Psalms Archives - The Ancient Bridge

There is so much debate about this Psalm. Not only does it contain two words that we don’t know what the heck they mean, but the context is quite the mystery. Is the Psalmist (David?) being lied about? Are the Kingdom elites resorting to Ba’al worship in order to bring an end to a famine? Is this Psalm 3 part 2 where David’s advisors are defecting to Absalom? Lots of questions and lots of debate.

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Psalm 4 seems simple and straightforward enough, right? Nope. Oh, my goodness, there are so many different puzzles here, and so there are also a few plausible interpretations of what was going on here and why. Remember back when I told you that one of the best things about the Psalms is how purposefully vague they are? People can read themselves and their own situations into the Psalms and pray them as though they wrote them themselves. When we are facing crises and hardship, are being attacked, betrayed, lied about, or if we are just doubting God’s faithfulness, we can go to the Psalms and find one that fits our prayer needs. And that’s awesome but it is also problematic when we are trying to study and mine them for context to get the most out of our theological studies. Psalm 4, unlike Psalm 3, gives us no clear leading as to what the problem is, who the specific enemies are, and we definitely don’t know the final outcome of the crisis. Was this written during a famine, when there was no rain and David’s own councilors are turning on him? Some scholars can give a really good argument for it. Is it Psalm 3 part two and David is dealing with the split in loyalties among the wealthy? Maybe, we’ll talk about that too. Is David dealing with false accusations? That’s possible too! How much does it really matter when we apply it to our own lives and pray it for ourselves?

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist, and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have years’ worth of blogs at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on Amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids (affiliate link). I also have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for adults and kids. You can find the links for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com, and transcripts for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.

As we did last week, the Psalm itself will be read initially from Robert Alter’s excellent The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (affiliate link). After that, I will pull all Scripture from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB). Remember that Alter loves to capture more of the sound and the brevity of the Psalms in Hebrew, which is always like a third of the words we use in English to try to say the same thing.

For the lead player, with stringed instruments, a David psalm. When I call out, answer me, my righteous God. In the straits, You set me free. Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. Sons of man, how long will My glory be shamed? You love vain things and seek out lies. selah But know that the LORD set apart His faithful. The LORD will hear when I call to Him. Quake, and do not offend. Speak in your hearts on your beds, and be still. selah Offer righteous sacrifices and trust in the LORD. Many say, “Who will show us good things?” Lift up the light of Your face to us, LORD. You put joy in my heart, from the time their grain and their drink did abound. In peace, all whole, let me lie down and sleep. For You, LORD, alone, do set me down safely.

First of all, we have to take care of the basic housework. There are two words in this Psalm that we don’t know the meaning of. The Psalms have more of those words than any other book of the Bible, by far. The first Hebrew word is menatseach, which Alter translates as the lead player and other translators call the choir director. In the Septuagint, the authorized Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in the second/third centuries BCE, this first line reads “for the end” most likely because the last line makes it clear that this was an evening prayer. Honestly, it makes no difference to us because we don’t know the tune anymore and we can pray it whenever we want, right? Don’t tell me when I can and can’t pray Psalm 4. The second unknown word is selah, which is why it isn’t translated into any English word. We just don’t know what it means at all. Probably a musical term. In the Septuagint, they translated it diapsalma which is a combination of the word psalma (meaning psalm, it’s where we get our English word) and the prefix dia, which can mean quite a few things. A mystery word translated into another mystery word and then just transliterated into English back to selah so it would at least sound the same. Hebrew isn’t a dead language anymore because people speak a modern version of it but for all intents and purposes, a lot of the words are deader than a doornail because we have no clue what they mean. By the time the Temple was rebuilt after the exile, all of the singers of the House of the Lord had been dead for a long time. Musical notations would have been one of the first things to be lost.

Let’s look at this Psalm verse by verse in the CSB:

Answer me when I call, God, who vindicates me. You freed me from affliction; be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

We can tell right away that this is a lament Psalm. The writer is using phrases like, “Answer me when I call” and reminding God of past acts of deliverance. The author, whether it is David or someone writing for David or in the style of David or about David, is communicating the existence of a covenant relationship where God can be called upon and be expected to listen, and who has a history with the writer. We see three supplications here; supplications are cries for aid and action from either God or someone else who has the capacity to help. They are cries to answer, to give relief from suffering, and to hear. The author desires vindication of either their faith in Yahweh or because they have somehow been wronged. It isn’t entirely clear, as we will see. Despite their covenant relationship where Yahweh has sworn to be faithful and to protect His people and specifically His anointed king from enemies, they still recognize that it is their duty to take their petitions specifically to Yahweh and not to other gods or foreign armies—of course, this is a problem throughout the history of the divided Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. But this was penned during the reign of David, before the split. Despite David’s sins, we don’t ever see him crying out to anyone except Yahweh for help. Yahweh is the true vindicator and Savior. This is a common thread throughout the Davidic Psalms. The author talks about a prayer to be heard but what prayer is this? We aren’t specifically told.

How long, exalted ones, will my honor be insulted? How long will you love what is worthless and pursue a lie? Selah

Another common phrase in laments is “how long?” It is a cry of frustration. Despite seeming to be directed at the b’nei ish, literally the sons/daughters of man, it is actually a crying out to God to do something about the undefined actions of those who are wealthy and powerful. When the various Psalmists want to talk about the poor and lowly, they will use the idiom b’nei adam, sons/daughters of adam/humankind. Despite sounding like they should mean the same thing, they don’t. They are polar opposites. There are some different ideas about how this verse should be translated—is the psalmist’s reputation being slandered or is God Himself being somehow dishonored? The Hebrew word translated as honor is kavod, which can mean glory. Is the object of scorn the author’s personal honor or the author’s God? Poetry is notoriously difficult to translate, or to even understand completely in the original language—even when the author is alive to explain it! In this case, powerful people are loving what is “worthless” and pursuing a “lie.” Are they worshiping false gods and going after them? That’s certainly a common theme throughout Scripture. Are they slandering the author with a lie? Have his councilors and “men of rank” defected to Absalom’s army? All these are plausible.

Know that the Lord has set apart the faithful for himself; the Lord will hear when I call to him.

Whoever the enemy is and whatever it is they are doing, the author has finished their complaint and is now directly addressing and instructing them, seven times. At this point, the Psalm shifts to an expression of confidence and instruction in wisdom. The author will be vindicated and the Lord will make things right for those who follow and obey Him. So these children of men are advised to know, yada, Yahweh and to understand that Yahweh is faithful to those who love Him. The wording on this is a bit confusing and could mean that Yahweh works miracles for the faithful or that He sets them apart in His safekeeping but the uptake on it, either way, is that the author is warning them that they have the ear and attention of Yahweh and so these adversaries had better be careful in what they are doing—they shouldn’t believe they can get away with whatever it is forever. If they desire to remain “men of rank” then they need to be wise.

Be angry and do not sin; reflect in your heart while on your bed and be silent. Selah

Again, this is hard to translate because rigzu means to tremble or to quake with fear or awe. But when it was translated into the Greek in the Septuagint, they used a word meaning anger and that’s what Paul quoted from in Ephesians 4:26. But the context for Paul is different—that being said, it is the most Jewish thing in the world to take a verse that means one thing and tweak it a little or a lot to make a different point. We will see this quite a bit when we get to the Gospel of Matthew. If you have read any of the Talmud, you already know this is true. They didn’t play by our rules, and God was speaking to and through them and not us! So He wouldn’t follow our rules of what makes for legitimate Bible interpretation or history or science or any of that. I believe that the original meaning really was something along the lines of “shake in your boots and stop sinning.” You know, like a “fear God and repent” sort of thing. The phrase “reflect in your heart” is our translation of a Hebrew idiom meaning “to think” because remember they believed that the brain was kinda useless and that thinking, reasoning and feeling happed in the heart, kidneys, and bowels because of how those felt when they experienced strong emotion. I like to translate this whole verse as, “Fear God and stop sinning. Think about what you are doing and shut up.” And of course, that’s always good advice for us all when we get uppity or even every day. Four more instructions—fear Him, do not sin, think, and shut up. Although that last word might also be translated as weep, which is what we should do when we start thinking about the nonsense we have been up to.

Offer sacrifices in righteousness and trust in the Lord.

Now, here is where the theory that this is just David being upset at his advisors for siding with Absalom really begins to break down. Something is wrong with their sacrifices or how they are offering them or maybe what gods they are offering them to. Certainly Yeshua/Jesus told people that if you had done something to hurt another person, God wouldn’t accept an offering until you made things right with the person you hurt. There is no such thing as a private sin when it involves other people. So they are commanded to offer sacrifices, but they have to be righteous offerings (which means with right heart motivations, after performing just acts to make up for what they have done wrong if possible) and those offerings must be offered to and only to Yahweh. If these sacrifices represent petitions in a time of crisis, then Yahweh is the only one they should be going to, but we will discuss that later. The last two instructions to the elites are to offer appropriate sacrifices and to trust Yahweh.

Many are asking, “Who can show us anything good?” Let the light of your face shine on us, Lord.

The author turns their attention to Yahweh again in complaint and petition. The “many” or rabbim (a common theme in laments, the prophets, and the Gospels) are crying out in complaint but not to God. They are crying out to anyone who will listen—perhaps hoping to catch the ear of another god in the area. Something must be desperately wrong. Either the author is being blamed for bad circumstances or the “men of rank” have lost faith in Yahweh and are turning to other gods. Presumably, one way or another, David is being cast aside as being unable to lead them through this crisis—perhaps they believe that David is to blame for the crisis. Is God angry at David? Is rain being withheld? If so, then the elites would certainly be wondering if another king or another god is needed to bring back prosperity. The people, for one reason or another, are not flourishing and prospering. We see in 2 Sam 21 that the land experienced famine for three years because of a sin Saul committed against the Gibeonites, their covenant partners from the time of Joshua and Caleb. But then we have the question of, “if this is about a recorded historical event, then why no title on this one when the last one has a title?” Whatever the case is, whether the elites are trying to get rid of David for one reason or another or trying to get rid of Yahweh worship in favor of other gods—the challenge is clear, “Show me the money!” That’s the sense of “who can show us anything good?” Good hearkens back to the days of Creation where God provided every need for the people whom He created.

The Psalmist responds with a key quotation from the Aaronic blessing which we find in Num 6:24-26: “May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”’ The author is appealing to the blessing in whole by using a part of it, something very common in the Bible and other Jewish writings. The formal term for that is synecdoche (sinekdeckey). We do this too in our culture in various ways. It’s why we say Coke or Kleenex when what we mean is soda and tissues in general. In this case, a phrase from the Aaronic blessing is supposed to remind us of the entire thing. In the Bible, we could use “Come out of her my people!” as a great example of why we need to know the whole Bible. That phrase is telling us to go to Jeremiah 51 so we can see what the Roman Empire has in common with ancient Babylon—wealth, oppression, military violence, and idolatry—and why the believers in Yeshua need to separate themselves from serving the wrong Empire. When we read it out of context, people start picking on Catholics.

You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and new wine abound.

Now the author expresses confidence in the Lord despite outward appearances and circumstances. After asking for the promises implied in the Aaronic blessing to those who put their trust in Yahweh, the psalmist tells Yahweh that no matter what the elites take pleasure in, he or she takes joy in Yahweh. Interesting little note here—the Hebrew word for grain here is dagan and of course, the Philistine god Dagon is the grain god of the Philistines. There might be a play on words here if there is indeed a famine going on. They are focused on grain and perhaps appealing to the god who is regionally thought to be able to bless that harvest. They seem to be crying out in the wrong way to the wrong god for what only Yahweh can give them. But Yahweh always knows that the people need Him more than they need grain and wine. People with grain and wine, according to Moses, get fat, happy and contemptuous of the idea that they owe it all to Yahweh and must worship Him and follow His ways. Are the elites crying out to Dagon? Are they crying out against David because they want a different king who can provide the results they desire? Is it David’s faith in God that requires vindication? Some scholars think so. It’s certainly an interesting idea and definitely not out of character for the ancient Israelites and their fickle loyalties. But then, we are much the same, right? Heck, we complain about persecution over getting unfriended on social media when people get tired of our abusive behavior—oops—I mean, they can’t handle the truthful truthiness of our truth. It helps if truth is in all caps. It’s more true that way.

I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me live in safety.

I had mentioned before that in the Septuagint, the title is translated “for the end” instead of “by the choir director.” This verse is why they made that decision. The psalmist, after crying out to God, complaining way too vaguely for us to know for sure what the heck is going on, rebuking and instructing the Kingdom elites who have somehow gone astray, and petitioning God for favor and prosperity before finally telling God that He is enough even if everything is going wrong otherwise—well, we see that the psalmist is now so at peace that they will not only lie down in their bed but will also sleep in peace. Only the Lord can bring security and safety. There is no need to appeal to other gods. Being able to sleep in the midst of conflict and uncertainty is like the ultimate expression of faith and confidence. We also saw this same vote of confidence in Yahweh to deliver in Psalm 3 where David specifically said that despite the rebellion of his son Absalom against him, he is able to sleep and to wake back up again because Yahweh keeps him alive. Just as David didn’t kill the sleeping Saul who was trying to hunt him down and kill him, so David knows that the Lord will protect him from his enemies as well. We see this idea elsewhere in the Psalms and Proverbs that the wicked never sleep, but it’s okay because neither does Yahweh.

Okay, so we’re going to take a four week break from the Psalms–next week I will be giving another one of my scathing Yom Kippur presentations–and then we will start talking about the themes and common expressions in the Gospel of Matthew. If you remember, before starting Mark, we had to talk about the Greater Exodus, what the Gospel is, and why Yeshua used the expression Son of God to identify His ministry instead of the more common term Messiah. We need to talk about the “greater than” statements that Yeshua made about Himself, and in particular Yeshua as the Greater Moses and as Israel’s definitive wisdom teacher and God’s final word on His will. The Kingdom of Heaven as a concept and a reality is supremely important in everything Yeshua preaches and does. The core focus in Mark wasn’t on His teachings but on His works as the Yahweh-Warrior/Arm of the Lord prophesied by Isaiah where He was dismantling the kingdom of the Beast. With Matthew, the miracles take a real backseat to His teachings. Each of the four Gospels has a different purpose in teaching about Yeshua. Mark was written for a more mixed audience but Matthew was written for the predominantly Jewish believers in Christ and probably late first century, whereas Mark was likely the first written. Oh, and we also need to talk about ancient biographies because they don’t follow our modern rules at all.

So, I am excited and I hope you are too!

The post Episode 178: Psalm 4: What on Earth Is Going on Here?? appeared first on The Ancient Bridge.

Episode 177: Psalm 3—“Mimzor l’David?”

Tyler Dawn — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 16:18:25 +0000

What is a Psalm of David? Or is it a Psalm by David? A Psalm in the style of David or about him? This week, we will talk about irritating Hebrew conjunctions and why context is incredibly important—and sometimes unknowable. And what about the fourteen titled Psalms? How do we read this one in light of David and Absalom? The Bible is a messy book about messy people and messy situations–so this Psalm is going to be really messy too.

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Alright, we have finished up the introductory Psalms, one and two, and now we are entering into those formally ascribed to David in some way—but Hebrew conjunctions can be super tricky, and we aren’t always sure what these titles actually meant to say. In addition, it seems very clear that these titles were added later (or were they?) by whoever it was that collected these songs, laments, hymns, etc., into the five books that make up what we now call the Psalms but in Hebrew are called Tehillim. I am going to tell you right now that I love the laments, and evidently, so did the compilers because they make up 40% of the Psalms—way more than the praise hymns. The laments do more to teach us about how we should and even can relate to God than anything else in the Bible—except for the words of Yeshua/Jesus. The laments are brutally honest, accusatory, and filled with curses against enemies—but how should we even deal with the violent sentiments of these works? And what the heck does selah mean? Lots and lots to talk about this week!

A David psalm, when he fled from Absalom his son. LORD, how many are my foes, many, who rise up against me. Many, who say of my life: “No rescue for him through God.” selah And You, LORD, a shield are for me, my glory, Who lifts up my head. With my voice I cry out to the LORD, and He answers me from His holy mountain. selah I lie down and I sleep. I awake, for the LORD has sustained me. I fear not from myriads of troops that round about set against me. Rise, LORD! Rescue me, my God, for You strike all my foes on the cheek, the teeth of the wicked You smash. Rescue is the LORD’s! On Your people Your blessing. Selah

What can we call this psalm? As far as categories go, it is first and foremost a lament, which is the type of psalm where the author is crying out to God in complaint and often begging to be rescued. Sometimes laments accuse God of covenant unfaithfulness and wrongdoing, like in Psalm 89. Then there are the painful ones where the author is calling down some pretty nasty curses on their enemies, like the notorious Psalm 137. Others are full of confidence that Yahweh will come through with rescue and vindication, while some end on a very bitter and sour note. And then, there are laments that end with praise. The only real rule is that there is a crisis involved in a lament. Although there are some fairly reproducible patterns in how a lament is written, there are few hard and fast rules. As in real life, when we are upset, we generally just go with the flow.

In the first line of Alter’s translation, we come up against two of the great scholarly debates of our time: (1) what does the phrase mizmor l’David mean? and (2) Are these titles before the Psalms legit, or were they added later by the scribes who put the different Psalms together into the five books we have now? You need to know that there is nothing cut and dried about this. Really intelligent, well-studied, God-loving men and women have some very different ideas about this. I know because I have been reading a lot of what they had to say about it. In truth, when we don’t have people to ask (because they are dead), there are going to be things we just don’t always know for sure. Let’s take up the first question and try to figure out what mizmor l’David means when it shows up at the beginning of a Psalm. Alter translates it as “A David Psalm” but others point out that the lamed before David is a conjunction that can mean a whole lot of different things like of, by, concerning, for, in the style of, to, about, etc. I like what Alter says here because, unlike Psalm 2 being credited to David in the book of Acts, we don’t have any assurances of what exactly it means. Did David write Psalm 3 or was it written about him or to him after the victory, or in the same style as David about a situation in his life? That expression can mean a whole lot of different things, and all are legitimate options. Hebrew is really lean on their conjunctions whereas we have a ton, and they have much narrower meanings. Usually, but English is a danged mess too. The takeaway is that we have this phrase that might mean different things in different Psalms. Is it a problem if David didn’t write all of the mimzor l’David? Not really.

The second question concerns the titles like this one that claims that this was about David when he was fleeing from his son Absalom. I really fell squarely on the side of saying that I thought the title was added later by the scribes as a mode of interpretation and understanding—a sort of “when you read this, think of this historical event because this is how we are interpreting it now.” Not too different from the added in chapters, verses and subject headings we find in the Bible now. I think it is the Tree of Life Bible that has the heading “Joab the Terminator” which is way cooler and more accurate than some of the headings we find in the Gospels like “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” which limits how most people will think about and interpret said parable. And so, there are some who believe that the “titles” were added later when all the Psalms were assembled in book form to help the reader/singer out (but on the other hand, there are only fourteen of them in the whole Psalter, which argues against later naming because why only fourteen out of 150?). Certainly, nothing nefarious going on; however, if they were added later then they can really stunt how we evaluate them, but they would provide a valuable window into how they were being read at the time they were all arranged into the Psalter. Can we prove anything either way? Nope. It’s just brain candy, I suppose, but interesting brain candy. No one’s salvation hinges on this. There won’t be a test.

One thing I really love about Alter’s translation is that he makes sure to use the word “many” over and over again instead of using euphemisms because the Hebrew text wants us to see the repetition. Let’s look at the CSB and compare the two:

A psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom.

1 Lord, how my foes increase**! There are many** who attack me.

2 Many** say about me, “There is no help for him in God.” Selah

3 But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.

4 I cry aloud to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy mountain. Selah

5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me.

6 I will not be afraid of thousands** of people who have taken their stand against me on every side.

7 Rise up, Lord! Save me, my God! You strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.

8 Salvation belongs to the Lord; may your blessing be on your people. Selah

So, four of the words in this psalm, in the Hebrew, are related words. If you remember when we studied Isaiah 40-56 and the Gospel of Mark, that the words rabbim and polys were very important. The reason why is because the Servant in Isaiah comes to deliver the many, and in Mark, Yeshua is followed by many. Mark purposefully wrote his Gospel to paint Yeshua/Jesus as the Yahweh-Warrior/Arm of the Lord prophesied by Isaiah. Rabbim and polys, translated as many, are meant to communicate the enormity of the crowds, the delivered from exile, and here in Psalm 3, the enemies of the psalmist—who we are going to presume is David. When he says “my foes increase,” “many attack me,” “many say of me,” and “I will not be afraid of thousands,” all of those words are either rabbim or related to rabbim. Hearing them over and over again in such a short psalm, being only eight verses long, makes for a feeling of being overwhelmed and surrounded–and that’s on purpose.

Like a lot of laments, the first word is “Yahweh!” followed by a complaint. When I say complaint, I don’t want you to think of the whining the children of Israel were doing out in the wilderness—that was just totally annoying and insulting. David is in covenant with Yahweh; when his kingship is threatened, Yahweh has to act to protect David. Only Yahweh can displace His chosen king, even though David’s trouble with Absalom is 120% David’s own fault. David raped Bathsheba and had her husband murdered by proxy, and then his son Amnon followed in David’s footsteps and raped his virgin half-sister Tamar. David did nothing about it, and so Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, murdered Amnon and then lived in exile for a while until called back by David, who refused to see Absalom. Absalom’s bitterness grew until he began furtively making a play for the throne behind David’s back. He incited a rebellion that sent David running with almost all of his household except for some of his wives—whom Absalom then raped on the roof of the palace in front of the entire city of Jerusalem.

And Yahweh told David that there would be dire consequences for his crimes against Bathsheba and Uriah–that the sword would never leave his house. In fact, there was still fallout during the early reign of Solomon—although Bathsheba was finally honored as Queen mother, with a throne by her son. As we will see later in the Psalms, kings were held to higher standards than anyone else because they were appointed by God to rule and represent Him before the people and do justice and righteousness in His Name. Of course, most of the kings were chosen by their fathers, with the exception of Saul, David, and Solomon.

But back to the psalm—what David is suffering here is entirely his own fault. He abused his authority. He failed to administer justice to his own daughter. He created bitterness in the son who did what the law demanded in killing the rapist of a virgin. But Absalom was still wrong, and he wasn’t honoring Yahweh by appealing to Him for justice. Absalom had grown accustomed to taking matters into his own hands because David refused. I imagine it made him feel invulnerable, especially since he is one of the few people in the Bible described as being gorgeous. I dunno, think Chris Hemsworth playing Thor kind of gorgeous. Absalom was also aided by the wisest advisor in the kingdom, who just happened to be the grandfather of Bathsheba, whom David raped. There is nothing about this situation that isn’t helaciously messy. And yet, what Absalom is doing is subverting Yahweh and not just his father. Absalom isn’t abiding by the Covenant of Yahweh with His people. Of course, neither was David and he was certainly paying the price for the rest of his life—along with everyone around him.

So, David has many enemies, which means many attackers, but this isn’t like Psalm 2 where they are all talk and Yahweh is laughing at them like they are a bunch of old toothless chihuahuas. These are enemies who are encroaching upon the divine prerogative of Yahweh to appoint His own kings, discipline his own kings, and decide for Himself what their fate will be. They are wrong even though they are enacting the continuing judgment of God on David. And by the way, this isn’t applicable to pastors, okay? I know some use any verse they can find to avoid human accountability, but if they have to do that, then they shouldn’t be pastoring, ’nuff said. Not only are these people rising up against God’s anointed king, but they are attacking him as well as daring to speak for Yahweh—or against Him. They say, “There is no help for him in God.” That can either mean that Yahweh is powerless to help David or they are presuming that Yahweh has cast him aside and will not help him. I see this on social media a lot, where people dare to speak for God and say whom He will and will not save. We don’t know the answer to those questions, and so we cannot make the mistake of saying such things. Only Yahweh decides whom Yahweh delivers. Period. They are claiming that there will be no yeshua for David, no salvation. No, this isn’t a hint at Jesus even though that is His real name.

But David counters the claims of his enemies and attackers because he understands their covenant relationship and remembers his long history with Yahweh protecting him first from Goliath and then Saul. David hasn’t led an easy life, but he has led what we could call a charmed life because Yahweh has made him promises that He will eventually keep in Yeshua the Messiah. David acting like an idiot doesn’t change Yahweh’s oaths sworn to David and his descendants—even though his sons are dropping left and right. David began acting like a typical ancient Near Eastern king in how he treated women and firstborn sons, yet Yahweh could still rein him in when confronted about it. Yahweh was going to perform restitution for Bathsheba through her son—this story is a lot more complex than it looks like at first. David understands the evil he has done and undoubtedly regrets not only his own sins but those of Amnon and his own failure to act. However, he knows that Yahweh isn’t just a shield, which only guards a person on one side, but a shield all around. Some translations remove the word shield and replace it with Suzerain—which is fitting because that is the Covenant arrangement that is protecting David at the moment. Yahweh is the greater Suzerain King, and David is his lesser Vassal King. They have covenant obligations toward one another—Yahweh must protect David when he is attacked, and David must display covenant loyalty to Yahweh. Not only is Yahweh his 360 degree shield, but Yahweh is the source of David’s honor/glory and the one who lifts up David’s head. As David is now hiding out at the lowest point on earth right now, the metaphor is appropriate. David can literally go no lower while still being above ground. He’s as close to the grave as a person can be without being dead.

But from the lowest point on earth, David cries out to the Lord, who answers David from Mt Zion—where the Ark sits in the Tabernacle of David. This wouldn’t be the Temple because it didn’t exist in David’s time, but he did erect a tent for the Ark of the Covenant prior to this. Whatever the Lord’s answer is, David responds in perfect trust and goes to sleep. He wakes up again because Yahweh is sustaining his life. There was nothing to fear. Wish we knew what Yahweh said to him; it must have been really good. Many of the lament psalms have a word of confidence following the complaint—”such and such is just terrible, but I remember that you have always saved me.” David and Yahweh have quite the history together, and Yahweh has miraculously saved David on many occasions. David speaks again and claims that he will not be afraid, even with the many people who have decided to stand against him and who are gathering all around him. But remember that Yahweh is David’s shield “all around” and not just to the front or the back.

David calls out to Yahweh, saying, “Rise up, Lord! Save me, my God!” And the phrase “Rise up, Lord” should sound familiar from Numbers 10:35: “Whenever the Ark set out, Moses would say: Arise, Lord! Let your enemies be scattered, and those who hate you flee from your presence.” One of the promises of Yahweh to His people in the wilderness was to travel with them and protect them, and later to protect His kings in particular because Yahweh had determined that through David would come all of Israel’s kings and specifically the Messiah. Although Joseph came from the Solomonic line, genetically, Mary came from the line of Nathan—a branch of the Davidic line but not the line that came directly from Solomon, which was cursed by Yahweh through Jeremiah in Jer 22:28-30 when Jeconiah’s descendants were banned from the kingship—meaning the Messiah could not be a physical male descendant of the entire Davidic line. Yeshua was not only a genetic branch of Jesse through his youngest son David but also a branch of David through Nathan. I have talked to the kids about this, but it was the funny belief of ancient times that a child was only the descendant of the male—that a man gave an actual “seed” (which was a very tiny human) which would be planted into the fertile or barren womb of a woman. So Messiah being the seed of the woman wasn’t a scientific declaration of ovaries and eggs but a mystery to be revealed in Yeshua—I mean, we have only known about the ova contribution to humans since the 19^th century. Henry VIII had no clue that he was the one producing girls…I imagine his biology course in hell will be humbling (I know, I know, wishful thinking on my part). But back to the psalm. David says:

You strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.

This was always the line that puzzled me because I read it more violently than I should have. David didn’t want any harm to come to Absalom and indeed mourned so deeply that he was rebuked by the military leadership for shaming the men who fought. They felt good about the victory that they had risked their lives (and some gave their lives) for, but David was making them feel bad for it. By this point in his life, David had very much figured out that all of this bloodshed in his family, and especially among his sons, was entirely his fault. If there had been any doubt, it should have been erased when Abiathar the priest went over to Absalom as an advisor, being that he was the grandfather of Bathsheba, whom David had removed from her house and brought to him—and she lacked the power to say no. Abiathar had been nursing this grudge for even longer than Absalom had been brooding over the rape of his sister. Had this simply been adultery, I think that Abiathar would hold his peace and just want everyone to forget about it or might have killed Bathsheba to restore the honor of his family. Adultery just doesn’t add up with the text or the history.

But striking enemies on the cheek is far from a killing blow—instead, it was a culturally specific form of humiliation and putting someone “in their place.” Again, breaking the teeth of the wicked is something that, for lack of a better term, leaves an attacker toothless or harmless. Think about that elderly, toothless chihuahua from last week’s Psalm 2 lesson where all the foreign kings can do is yap, but they are powerless against Yahweh. Someone whose teeth are broken probably also has a broken jaw and won’t be able to even speak against David anymore. Which leads us to the last verse, claiming that salvation belongs to Yahweh. Why even say this? Isn’t it obvious? Well, back in verse two, these enemies and attackers were claiming that Yahweh wasn’t going to save David—either because He couldn’t or just wouldn’t because He was as done with David as those staging the coup. This answers the claim of verse two with a counterclaim—”Yahweh saves whom He saves and no one can decide who or why or what or when except for Him alone.” Truly, it is folly when we try to decide whom He will and will not save based upon our own wishful thinking. Who would have thought He would save Paul, right? Did the religious experts believe that Yahweh would save Yeshua?? Nope. We are fools to speculate so casually. I once had someone tell me that the Lord wasn’t with me because I called Game of Thrones soft porn, so there’s that. Wasn’t aware He was a fan…

The psalm ends with a birkat, Hebrew for a benediction or closing blessing—“may your blessing be on your people.” And it is kind of odd since this has been in the first person all this time, but perhaps David realizes that as long as this rebellion continues, it is the Lord’s people who suffer the most.

Finally, the word “selah” appears three times in this psalm, and no one knows what it means. Is it a musical term? Probably. What we do know for sure is that by the time the Psalms were translated into Greek sometime in the 2^nd or 3^rd century BCE, the meaning of the word was already lost because the word was just transliterated into Greek. They had no Greek word they could use to translate it because they had no idea what it meant. But I will share a funny quote about this from Goldingay that I got out of Psalms for Normal People (affiliate link) by Joshua James, “Despite the popular teaching that selah is an instruction to be silent/to meditate/to enter into a holy pause, no one actually knows what the term means. Goldingay offers this tongue-in-cheek conclusion, “The best theory is that [selah] was what [the psalmist] said when he broke a string. This is the best theory because there is no logic about when you break a string, and there is no logic about the occurrence of ‘selah’” (An Introduction to the Old Testament, 297)” (affiliate link).

See you next week for Psalm 4!

The post Episode 177: Psalm 3—“Mimzor l’David?” appeared first on The Ancient Bridge.

Episode 176: Psalm 2–More than Messianic

Tyler Dawn — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 19:47:28 +0000

Psalm 2 is one of the most famous “Messianic” psalms out there but it also pairs with Psalm 1 to teach the readers how to view the entire collection of hymns, laments, and royal tributes. How do Psalm1 and Psalm 2 work as a team in introducing the rest of the psalter? Why is it important for wisdom and kingship to dwell side by side in Covenant relations?

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Hey, there, this is the second week of my new series on the Psalms, and I will go back and forth every four episodes doing four Psalms and then four teachings on the Gospel of Matthew. I am doing this because they will help us read one another and especially when we get to the Beatitudes. Matthew presents Yeshua/Jesus as the Greater Moses, the giver of the wisdom of Yahweh and Israel’s definitive teacher whereas Moses was a lesser mediator who sometimes spoke his own words and did his own rock whacking—which got him into trouble. I will post a master book list sometime soon if you want to know what resources I am using for this series.

As we did last week, the Psalm itself will be read initially from Robert Alter’s excellent The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (affiliate link).. After that, I will pull all Scripture from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB). Alter is famous for his translations, which capture more of the flow and the brevity of the Hebrew. Sometimes it will make a big difference, as in this Psalm but with Psalm 1 we noticed that it didn’t really change much at all. And we can agree or disagree with his translation, and that’s okay too. I am kinda on the fence about this one and you will probably notice why right away—but his decisions aren’t entirely out of left field because each translator makes interpretational choices. Nothing is a true translation—that’s impossible. In order to communicate meaning, the text must also be interpreted.

Why are the nations aroused, and the peoples murmur vain things? Kings of the earth take their stand, and princes conspire together against the LORD and against His anointed. “Let us tear off their fetters, let us fling away their bonds!” He Who dwells in the heavens will laugh, the Master derides them. Then will He speak to them in His wrath, in His burning anger dismay them: “And I—I appointed My king on Zion, My holy mountain.” Let me tell as is due of the LORD. He said to me: “You are My son. I Myself today did beget you. Ask of me, and I shall give nations as your estate, and your holdings, the ends of the earth. You will smash them with a rod of iron, like a potter’s jar you will dash them.” And now, O you kings, pay mind, be chastened, you rulers of earth. Worship the LORD in fear, and exult in trembling. With purity be armed, lest He rage and you be lost on the way. For His wrath in a moment flares up. Happy, all who shelter in Him.

And we have mostly been taught to read this with a Messianic eye, right? This Psalm certainly was never fulfilled through David or any of his descendants, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a double meaning here that was in the mind of the original author. This might have been composed partially in response to some real-life crisis or just as a general ranting against foreign aggressors. I don’t believe that there are any purely predictive Psalms, but that each one made sense when it was written in some way or another that might be lost to history. Certainly, the Bible gives us a very narrow historical view. For the space of thousands of years, we are told relatively little and what we are told is related to us so that we can see God’s character. It is not a human history-centered document but a God-centered document. Sometimes we tend to forget it because we are naturally human centered in our own interests! But this Psalm is God’s story and not the story of any person—God is the main character despite there being three speakers/voices here working together. Do you remember when we studied Isaiah 40 and how many voices there were and how difficult that can be to unravel? Well, this one is much easier. According to Acts 4:26, the author/narrator is David inspired by the Holy Spirit in verses 1-3 and 10-12, and we have Yahweh’s reaction in verses 4-6, and the Anointed Son who is King in verses 7-9. Likely there is a lot more going on here than we will ever know.

For reasons I don’t have time to fully explore right now, there is a great deal of evidence that Psalms 1 and 2 were originally a matched set—maybe one Psalm instead of two. If you remember from last time, Psalm 1 is a wisdom saying, much as we would find in Proverbs or in the Beatitudes. It lays the foundation that the Psalms are to be experienced by the wise in order to grow in wisdom for the purpose of God’s people flourishing and the rest of the world also flourishing as a result (which will be an important thing to remember when we start our Matthew studies). But there is another side to the Psalms and that is the importance of the Kingship of God over His people. Even when speaking of David, David cannot be separated from God’s rulership because David only reigns through the allowance of Yahweh—this is why Psalms like this one are called Royal Psalms. Together, the wisdom focus and the kingship focus point us to the underlying foundation of Covenant relations. Covenant life with Yahweh must be lived out as an expression of both wisdom in knowing and learning and living according to His teachings or instructions (which is the proper translation of Torah) and recognizing Him as, fundamentally, the one true King of kings and Lord of lords.

These two Psalms set the stage for the rest of the collection, so we are to read every single one of them with these firmly in our minds. To read them apart from the lessons they teach can cause us to use them in some really wrong ways—along with the rest of Scripture, for that matter. Scripture, and the Psalms in particular, doesn’t give us the answer to every problem and question but it does teach us the wisdom we need in order to navigate life’s problems and questions. So, that was a really long introduction—let’s talk about the actual Psalm using the CSB.

Why do the nations rage* and the peoples plot* in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers conspire* together against the Lord and his Anointed One: “Let’s tear off their chains and throw their ropes off of us.”

We have our first speaker here, asking an important question. The tone is incredulous, meaning that the narrator can’t even believe these people can be so foolish. And this, of course, ties in with the wisdom theme. Wise nations do not rebel against the rulership or authority of Yahweh and/or His chosen leader. Note that this cannot be applied to church leaders, okay? Not the same thing. Man, have I seen this sort of thing misused. As far as the language goes, we have the goyim and the ummim—the goyim being the outside pagan nations and the ummim generally translated as “peoples” which can mean God’s people or the nations outside Israel and the clear context here is that these are foreign nations. What are they doing? Do you remember in Psalm 1 where the wise man mutters (translated as meditates but is also a verbal expression) the teachings of Yahweh all day long? Here in Psalm 2, we also see verbal reactions to Yahweh in the form of raging and muttering, but this time what they are doing doesn’t stem from or result in wisdom but is entirely in vain. This is classic ancient language for the actions of “fools.” Almost like the Tower of Babel, these people coming together to make a great name for themselves.

The ”kings of the earth” are taking a stand against Yahweh and His chosen king, and the word used is Maschiach aka anointed one, and the rulers are conspiring, another verbal action directly opposed to those who meditate/speak the instructions of God all day. And let’s talk really quick here about parallelisms. There are a few different kinds and it is commonly taught that they are all of the sentence A=sentence B sort of thing but that isn’t actually true. You can also have a sort of sentence A, and then “what’s more” sentence B, which adds to the concept of A. In this case, the second sentence elaborates on the first, saying the same sort of thing but being far more specific. The nations and the peoples aren’t simply grumbling but their leaders are also plotting and scheming and deciding to be opposed to Yahweh. They talk to one another about rebellion—but as we will see, they are all talk and no action. It sounds as though the nations see themselves as somehow vassals of Yahweh—why else would they be wearing a yoke or be bound? Yahweh’s response is very illuminating and yes, is supposed to be taken humorously. The Bible is a funny book.

The one enthroned in heaven laughs*; the Lord ridicules* them. Then he speaks* to them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath: “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”*

There are always people who take this sort of statement as proof that Yahweh is a mocker and so they can be jerks if they disagree with something but that isn’t what is being expressed here. We are looking here at incredulity. Imagine a toothless miniature dachshund with no claws bum-rushing you. I mean, it would be hilarious and we would all sit around laughing about it, right? We might even collectively pee our pants as he tries to gum you to death. But then, what would happen when it stopped being funny? “Bad dog! Cut that out!” And the dog would top and whimper and run off only to come back with its’ tail between its legs later. That’s the picture of these nations, peoples, kings, and rulers. Compared to Yahweh they are harmless rat-dogs. And here is Yahweh’s response, “Dudes, you are irrelevant, I chose my own king (not any of you) and I have placed him in authority in the place I have chosen in all the earth (not your countries) to be my set apart place.” Yahweh is setting the record straight and getting in their faces with the facts. They aren’t the kings of the mountain, or the castle, or whatever. They aren’t even in the running.

I will declare* the Lord’s decree. He said* to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask* of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter; you will shatter them like pottery.”*

The chosen king, the maschiach, speaks and recounts Yahweh’s decree—His binding statement/promise/oath to the chosen one. “You are my son; today I become your Father.” This is ancient Near Eastern kingship/enthronement language. Most famously, Yahweh says this about Solomon in 2 Sam 7:11-16 “‘The Lord declares to you: The Lord himself will make a house for you. When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up after you your descendant, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will discipline him with a rod of men and blows from mortals. But my faithful love will never leave him as it did when I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and kingdom will endure before me forever, and your throne will be established forever.’”

Figuratively, this is the language of gods to kings and queens, and it means “you are my chosen representative to bear my image before all of the people. When they see you it will be as though they are seeing me. It will be as if you are my own literal son. How they treat you is how they treat me but because of that, you will be held doubly responsible for how you treat my people because everything you do will be in My Name.” Sons in the ancient world were heirs and ambassadors—if you were a vassal serving the king, you owed the same loyalty, obedience and fealty to the son. They were in some ways one and the same and so transgression that makes the deity look bad had to be handled severely.

Now, all this sounds like it could have been written by David about himself or about Solomon, right? But now Yahweh is making promises that the nations will be the inheritance, even to the ends of the earth, of the mashiach, the anointed one, and that he will crush them with an iron scepter and shatter them as though they are clay pots. This certainly isn’t referring to David, or Solomon, or any of his descendants. This is eschatological language—meaning dealing with the end times. In fact, when the Davidic monarchy failed and all hopes for becoming a world power were dashed, the sages began seeing this as an end-times promise not for a mashiach like David but The Mashiach. The Messiah.

This verse is the only time that the word Son appears as a title in the Psalms. And the wording for “today I become your father” isn’t adoptive language but birthing language. Or rather, reproductive language. This is closer to the language used to speak of Adam and Eve than the language one would normally see describing ANE kings as the adopted offspring of the gods. This is a more primal sort of kingship than David enjoyed–the sort of pure image-bearing kingship enjoyed by man and woman in the Garden. And who is the “them” to be shattered and broken? Although there is the temptation to assume that this represents violent warfare, that isn’t necessary. As we see in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, the Messiah is the one who violently shatters all the world powers/kingdoms of the Beast system—we see this in Daniel 7 and Rev 11, 12, and 19. Messiah frees people and destroys beast kingdoms—He doesn’t allow them to just be collateral damage.

Now, the speaker changes again to more of a narration. The rulers and kings have spoken, Yahweh has spoken, the Anointed one has spoken, and now the narrator returns to Psalm 1 style wisdom literature—he is going to tell the kings of the earth how to live wisely so that they and their people will flourish and prosper and not be destroyed:

So now, kings, be wise; receive instruction*, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with reverential awe and rejoice* with trembling. Pay homage to the Son or he will be angry and you will perish in your rebellion, for his anger may ignite at any moment. All who take refuge in him are happy.

Last line first—all who take refuge in Him are happy. Let’s review the first line of Psalm 1, “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers!” You see why scholars believe these two were originally one unit and meant to be read together? We have the “beatitude bookends” using the Hebrew word ashrei. Between these are the instructions for a life that will prosper—not financially but in terms of cooperating with God, blessing His Kingdom, and creating an environment of shalom or wholeness for all. When we behave with wisdom, we eliminate some of the chaos in the world and promote peace. We remove violence and create good fruit. We pursue justice and right wrongs. That is our goal as image-bearers, to be wise and build His Kingdom instead of our own. How are the kings advised on how to do this, as they are really being portrayed not only as fools but as the wicked, the sinners, and mockers of Psalm 1.

The kings are commanded to be wise, as opposed to the fools who oppose Yahweh and His Anointed One. The judges (and kings were the chief judges in the land in the ANE) are commanded to receive instruction—and although we might be tempted to believe that the word translated as instruction is Torah, this instruction is actually a word meaning correction and/or discipline. Yahweh isn’t condemning them, but the narrator is calling them into covenant obedience—really, into the Covenant. They are being summoned to serve Yahweh and to fear Him, as one does their King. These kings are being told that their deserved place is under Yahweh’s feet as conquered enemies but that they have the opportunity to be servants instead. Isn’t this the offer we were all made when we were kings and queens of our mini-universes? The mercies of the Lord are certainly new every morning, and as the sun is always rising somewhere, that means 24/7/365!

The kings are also commanded to rejoice with trembling, and this might seem odd, but isn’t it exactly what happened at Mt Sinai? The people rejoiced to know what Yahweh wanted from them and agreed to it before they even knew the details, but at the same time, they were terrified of the sound of His voice. So again, this is invitational Covenant language and not entirely adversarial. Yahweh is used to dealing with fools, especially since I was born!

Now, here’s the weird part where Alter and the CSB are at odds. Alter says, “With purity be armed, lest He rage and you be lost on the way.” The CSB gives us the more familiar, “Pay homage to the Son or he will be angry and you will perish in your rebellion, for his anger may ignite at any moment.” Although these seem wildly different, there are good arguments in support of both interpretations—because that’s what these are. There really isn’t an adequate word-for-word way to translate this and so scholars have to sort of guess at the meaning of the original author. Remember that one of Alter’s goals is to use as few words as possible in order to better reflect how the Psalm sounds in Hebrew, which is a very compact language, while English takes three times as long to say the same thing. What can I say, we’re a mouthy bunch! The important question isn’t, “Which one is right” but instead, “do either of these break with the overall meaning of Scripture?” And neither do. We can still find Messiah prophesied in Psalm 2 without the command to kiss or pay respect to the Son. It’s a nice cherry on top but not needed. If it is translated “with purity be armed,” is it really wrong? This Psalm isn’t entirely historical because it applies to no purely human descendant of David and to no era of Israel’s history either.

So, what if Alter is correct and this is telling them to arm themselves with purity (the ways of Yahweh/His correction/instruction) instead of arming themselves with words and weapons against Him? To me, this is a clever solution to a phrase that really doesn’t make all that much sense in the original Hebrew. It comes across as one last plea to these toothless, violent chihuahuas to go lay down and be good puppies.

Next week, Psalm 3, our first lament Psalm. I love the laments, as you will come to learn, and I hope you will as well.

The post Episode 176: Psalm 2–More than Messianic appeared first on The Ancient Bridge.

Episode 175: Psalm 1

Tyler Dawn — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 18:18:06 +0000

This is the beginning of a new series exploring the Psalms. I am going to alternate between the Psalms and the Gospel of Matthew because knowing the Psalms will help with understanding this Gospel and Yeshua’s/Jesus’s role as the Greater Moses as well as the Greater David. It won’t be obvious at first, but after a while it really will begin to make sense.

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Hey, there, I am starting two brand new series, and I will go back and forth every four episodes doing four Psalms and then four teachings on the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew presents Yeshua/Jesus differently from Mark, who shows us the Yahweh-Warrior battling demonic forces. Matthew tells a different story of Yeshua as the Greater Moses, Israel’s definitive teacher, and authority on the will of God and the radical life we are called to live. As such, the Psalms and Matthew work together because they are some of the theologically densest texts in the canon. And one will definitely help us understand the other—going in both directions, actually. I really want you to get a handle on how to read them not simply as prose (narratives like the Gospels) and poetry (the Psalms) but as interlocking pieces of wisdom literature designed to teach us how to live in relationship to God and as image-bearing citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. I will post a master book list sometime soon if you want to know what resources I am using for this series.

We’re going to switch things up on the Scripture quotations—the Psalm itself will be read initially from Robert Alter’s excellent The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (affiliate link). After that, I will pull all Scripture from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB). Alter is famous for his translations, which capture more of the flow and the brevity of the Hebrew—as opposed to most English translations, that make a seven-word verse into a seventeen-word verse simply to make it more appealing and beautiful to us. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that, but hearing them this way is meaningful too.

Happy the man who has not walked in the wicked’s counsel, nor in the way of offenders has stood, nor in the session of scoffers has sat. But the LORD’s teaching is his desire, and His teaching he murmurs day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither— and in all that he does he prospers. Not so the wicked, but like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand up in judgment, nor offenders in the band of the righteous. For the LORD embraces the way of the righteous, and the way of the wicked is lost. (Alter, pg. 43)

Isn’t it interesting that the Psalms not only start with a Beatitude (like the Sermon on the Mount, hint-hint—a huge tie-in with Matthew), but it’s also a Proverb—and beyond that, some scholars believe that Psalms 1 and 2 are meant to be read together as a picture of the sort of king that Yahweh desires—one who refuses to listen to or consort with evil counselors and the futility of the nations in presuming to reject and battle that king. There are only eight straight-up wisdom Psalms, so let’s quickly discuss what that means. Wisdom Psalms, just like the Proverbs, compare the lives, actions, mindsets, and fate of the righteous and the wicked. The wicked person does X, but the righteous person does Z. The fate of the wicked person is really, really bad even though their lives might look good now, but the fate of the righteous is just awesome. That the first Psalm begins with an encouragement/warning is a signpost—this collection of songs, poetry, and liturgy is only for those who desire to be wise and long to relate properly to God and others. This Psalm, in particular, contrasts the life of the person who desires the teachings of Yahweh and shuns the teachings and influence of the wicked, the offenders, and those who scoff and mock the righteous for their righteousness. It certainly wouldn’t apply to the “righteous” who are being mocked for hypocrisy. We gotta own all that because we deserve it when we aren’t representing God in any sort of reasonable way. And for that matter, when we get mocked for how other believers have hurt people, it’s important to handle it with grace—because we are a body that has harmed them. Most of us have a tendency to lash out like wounded animals, especially when we have been harmed in religious settings.

Let’s go line by line through this Psalm so that we can better understand what it was meant to communicate beyond the surface reading—and don’t get me wrong, the surface reading on this one is rich. It isn’t like you need an in-depth analysis to appreciate or benefit from it, but there is stuff below the surface that is incredibly captivating.

We have a “man” (although it would be foolishness to try to argue that this also isn’t good wisdom for women, right? Which is why some translations go with “person” and, in fact, when you read a lot of medieval sermons, when they would expound upon language like this, they were gender inclusive. They weren’t preaching just to men or to men as the spiritual heads of their houses until much later when more patriarchal and complementarian doctrines were developed (Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood –affiliate link). The Psalms and the wisdom literature aren’t exclusively applicable or gendered—anyone can read them and glean wisdom—which is the point. One of the strengths of the Psalms is their general lack of specificity. For example, “I have an enemy. Lord, why are you ignoring what they are doing to me? And yet, I have confidence in you to give me justice in the long run.” We can all relate to that, but what if it was specific, “Oh Lord, if I am king over the entire land of Israel, then why is the family of such and such attacking me over what happened last summer when their son fell in battle under my command?” I mean, I don’t know about you, but NONE of that applied to me. I can’t relate to any of that, and actually, I find myself wondering if maybe the king pulled another “Uriah the Hittite” incident and murdered someone through warfare. So, with specifics, I am definitely conflicted and wouldn’t ever sing or pray that! Neither would you, right? It would just sound like a narrative instead of poetry. We’d read and experience it entirely differently than the author. That’s why understanding genre matters—so we know how to tell the difference between the Chronicles of Narnia and a newspaper article about the local garden show.

Anyway, this human being (because we women can’t get legalistic and say this only applies to men, right?) has been careful and deliberate about how he has lived his life. First, we see that he has not “walked” according to the advice of wicked people—and the wicked people are those who wield destructive authority in some way. Here they would be attempting to use their influence to send this person in the wrong direction—think of Haman advising King Ahasuerus. People who are wicked in Scripture aren’t just doing evil; they are influencing others. The person who is blessed/happy isn’t listening–and by the way, theologically, “blessing” carries the meaning of having a relationship with Yahweh and not with having a ton of cash and stuff. The ultimate blessing is never material prosperity but a connection with Yahweh where He knows our names—which is way more important than any of us knowing how to pronounce His. Yeah, I said it.

He also hasn’t walked the “way” of wickedness, and yes, if you remember studying the Gospel of Mark and the Isaiah series with me, that’s the same word used in Isaiah. In fact, derek shows up nineteen times in Isaiah 40-55, talking about the way of the Lord that is made clear by the prophet, the way of return from exile, the way of righteousness that Israel refused to walk, and the way of the of the Servant/Messiah. This is also what we see in the “way” narratives of Mark, which point us back to Isaiah and the Servant of the Lord poems. This means the man also refuses to associate with criminals. Standing in the way of these sinners, criminals, or offenders is more than just listening to and going along with some really bad advice. This is stopping to associate with people who are determined to flout the laws of God. This is a person who needs to be somewhat comfortable hanging around trouble and isn’t simply being deceived due to ignorance or misplaced trust. Finally, he refuses to get himself comfortable to sit down with those who scoff at Yahweh and those faithful to Him. Think of the mocking at the Cross, “You wanted to save others, but you can’t even save yourself!” These are people who tempt us to deny the Lord because they throw his seeming “failures” in our faces and shame us for following the way of Yahweh.

And dang, I see this sort of thing a lot on social media when believers talk this way about one another just because of doctrinal differences or other differences of opinion or for daring to understand things differently. The sad thing is that mockers have huge YouTube followings, and they are incredibly destructive to the Kingdom. You can have someone who loves excellently and gives their life faithfully in service to the least of these, but if they celebrate Christmas or eat pork, then there are those who sit and scoff at them on YouTube—and it doesn’t bother their listeners at all. We must stop being comfortable listening to this scoffing, guys. Honestly, right here, it talks about how we are cutting ourselves off from blessings because God can’t be a part of that sort of foolishness. We are being called to wisdom and not to cheap shots. Scoffing is lazy and isn’t rooted in love. And even more disturbingly, that word translated as sit?—it’s yashav, a word that denotes a fair level of intimacy, a dwelling together or even being married. And I have seen how protective people are about their favorite mockers. It’s the carnal side of us yearning to have the dehumanizing mockery be somehow sanctified and not just ugly.

What does it require to stay away from this sort of influence? We have to be intentional about how we live instead of careless. Ahasuerus took Haman’s advice because he was careless. Judas betrayed Yeshua because he was a criminal. And let’s not forget my favorite episode in Scripture when all those teenagers got eaten by bears because they were mocking Elisha for being old and bald. Not cool, boys. You have got to have a seriously false sense of security within an honor/shame society before you would dare do that to a prophet. And how are we intentional? In what way—and where are we to learn the way so that we can be consistent and not haphazard in doing what is wise? Verse two tells us that the teachings of Scripture must be a desire and a delight—and although some versions say “law,” that is incorrect, and it would be a mistake to leave the narratives out. We learn a lot from what the patriarchs get wrong and how God responds, do we not? This person does not quietly meditate (as we would define the word modernly), but they are audibly muttering the words of Scripture day and night—which means he isn’t reading it out of a scroll at midnight or in the middle of the day. Because that was an oral society, the man has huge portions of it memorized and mutters it to himself throughout the day and night, so it becomes a part of him. By doing this, he avoids becoming entangled in the schemes, crimes, and scoffing of fools.

And that reminds me—when we read Proverbs, we see three categories of fools—the wicked, the sinners/offenders, and the scoffers/mockers. So, this man is not a fool, and in verse 3, he is compared to a tree planted by flowing water, which bears fruit at the appropriate time, and whose leaves never wither. Proverbs 3:18 describes Wisdom as “a tree of life who all who embrace her” and that the people who do so are “happy” and that word is closely related to the opening word of this Psalm, ashrei, which can be translated as either happy or blessed. Whenever we are looking at wisdom literature, we will see these themes of blessing and curse, righteousness vs. wickedness, the wise and the fool, etc. Trees are significant in Scripture and are often used to describe Israel, but when we have a tree beside flowing water—when something like that is expressed to an audience living in ancient Israel, which was dependant upon the rain and the rivers not drying up. This is a true picture of blessing—a tree with access to abundant water and always able to produce the expected and needed fruit. But leaves never withering? That just goes against nature, and so we are forced to think outside of the box a bit to the two times in history when this could be expected to occur—when mankind lived in the Garden in Eden and during the final eschatological Kingdom. In Genesis and in Revelation, we are confronted with the Tree of Life and a great river that splits into four mighty rivers. In Revelation 22:2 and Ezekiel 47:12, we see the Tree of Life and trees in general planted alongside rivers bearing fruit every month, and the leaves never withering. Eden and the Messianic Kingdom are both associated with immortality. This man is living in such a way that the curse of death is not something he needs to worry about. Everything he does is said to produce enduring and bountiful fruit.

Verse four takes us back to the first of the three types of fools—the wicked. Everything desired and pursued and delighted in by the wise person is shunned by the fool. NT Wright, and I love this, talks about how the life of wisdom develops in his book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (affiliate link) “Virtue, in this strict sense, is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices, requiring effort and concentration, to do something which is good and right but which doesn’t “come naturally”—and then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they find that they do what’s required “automatically,” as we say.” And he is absolutely right—when we do not practice wisdom very deliberately, making it part of ourselves, then we will be fools doing whatever we think is best in the moment according to our own desires. The wicked have refused to live deliberately in the counsel of Yahweh through His word, and so, throughout Scripture but especially in the wisdom literature, they serve as cautionary tales, oppressors, and the prime internal and external threats to Israel. To be wicked is to be anti-Kingdom. We are called to live deliberately–to love God and our neighbor.

As the wise are these nice, beefy, fruitful, enduring trees, the wicked are the most pathetic agricultural opposite. They are chaff, that external husk that is absolutely useless, unnutritious, and must be ground off before grain can be used. It literally exists to be destroyed and blown away. As far as describing the fate of a human being, it’s really very dark and disturbing. Chaff doesn’t matter—it just needs to be eliminated. So harsh. The implication here is that while the righteous need not fear the curse of death, the fate of the wicked is to be carried off to Sheol—the land of the dead. Not hell, but Sheol. And because Yahweh loves His people and His Kingdom and commands that His kings be wise and write out their own Torah scrolls, this is actually a very vibrant picture of the punishment due to anyone who counsels either His people, prophets, priests or kings toward the ways of the Beast Kingdom. Again, we are dealing with dueling destinies here depending on the path deliberately walked.

The wicked councilors, foolish in opposing Yahweh, won’t even be permitted to stand in judgment. Whether this is saying they will be judged in absentia—not even given the dignity of standing before the Lord—or that they will not be able to remain on their feet in the presence of the Lord, I do not know. But this isn’t positive and doesn’t bode well for the outcome. Perhaps as the wicked counsel against the ways of Yahweh, He doesn’t give them the time of day. They wanted nothing to do with Him, being actively opposed to righteousness and not simply ignorant of it, and so they get nothing of Him except His judgment. And we see that the sinners/offenders/criminals are also unable to stand where the righteous gather. Again, this sounds eschatological, meaning dealing with the end times judgment. I think about how certain people will be banned from the Holy City during the Messianic Kingdom. Everything about this just reeks not of torture but exclusion, which in the ancient world was a form of death and worse than physical pain. Meanwhile, the righteous are vindicated for living deliberately according to the way of Yahweh, after having been scoffed at, tempted, and even mislead at times.

And for the final contrast, as opposed to the wicked seemingly banned and excluded from their own judgment, the righteous have their way carefully and intimately guarded and watched by Yahweh. He has His eyes, so to speak, not simply on them but on their path. He is far more concerned with the path we are on than with our momentary safety and comfort. As the blessed man refused to become intimately entangled with the scoffers, we see this same language employed to describe how entangled Yahweh is in the way of the righteous. The way of the wicked, however, ceases to be, perishes, is ruined, or simply lost. Many translators choose different words because it is not always easy to render specific Hebrew terms using just one English word.

I want to talk about Joshua really quick here before we end this. At his commissioning in Josh 1:6-9, we see the following commandment: Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

And this sounds very similar, right? Joshua is being commanded just as the blessed man. Follow the path that Moses laid out, constantly muttering the oracles of God, and you will be prosperous with the Lord intimately connected wherever your path leads. Joshua was a very unique leader—he and Caleb were the only two of the twelve spies to survive the wilderness because of their faithfulness and trust in the deliverance of God and His ability to deliver them into their inheritance. Joshua was, in some ways, a second but lesser Moses. As we will read in Matthew, Yeshua is portrayed as a second but greater Moses. And Yeshua is the Aramaic short form of Yehoshua, transliterated into English as Joshua.

Next time, when we talk about Psalm two, we’re going to take notice of how the two Psalms seem to work as a team describing the perfect King of Israel and how they set the stage for the rest of the book of Psalms.

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