivers Israel from her foreign enemies, that allows her to have the space to have prosperity.  She is no longer busy fighting wars, and she does not have to worry about foreign oppressors taking the fruit of her labor. 

I read Shalom E. Holtz’s “The thematic unity of Psalm cxliv in light of Mesopotamian royal ideology,” which was in Vetus Testamentum 58 no. 3 (2008).  Holtz notes that, in Mesopotamian texts, the king is the warrior and also the provider, but these themes are usually in “unified compositions” rather than two separate sections, as is the case in Psalm 144.  Holtz speculates that an Israelite Psalmist who was familiar with ancient Near Eastern conventions may have joined together two Psalms—-one about victory in battle, and one about prosperity—-to convey the message that the king of Israel, like Mesopotamian kings, was both warrior and provider.

But there is a problem.  Holtz and others have stated that Psalm 144 has Late Biblical Hebrew.  For example, we see in Psalm 144 the particle sh- and the word zan, which are characteristic of Late Biblical Hebrew.  The post-exilic period, which is when Late Biblical Hebrew was prominent, did not have a Davidic monarch.  How would a Psalm about a king bringing Israel victory in battle and prosperity be relevant in this time?  Holtz presents some ideas: that the Psalm was originally pre-exilic and was updated in post-exilic times to reflect Late Biblical Hebrew and to give a royal Psalm a more general relevance, or that Psalm 144 was pertinent to post-exilic times because there was hope that the House of David would be restored.  Leslie Allen says that we see in Psalm 144 a royal Psalm that was later used in post-exilic times to express post-exilic Israel’s dependance on God while surrounded by foreign countries.  Allen does not believe there is Messianism in Psalm 144, but that Psalm 144 reflects the sort of notion that is in Isaiah 55:3-5: that God’s promises to David now apply to the Israelite community as a whole.

I can see Allen’s point.  While v 10 does mention kings and David, that does not necessarily mean that Psalm 144 is pre-exilic, for it could just be referring to David as an example of one who received God’s deliverance, the message being that, just as God delivered David, so God will deliver us as we are beset by our enemies.

I’d like to note one more thing.  As I look at Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint (and the LXX itself), it seems that the Septuagint understands the prosperity section of Psalm 144 differently from how the Masoretic understands it.  The MT of v 12 appears to say that God will deliver Israel from the strange children, and that, as a result of that, Israel will have prosperity.  The LXX of v 12, however, seems to be saying that the strange children are the ones with the prosperity.  Brenton translates the LXX of v 15 to say: “Men bless the people to whom this lot belongs, but blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.”  The message of the LXX for Psalm 144 may be that, while Israel’s enemies are currently prosperous and receive acclaim on account of that, the truly blessed ones are those who have the LORD as their God, the community of Israel, whom God would deliver in battle.  The LXX applies Psalm 144 to the David and Goliath story; in that context, Psalm 144 would mean that the Philistines are prosperous and are afflicting Israel, but God would deliver Israel, and David’s defeat of Goliath would play a significant role in that salvation.

Psalm 143

I have two items for my blog post today about Psalm 143.

1.  I read an article by Richard B. Hays entitled “Psalm 143 and the Logic of Romans 3.”  It appeared in the March 1980 Journal of Biblical Literature.

Hays is talking in that article about a debate among scholars about the meaning of the “righteousness of God” in Romans.  Romans 3:21 states: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets” (KJV).  Romans 10:3 has, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (KJV). What is this righteousness of God in Romans?  Is it the righteousness that God imputes to the believer in Christ, or is it God’s own righteousness and faithfulness?

Hays notices that Psalm 143 and Romans 3 have a common theme, namely, the sinfulness of humanity.  Psalm 143:2 states, “And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (KJV).  Hays also notes that Psalm 143 mentions the righteousness of God.  V 1 affirms, “Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness” (KJV).  V 11 has, “Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble” (KJV).  Hays interprets the righteousness of God in Romans in light of Psalm 143: that God is righteous in that God is faithful to sinners.  God loves sinful human beings and is righteous in saving them.

I think that Hays is on to something, but I also believe that more is going on in Psalm 143.  Does the Psalmist in Psalm 143 want for God to be faithful to sinners?  Well, he desires for God to be faithful to him, and he acknowledges that he himself is a sinner.  But he also asks God to cut off his enemies, the ones who are afflicting him (v 12).  The Psalmist doesn’t want for God to be faithful to those particular sinners.

What is the difference between the Psalmist and those other sinners, since everyone sins?  I think that it is that the Psalmist in Psalm 143 thirsts for God and wants God to lead him into righteous paths.  Should Christians therefore desire for God to cut off the human beings who do not believe in God or desire God, or who are not particularly interested in conforming their lives to high moral standards (not that the two are the same, for there are plenty of moral atheists)?  I don’t think so.  In my opinion, there is something beautiful about the standard Christian truism that we should desire the redemption of everyone, wherever he or she may be spiritually.  But one has to remember the sorts of people whom the Psalmist is criticizing: they were afflicting him.  It is understandable that the Psalmist would want for God to deal with that problem.  Still, I tend to admire Jesus and Stephen even more: they prayed for their persecutors, asking God to show their enemies mercy.

2.  Psalm 143:3 states (in the KJV): “For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.”

What the KJV translates as “long dead” is mete olam.  The LXX has vekroos aionos.  Olam and aionos are words that are frequently discussed in debates about hell.  They can mean eternity, and those who believe in eternal torment in hell maintain that the aionion punishment in such passages as Matthew 25:46 means eternal punishment.  Universalists, however, point out that olam and aionos do not necessarily mean eternal, for they can mean age, or simply a very long time.

In light of that debate, it was interesting to read about the different interpretations of mete olam or nekroos aionos in Psalm 143:3.  You can see that the KJV translates the phrase as “long dead”; in that case, it interprets olam as a long time, not as eternity.  Augustine, who himself believed in eternal torment, likewise does not interpret aionos in reference to eternity in Psalm 143:3, for he believes that the phrase is about the dead of the world (aionos can mean world), the sinful dead (see here).  According to Augustine, Psalm 143:3 is saying that Jesus was treated like the dead of the world in that he was crucified and buried and went down to Hades, and yet Jesus was not like the dead of the world because he himself did not deserve death.  The Targum interprets mete olam to mean the dead of this age (I draw here from Edward Cook’s translation).

Keil-Delitzsch refer to biblical passages that may illuminate the mete olam of Psalm 143:3.  First, there is Ecclesiastes 12:5, which refers to the beyt olam (house of olam) to which the dead go, while mourners travel the market.  Olam there may mean eternity, since the dead could conceivably be in that house of the dead forever, whether Qoheleth believed that the dead went to the grave and stayed there forever (Ecclesiastes 3:19; 9:5), or rather that the dead went up to heaven (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

Second, there is Ezekiel 26:20, where God threatens to send Tyre to the pit, where it will be with the people of olam.  The verse later mentions a low land that is like waste from olam.  The KJV and other versions understand the am olam to mean people of long ago, and the waste from olam to be places long desolate.  Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint for Ezekiel 26:20, however, refers to “everlasting desolation.”  Most likely, in my opinion, olam in Ezekiel 26:20 means ancient, not eternity, and it concerns people of old who were once mighty and renowned.  But I wonder if there have been interpreters who have regarded the olam of Ezekiel 26:20 as a reference to an eternal sentence for the wicked: that the people of olam are called that because they have been sentenced to be dead and in the underworld for all eternity.

Third, there is Jeremiah 51:39, which states regarding Babylon: “In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD” (KJV).  There, the idea seems to be that death will be perpetual for Babylon.  We don’t see eternal torment here, but we do see an eternal death from which Babylon will not awake.  Is the Psalmist in Psalm 143:3 afraid that he is on the brink of becoming one who is dead forever, with no hope of escape?

Keil-Delitzsch say that Psalm 143:3 means that the Psalmist feels as if he has been buried forever.  That could be.

Psalm 142

For my post on Psalms this week, I will post Psalm 142 in the King James Version (which is in the public domain), then I will briefly comment.

1 Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave.  I cried unto the LORD with my voice; with my voice unto the LORD did I make my supplication.
2 I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.
3 When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.
4 I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
5 I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.
6 Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.
7 Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

This Psalm is about a person who is persecuted and lonely.  Some believe that he was actually in prison, although he was innocent, and that v 7 is about his literal release from prison.  V 7 is quite noteworthy, for it seems that the righteous people rally around the Psalmist after he is released from prison and God has dealt with him bountifully.  Were they reluctant to reach out to the Psalmist when they thought that he might be guilty?  Did they need to see God’s bounty on the Psalmist’s life to be convinced that he was innocent and favored by God, and thus deserved their favor?  If so, then that is pretty sad.

Some time ago, I watched an excellent episode of Bill Moyers’ show, Moyers and Company.  Bill Moyers was interviewing Michelle Alexander, an activist.  Michelle Alexander talks in the interview about how hard it is for released felons to get up off their feet: to find a place to live and a job that would help them, not only to support themselves and thus reduce the likelihood of their committing another offense, but also to pay off the fines that the system imposes upon them.  Bill Moyers found that odd, in light of America’s alleged devotion to the Christian principle of repentance and giving people another chance.  In my opinion, the righteous should care about those people, and I applaud the Christians and other righteous people who do so.

Click here to watch and to read this episode of Moyer’s program.

Psalm 141

There are a number of difficult passages in Psalm 141, but, in this post, I want to concentrate on v 5.  In the KJV, the verse reads: “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.”

“Let the righteous smite me.”  In the Hebrew, the word translated as “the righteous” is in the singular, and so there is one interpretation that says that the righteous one in Psalm 141:5 is God: that the Psalmist is receptive to God’s discipline and chastising of him.  Keil-Delitzsch refer to scholars who think this, but I’d like to quote Jimmy Swaggart’s words in his study Bible: “‘The Righteous’ could only refer to the Heavenly Father.  God does not allow fellow Christians to smite each other.  Vengeance belongs to Him, and no one else.  It is proper for the Lord to chastise us, but not proper for anyone else to do so…”

I don’t think that Psalm 141:5 means what Swaggart says it means.  As Keil-Delitzsch note, “righteous” is not used as a “direct appellation” for God in the Hebrew Bible, which means that God is not called “the righteous one” in the Hebrew Bible.  God is said to be righteous, but he is not called “the righteous one.”  (UPDATE: An exception may be Proverbs 21:12, which seems to concern God's punishment of the wicked.)  Often in the Book of Psalms, when we see the term “the righteous” in the singular, it refers to the righteous human being.  The message of Psalm 141:5 is probably that the Psalmist welcomes rebuke from righteous human beings, and we see that sort of theme elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (John MacArthur cites Proverbs 9:8; 19:25; 27:6; 27:17).

But I can understand why Swaggart might have preferred for the righteous one of Psalm 141:5 to be God rather than God’s people.  God’s people—-or those who call themselves such—-can be pretty nasty.  Swaggart probably felt that he had experienced this during his own scandals.  Whereas God’s people can put a person down without compassion or knowledge of all of the facts, God can be trusted to be a perfect disciplinarian because God is compassionate, knows the whole story, and is aware of what people need at particular stages in their journey.

But can God use rebuke from a righteous person?  I don’t rule that out; I just have a hard time putting a great deal of stock in the times that Christians have rebuked me, for I have felt that their rebukes have come from judgmentalism, narrow-mindedness, and incomplete knowledge of me and what I was going through.  That’s not to say that I found their rebukes to be totally off-base, for I can learn about how I am coming across from hearing people’s impressions.  But I have a hard time equating their judgments with God’s opinion, for I’d like to believe that God is more compassionate and fair than they are.

I should note that the Psalmist values rebuke from the righteous—-from those who do right.  Because humility is a virtue, one would hope that rebuke from a righteous person would correspond with genuine love and humility, rather than being a mere put-down that allows the person rebuking to feel superior.  I doubt that there is a whole lot of love and humility when Christians rebuke people they barely know on Facebook or in blogs.

Psalm 140

Psalm 140:11 states (in the King James Version): “Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth: evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.”

The Hebrew that the KJV is translating as “evil speaker” is ish lashon, which literally means “man of tongue.”

The Septuagint has aner glossodes, which Brenton translates as “a talkative man.”  On my BibleWorks, I found glossodes in two other places.  First, there is Sirach 9:18, which the NRSV translates to say: “The loud of mouth are feared in their city, and the one who is reckless in speech is hated.”  Second, there is Sirach 25:20, which says in the NRSV: “A sandy ascent for the feet of the aged– such is a garrulous wife to a quiet husband.”

And the Vulgate understands Psalm 140:11 to be about a man full of tongue.

E.W. Bullinger makes the point that the ish lashon in Psalm 140:11 is an “evil speaker” or a “slanderer”, not someone who is talkative.  Augustine, however, who is using the LXX, believes that the verse is criticizing a talkative person.  Augustine states: “‘A man full of words‘ loves lies. For what pleasure has he, save in speaking? He cares not what he speaks, so long as he speaks” (Tweed’s translation, see here). Augustine apparently believes that a talkative person is not very particular about what he says, and thus he is prone to lie.

In my notes, I speculated that the reason that the person in Psalm 140:11 is called a “man of tongue” may be that the man is skilled in speaking.  Psalm 140:3a states, after all, that the Psalmist’s enemies “have sharpened their tongues like a serpent.”  Sharpening, as in making more effective?  Throughout the book of Psalms, there are villains who are skilled in speaking, and they use their skill for evil purposes: to flatter, and to slander.  What can a person who is quiet or clumsy with words do around such people?  Well, the Psalmist proposes trusting in God!

Personally speaking, I don’t take every single statement in the Bible as an absolute principle.  I don’t believe that God condemns talkative people, any more than I believe that God condemns quiet, introverted people—-the types some evangelicals would accuse of not being “loving” enough.  But I do believe that I can learn some practical principles from Psalm 140:11 and its interpreters: the principle of being discrete with my speech; the principle of listening, rather than being quick to talk; and the principle of valuing authenticity, truth, and substance rather than skill in speech.

Psalm 139

Psalm 139:8 states: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there” (King James Version).

The Hebrew word that the KJV translates as “hell” is Sheol.  In the LXX, the word is Hades.
Matthew Henry offers an interpretation of Psalm 139:8 that refers to hell.  Henry states that God is in hell in God’s “power and justice”, and that “God’s wrath is the fire which will there burn everlastingly, Rev. 14:10.”  St. Augustine makes a similar point.

Here are some thoughts:

1.  Can hell be a place of separation from God, when God is actually there?  The only biblical reference I could think of that may depict hell as a place of separation from God is II Thessalonians 1:9, and there are two ways to understand that verse.  The New Revised Standard Version translates it as: “These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might”.  The King James Version, however, translates it as: “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power”.  The difference revolves around how to understand the Greek preposition apo in this verse.  As I can see in the Gingrich lexicon on my BibleWorks, apo can occur within the context of separation from, but it can also mean “from” in the sense of cause: something is coming from something else, or someone.  Does II Thessalonians 1:9 mean that the sinner is separated from God’s presence and the glory of God’s power, or rather that the everlasting destruction is coming from God’s presence and power?  Interestingly, Matthew Henry cites Revelation 14:10, and that affirms that the recipients of God’s wrath will be tormented in the Lamb’s presence. 

2.  Would interpreting Sheol in Psalm 139:8 as hell make sense within the context of Psalm 139?  According to Theodore Lewis’ article about the abode of the dead (entitled “Dead, Abode of the”) in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, there is scholarly debate about whether Sheol is the realm of all of the dead, or rather the realm of the wicked dead or those who die prematurely.  On the one hand, there is a statement in the Hebrew Bible that connects Jacob with Sheol (Genesis 37:35), and the deceased Samuel in I Samuel 28 appears to be ascending from the underworld.  These were righteous men.  On the other hand, Lewis quotes A. Heidel, who states that “there is no passage which proves that [Sheol] was ever employed as a designation for the gathering-place of the departed spirits of the godly.”  Lewis also quotes R. Rosenberg, who thinks that Sheol in the Hebrew Bible relates to premature death or the death of the wicked, and who notes that Sheol is never mentioned as a place where ancestors meet after they die.  (Lewis goes on to say that Rosenberg acknowledges that there are some contexts in which Sheol can be a place where all of the dead meet.)  As I wrote in my post here, however, I am not convinced by the argument that Sheol is where the wicked go, whereas the righteous are said to be gathered to their fathers after death, for there are passages in which the wicked are said to be gathered to their fathers after death (I Kings 14:20; 16:28; 22:40).  At the same time, I don’t thoroughly dismiss the idea that Sheol may be a place where the wicked or those who die prematurely go after they die, and the reason is that the Book of Psalms often presents death as God’s punishment of the wicked, and the Psalmist exults in God’s salvation of his life.  Would this make sense, if everyone got the same fate in the end—-if everyone ended up in Sheol, sooner or later?

I should also note that the Greek word Hades is ambiguous.  Josephus in Antiquities 6:332, 336 affirms that Samuel was in Hades, for example, and yet Josephus also presents Hades as a place of punishment.  In Jewish Wars 2:155-157, he says that the Greeks stated that the righteous went beyond the ocean after death, whereas the wicked went to Hades.  In Jewish Wars 3:375, he says that the righteous go to heaven, whereas the wicked go to the darkest parts of Hades.  Could the LXX of Psalm 139 mean that God is even in hell, the place where the wicked are punished after death?  Could even the Hebrew of Psalm 139 be about God being in Sheol, while seeing Sheol as a place where the wicked go after death?  That brings me to item 3.

3.  The Psalmist in Psalm 139 could simply be making the point that God is everywhere (even in Sheol) as a way to comfort himself.  That’s how a number of Christians treat God’s omnipresence in Psalm 139.  But perhaps the Psalmist is not only comforting himself, but is also warning himself: God’s omnipresence can be comforting, but it can also coincide with God’s power, and even God’s judgment.  The Psalmist could be encouraging himself to stay on the straight and narrow by reminding himself that God not only sees all, but also that God is in Sheol, where the wicked and premature dead go.  In v 19, the Psalmist talks about God killing the wicked.  In vv 23-24, the Psalmist asks God to search for any wicked thing within him (the Psalmist), and to lead him in the everlasting way.  Many scholars would deny that the everlasting way in Psalm 139:24 pertains to an afterlife, or eternal life.  But, as Peake’s Commentary states, how do we know?  Maybe this Psalm was written in a time when Hebrew religion had a concept of eternal bliss for the righteous.  Could the Psalmist in Psalm 139 be desiring eternal bliss rather than Sheol?

All of this said, the Christian concept of hell as a place of everlasting torment disturbs me, and I have a hard time believing that a God of love would operate in that manner.  At the same time, I am somewhat attracted to the notion that even God’s wrath and justice are good, and that we see something of God’s righteous character even in hell, where the wicked are punished.  Maybe there is a way to embrace that sentiment, without committing to a traditional Christian concept of hell as a place of eternal torment.

Psalm 138

Psalm 138:2 states (in the KJV): “I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”

What does it mean for God to magnify his word above his name?  God’s word and God’s name are both good, right?  So why would God choose to magnify one above the other?

Here are some explanations that I came across in my study:

1.  Leslie Allen states that the verse means that “by fulfilling his promise Yahweh has surpassed all earlier revelation of himself.”  According to this interpretation, God’s name is God’s reputation, which is based in part on how God has revealed himself in the past.  God magnifies God’s word by fulfilling it, and God in the process surpasses the earlier revelations of himself.  On a similar note, Charles Spurgeon quotes someone who said that the verse means that God has surpassed what people have said about him.  This interpretation is slightly different from that of Allen, for what people say about God may not be accurate, whereas God’s previous revelations of himself are accurate.  Remember Job’s contrast between hearing about God and actually seeing God, and Job’s implication that he did not understand God when his knowledge of God was based merely on what he had heard (Job 42:3-5)?  Perhaps the reputation that the God of Israel had was as someone who was inadequate in terms of power (since Israel had been defeated by her enemies), or as one who had forsaken Israel or the Davidic dynasty to which God had pledged everlasting faithfulness.  By fulfilling God’s word, God corrects the ways that people have misrepresented God.

2.  The United Church of God’s commentary states: “The meaning seems to be that God does not put who He is above what He has said.  Consider that the Almighty Sovereign God could go back on every promise He has made and no one could do a thing about it.  Yet God of His own will has set His word above all the prerogatives associated with His divine supremacy, that is, He had obligated Himself to abide by everything He has declared.”  According to this interpretation, God’s name is who God is, in terms of status and power, and God exalts God’s word of promise above God’s status by being faithful to the word of promise.  Although God is supreme, God limits himself by obligating himself to his promises.  Rashi and John Gill have similar interpretations.  Rashi affirms (in whatever translation Chabad.org is using): “Your name is mighty, jealous, and vengeful, but You magnified Your word, so that You skip over Your standards, over all Your names, and You forgive us.”  Gill states that God demonstrates God’s faithfulness by fulfilling God’s word, exalting faithfulness over God’s other attributes.  These interpretations treat God’s name as God’s attributes, and, like the UCG’s commentary, they maintain that Psalm 138:2 means that God is committed to the recipients of God’s promises, notwithstanding what some of God’s attributes may be.

3.  Marc Brettler and Adele Berlin state in the Jewish Study Bible: “In Deuteronomic theology, the name of the LORD resides in the Temple (Deut. 12.11).  The Temple is the place where humans come into ritual contact with God, but God is not contained within the Temple.”  The idea here seems to be that God’s name is associated with the sanctuary, and that God by fulfilling God’s word demonstrates that God is not limited to that sanctuary.  God’s presence and power are active in the world outside of the Temple.  God exalts God’s word above God’s name when God demonstrates this.

4.  What is the word that God exalts above God’s name?  Some say that it is God’s promise that the Davidic dynasty would be everlasting.  Perhaps it could relate to God’s commitment not to forsake Israel.  Some Christians even interpret God’s word in Psalm 138:2 as Jesus Christ.

5.  Admittedly, the idea of God exalting God’s word above God’s name appears odd, and so it’s not surprising to me that some have understood the verse to mean something different.  The Septuagint for the verse says that God exalted God’s word above every name.  The Midrash on the Psalms somehow interprets the verse to mean that God has exalted God’s name and God’s word above what God promised to the prophets.  As interesting as these interpretations are, however, I’m much more fascinated when interpreters try to make due with verses’ difficulties.

Psalm 137

Psalm 137 is most likely about the Jews’ exile in Babylon.  The Jews in this Psalm are upset that the Babylonians destroyed their capitol city and their temple, and that the Edomites betrayed them to the Babylonians.  V 9 states: “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones” (KJV).

This is a controversial verse, especially for Christians who think that it contradicts Christ’s command for people to love their enemies.  But I think of something that Charles Haddon Spurgeon says in The Treasury of David:

“Let those find fault with it who have never seen their temple burned, their city ruined, their wives ravished, and after children slain; they might not, perhaps, be quite so velvet mouthed if they had suffered after this fashion. It is one thing to talk of the bitter feeling which moved captive Israelites in Babylon, and quite another thing to be captives ourselves under a savage and remorseless power, which knew not how to show mercy, but delighted in barbarities to the defenceless.”

Excellent point, but are things necessarily that simple?  Jesus Christ was mistreated and even killed, and Luke 23:34 (in certain manuscripts) depicts Jesus asking his Father to forgive his persecutors, for they know not what they do.

I can’t judge those who had the sentiment expressed in Psalm 137:9 because, as Spurgeon says, I may have felt the same way that they did were I in a similar situation.  Who am I, writing from my computer, to judge people in those kinds of circumstances?  At the same time, I would like to have the attitude that Jesus manifested, which looked beyond the pain that the persecutors caused to see their humanity, and to hope even for their spiritual restoration.

Psalm 136

Psalm 136:10 states in the King James Version (which is in the public domain): "To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy endureth for ever..."

Jimmy Swaggart tries to argue that God's smiting of the Egyptian firstborn was a case of God's mercy towards the Egyptians: that God was doing this drastic deed to encourage the Egyptians to repent.  Swaggart notes that God could have smitten the Egyptians in one swoop, but he contends that God acted as God did to encourage the Egyptians to repent.  I heard Tim Keller say something similar, not specifically in reference to Psalm 136:10, but rather concerning the Exodus.

Do I buy this?  Well, on the issue of Psalm 136:10, I am not convinced by Swaggart's view that the verse concerns God's mercy towards the Egyptians.  I think that the verse is saying that God's smiting of the Egyptians, Israel's oppressors, was a case of God's mercy (lovingkindness, or covenant obligation) towards Israel.  Psalm 136:15, after all, refers to God's overthrow of the Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea (or Sea of Reeds) as an example of God's mercy.  I doubt that God was showing those Egyptians any kindness when he was overthrowing them in the sea, since God was killing them in that case, not giving them a chance to repent.  The point in v 15, I think, is that God was demonstrating kindness, or covenant obligation, to Israel by protecting her from and defeating her enemies.

What about the claim that the Exodus was a case of God trying to encourage the Egyptians to repent, of God demonstrating love even to the Egyptians?  I don't know.  I don't find that explicitly in the Exodus story.  Exodus 9:14-16 states: "For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth.  For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth."  And, after the death of the Egyptian firstborn, the Pharaoh does ask Moses for a blessing, which may indicate that the Pharaoh now acknowledges the power of Israel's God (Exodus 12:32).  But did God in the Exodus story have some missionary motivation behind the Exodus, a desire to bring the Egyptians into a relationship with him, or to encourage the Egyptians to worship him as God on a permanent basis?  I'm not sure.  Maybe what we see in the Exodus story is some nationalistic message that the God of Israel is supreme, and God is rubbing Egypt's nose in that, without really expecting Egypt or encouraging Egypt to enter into a relationship with him.

But back to Psalm 136.  Psalm 136:25 states: "Who giveth food to all flesh: for his mercy endureth for ever."  My Peake's commentary says that this verse "sounds strange in a Ps. which exults in the slaughter of the heathen----but it is easier to admit an inconsistency than to limit 'all flesh' to all Jews."  The commentary addresses the tension between nationalism and universalism, in reference to Psalm 136.