Psalms 144 - 150: End of the Psalms

The stretch from Psalm 144 to Psalm 150 -- the final Psalm! -- begins with Praise be to the Lord and ends with Praise the Lord, and in between there are numerous praises sung to the Lord. What is not praise is mostly affirmation: statements to or about God that indicate his magnificence, power, mercy, love, and justice. What is left over is petitions: requests for the destruction of enemies and foreigners, and for peace and prosperity.

There is nothing in these final seven Psalms about the sorrow and despair of one who feels failed by God, and relatively few complaints about the vindictive enemies and evil-doers who have it in for the Psalmist. Other than that, they are fairly representative of the whole set of 150. They cover familiar topics and employ the Psalmic style: an energetic, declaritive, loosely structured poetry with a fairly narrow range of themes and images. They are rich in ringing phrases and chockablock with abrupt shifts of topic and mood. Having been composed for singing or chanting one at a time, they make -- as I have often complained -- for a tedious, numbing experience when read through en masse.

Reading the Psalms as an Outsider

There are some styles of music that, as an occasional guitar noodler, I enjoy playing even though I don't especially enjoy listening to them. Heavy Metal, bluegrass, and a lot of folk music fall into this category. Others will differ, of course, but for me these are musics that are best experienced as a performer, not as a listener. And to stretch a point, maybe this is somewhat true of the Psalms as well. To a worshiper -- to someone in the actual act of "Praising the Lord" -- the Psalms may be a rich library of texts, and therefore of practices, that enrich and add structure to that experience. To their original writers and to someone using them in the context of religious practice today, the affirmations and petitions of the Psalms may be perceived as ringing with the most sacred holy truths.

To an outsider to this experience, however, there is an arid and lifeless quality to the Psalms. In their singleminded assertions, stripped of anything like argument or narrative flow, it is hard to find anything like inspiration. They have been, to be sure, different from anything else we've encountered so far in the Bible, certainly unlike the epic historical accounts and the lists of stern Mosaic Law. The poetic Book of Job, although I found it equally inpenetrable as Psalms, was at least steeped in theological ideas, whereas Psalms itself consists merely of thousands of essentially unconnected religious statements. There is not enough development of ideas in Psalms for anything but the loosest theological concepts to be apparent, and even these are often at odds with each other: God is merciful, and vengeful; God is all-loving, and has abandoned me; God reigns over all kingdoms, and will protect me from the foreigners.

I knew when I picked the Bible up that it would not be a wholely unified document, but I did not realize just how much of a... scrapbook it would turn out to be. The range of materials is quite a bit broader than I realized. I don't recall exactly what I expected from the Psalms, but I don't think I expected them to be no more (and no less, I suppose) than the hymnal tucked in among the histories and prophets. Yet that's pretty much what they are.

Progress Report!

Reading Psalms, the longest book of the Bible, took 21 posts spread over 5 months and 6 days. Having completed Psalms, I've got through 19 of the 66 Books of the Bible: 28.8%.

Well, that's all fine and good, but I've also completed 628 of the Chapters of the Bible, or 52.8%! Or 16401 of the Verses, 52.7%! I'M MORE THAN HALFWAY THROUGH, PEOPLE!

NEXT TIME: Here come Proverbs! Which I expect to be... somewhat like Psalms, except pithier? And more addressed to everyday life, rather than religious practice? I guess I imagine Proverbs as being like Polonius' long advice-giving speech in Hamlet. I bet I'm wrong. But here's an advantage Proverbs is sure to have over Psalms: it's only 31 Chapters long!

We'll tuck into it next time!

This Week's Reading: Psalms 144 - 150

Psalm 135-143: Psenultimate Psalms!

Psalm 135: A "Praise the Lord" Psalm, using that phrase three times along with a "Praise the name of the Lord," a "sing praise to his name," and a "Praise be to the Lord." The Psalm includes brief peregrinations on the power of God, his historic assistance to the Israelites, and the inadequacy and unreality of other gods.

Psalm 136: What must be a call-and-response kind of Psalm, consisting of 26 short phrases, each immediately answered with the words "His love endures forever." Psalm 136:17-22 is essentially Psalm 135:10-12 with the response phrase inserted six times.

Psalm 137: Wow! Check out Psalm 137:1!

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

OK, that is TOTALLY ripping off an old reggae song.



Verses 5-6 are also familiar: If I forget you, O Jerusalme, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if if do not remember you....

It ends on a bit of a bummer, though, both viscerally and philosophically:

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us --
he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. (8-9)

Psalm 138: This song, ascribed to David, begins:

I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart;
before the "gods" I will sing your praise. (1)

This passage raises an interesting question: do our ancient Hebrew or Greek sources really have an equivalent for ironic quotation marks? I certainly don't think we've seen such leading punctuation employed employed up to this point in the Bible, although we have often seen references to the other gods besides God. Is there something in the source materials that lead the NIV translators to indicate that by saying "gods," David didn't really mean to suggest that he believed in other gods? Is it a surmise based on David's abundantly demonstrated piety? Or are they -- strange as this might sound -- trying to protect David from the taint of polytheism? Because the latter is actually kind of what it looks like.

After this interesting beginning, the 138th is a fairly straightforward Psalm of praise.


Psalm 139: The 139th, on the other hand, is an interesting, distinctive, and nuanced Psalm about being thoroughly known by a creator:

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. (2-3)

There is a lovely passage here that has a bit of a Shakespearean ring to it:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (13-14)

Oh, what a piece of work is man!

Psalm 139 veers away from its main thrust only for four of its twenty-four verses, for one of the fairly alarming rants so common in the Psalms ascribed to David (as this one is). The mood swing is swift: When I awake, I am still with you. If only you would slay the wicked, O God! (18-19)


Psalm 140 is a more extended version of the angry rant that snuck into #139, with inspirational, uplifting thoughts like:

Let the heads of those who surround me be covered with the trouble their lips have caused.
Let burning coals fall upon them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise. (9-10)

Psalm 141: Begins as a prayer not to be drawn into evil deeds, but then morphs into the now-familiar if less interesting contrast of self versus the "evildoers": their rulers will be thrown down from the cliffs (6) and so on.

Psalm 142: Much like Psalm 141, it is largely a prayer of humility and supplication before God, interwoven with requests for God to destroy sinister, vaguely-defined enemies.

Psalm 143: And much like Psalm 142, it is largely a prayer of humility and supplication before God, interwoven with requests for God to destroy sinister, vaguely-defined enemies.


NEXT TIME: The End of the Psalms!!!

Today's Text: Psalms 135-143.

Psalms 130-134: The End of the Ascents

These five Psalms are the last of the “songs of ascents,” Psalms 120-134, which are supposed to be a cycle of songs sung on the pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Except for Psalm 132, they are all quite short.

Psalm 130: Throughout the Old Testament, there has been a decided emphasis on salvation through obedience. One is supposed to obey the Law to the letter, and in exchange for this God will not bring you sufferings or just snuff you out altogether. But here in Psalm 130, we have another of the occasional glimpses of a different sort of theology, in this case a theology of forgiveness.

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared. (3-4)

Fearing someone for their power of forgiveness seems off-kilter at first blush, but consider the context: EVERYONE is guilty, and their only hope is forgiveness, so of course the decision-maker is someone to inspire a certain amount of trembling. (This strikes me, incidentally, as a very Christian sort of passage.)

And here’s a lovely passage, I think:

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning. (6)

Psalm 131: A very short song of abject humility, echoes the “watchman waiting for morning” line with a metaphor which doesn’t ring quite as well to the modern ear:

But I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me. (2)

Really, I’m not even sure what that means.


Psalm 132: A longer Psalm in three parts. First, it recalls David’s oath to build a suitable temple for the Ark of the Covenant. Second, it expresses the need and desire of the people to go and worship at the “dwelling place.” And third, it recounts God’s promises to David to provide leadership, prosperity, and success to Israel. As usual in the Old Testament, the contractual nature of religious practice is much in evidence, with the implication that “here we are, God, doing our part by coming to worship in the proscribed manner; don’t let us down with your part of the bargain.”


Psalm 133: The first line of this short Psalm conveys the meaning of the whole: How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! (1) If you continue past that very quotable first line, though, you get a great example of how ringing sound bites from Psalms often seem pretty curious when they are not cropped out of their surrounding text:

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard,
Running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes. (1-2)

Anyone here especially like oil running down into their beard? No?


Psalm 134: Three short lines, the condensed version of which is: “Praise the Lord! Left up your hands and praise the Lord! May the Lord bless you!” This is religious practice at its most fundamental level. Even when this simplified, however, there is still an element of the contractual in the picture: Praise, that you may be blessed. You do your bit for God, and God will do his bit for you.

Next Time: The Penultimate Psalms!

This Week's Text: Psalms 130-134

Psalms 120 - 129

All of the songs of the 120s are labelled "songs of ascents." I'm not sure what that means. They are all quite short, though, at four to nine verses long. All ten of them together are considerably shorter than Psalm 119.

120: The Psalmist complains of lying lips and deceitful tongues (2), and tells such liars that God will punish them with a warrior's sharp arrows, with burning coals of the broom tree. (4) Then, he laments living among those who hate peace. (6)

121: I recognize Psalm 121 immediately from, of all places, the soundtrack of the 1980s movie "The Falcon and the Snowman." Funny.

It is an eight-verse poem of reassurance in second person that reads almost as a lullaby, affirming to the readers or listeners that God will watch over them and preserve them from harm. And although I have often expressed scepticism over whether the Bible should really be promising physical protection to believers, in this context I find the sentiment rather touching. This might be my new favorite Psalm.

122: A jumbled and upbeat Psalm about how nice it is to pray and worship communally, especially in Jerusalem.

123: A short Psalm of devotion and submission to God, asking mercy for those who have endured the contempt of "the proud" and "the arrogant."

124: States forcefully that Israel would have been doomed in its conflicts with its neighbors, if not for the direct assistance from God.

125: Compares people who believe in God with unshakeable mountains.

126: A song of joy and happiness, stating that the Lord has done great things for us (3), especially in returning the exiles from captivity.

127: The first two verses of this Psalm state that all labor is futile unless it is in accordance with God's will. The remaining three verses are in praise of sons, who are a blessing from God; it's best to have a lot of them and to have them young.

128: A promise of prosperity to believers, with this great line: Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. (3)

129: A somewhat disjointed Psalm that seems to be about how the peoples who were against Israel have now fallen on hard times.


Well, I still don't know what a "song of ascents" is. This set of Psalms seems unusually upbeat and brief; maybe that has something to do with it. Or, maybe it just has to do with the musical setting?

...ah-ha. Says here that they probably are the songs traditionally sung while climbing up to Jerusalem. Also that they are short and upbeat, so I guess I was on the right track.

Psalm 119: The Longest Psalm

I singled out Psalm 119 for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's freakin' long. One hundred seventy-six Verses long, in fact, which (sez here) makes it not only the longest Psalm but also the longest book in the Bible.

Secondly, it is divided into 22 sections, each of which is labelled with a Hebrew letter. On the page, this makes it look pretty cool and potentially experimental and interesting. On reading it, unfortunately, I was a bit underwhelmed and unable to see what the point of all the alphabetic divisions was. Then, however, I consulted an authoritative commentary on holy scripture and all other things -- it's called "Wikipedia" -- and was glad I did. Check this out:

This psalm is one of about a dozen alphabetic acrostic poems in the Bible. Its 176 verses are divided into twenty-two stanzas of eight lines each, and in Hebrew forms an acrostic, with each stanza starting with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Further, within each stanza, each line begins with that same letter.

In other words, the eight verses of the "Aleph" section all start with the letter Aleph, the eight verses of the "Beth" section all... well, you get the picture. Cooool.

This aspect of the Psalm doesn't survive in the translation, however, so in reading I naturally focused on the simple meaning of the text. And the meaning is fairly straightforward, and consistent throughout the Chapter. I'll give you a sample line from each section, and you can see if you can find any sort of overarching theme. Ready? Here we go.

Aleph: You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. (4)
Beth: I rejoice in following your statues as one rejoices in great riches. (14)
Gimel: My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times. (20)
Daleth: I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws. (30)
He: Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end. (33)
Waw: ...for I delight in your commands because I love them. (47)
Zayin: I remember your ancient laws, O Lord, and I find comfort in them. (52)
Heth: I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands. (60)
Teth: The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. (72)
Yodh: I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous.... (75)
Kaph: Preserve my life according to your love, and I will obey the statutes of your mouth. (88)
Lamedh: Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. (91)
Mem: Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. (97)
Nun: My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end. (112)
Samekh: My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws. (120)
Ayin: Deal with your servant according to your love and teach me your decrees. (124)
Pe: I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. (131)
Tsadhe: The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy. (138)
Qoph: Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever. (152)
Resh: Look upon my suffering and deliver me, for I have not forgotten your law. (153)
Sin/Shin: I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you. (168)
Taw: May my tongue sing of your word, for all your commands are righteous. (172)


EXTRA CREDIT: Rewrite an English translation of Psalm 119 so that, in each eight-verse section, each verse begins with the same letter. For full credit, get all twenty-two sections in alphabetical order. You may skip any four letters you wish.


AMAZING SIDENOTE: As I finished today's reading, I was all like "wow, it looks like I'm getting to the halfway point in this book!" Well. There are 923 pages in my Bible. Today, I read most of page 462. ~You~ do the math!

Psalms 111 - 118

Eight More Psalms!

111 A short "Praise the Lord" Psalm -- it opens with that phrase -- touching on the greatness and majesty of God, his propensity for giving his followers sustainance and the ability to conquer other peoples, and his justice and uprightness.

112 A Psalm about how great and successful life is going to be for a righteous man who believes in God, with a short coda about how miserable things will go for wicked people.

113 The third Psalm in a row beginning with "Praise the Lord," this is a short passage that does just that. God is praised particularly as one who lifts up the poor and makes barren women fertile.

114 A short and somewhat cryptic celebration of God's miracles during the Exodus.

115 Ooh! Psalm 115 is suddenly RICH in theological content! For starters, it introduces the brand-new idea that there is a specific non-earthly dwelling place of God: Why do the nations say, "Where is their God?" Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. (2-3) Then, it explicitly takes on polytheism. In verses 4-8 it says that the idols of the surrounding peoples have mouths, but cannot speak, and so on through eyes, ears, noses, hands, and feet, which can not walk, and then it darkly hints that those who worship the idols will end up the same way.

Yet even while it makes these big gestures towards standard Christian theology as I learned it in Sunday school, it retains the general Old Testament line against life after death: The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to man. It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down to silence; it is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore. (16-18)

116 A fairly ecstactic prayer of fealty to God, in thanks for having "turned his ear" to the Psalmist and delivered him from all of his problems.

117 Is tiny. Here it is in its entirety:

1 Praise the Lord, all you nations;
extol him, all you peoples.
2 For great is his love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord.

(It says here in the footnote that the bit translated as "Praise the Lord" is, in Hebrew, Hallelu Yah. I'll be.)

118 A long prayer proclaiming the physical protection afforded by God, and encouraging everyone to celebrate and praise God.

Psalm 119: Is long and looks kind of... unusual. So we'll stop here for now.

Psalms 101 - 110: Let's Speed This Up

Ten More Psalms!

101 A first-person vow to God that the Psalmist will behave well.

102 One of the most negative Psalms yet, a lament of sickness, destitution, and humiliation. The Psalmist compares his misery with the greatness of God, more or less blaming God for his downfall but seemingly without rancor.

103 Literally a "Praise the Lord" sort of hymn; the phrase crops up five times in the Psalm. It is a catalog of God's virtues. The most memorable phrase, though, is a brief break to describe humanity by way of contrast: 15 As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. Kind of a downer.

104 A long Psalm of praise, ascribing all natural phenemona to God. Light, winds, earth, rivers, plants, wine, the moon, animals, the sea, whales, everything: God made it all, and it's all good. There's only one negative note, as the last verse calls for sinners and the wicked to be swept from the earth.

105 A long song of Thanksgiving, recounting the history of the Israelites from Genesis and Exodus.

106 More or less a sequel to Psalm 105, Psalm 106 continues the summary of history from the Exodus through to at least the wandering in the desert.

107 The first of a new set of Psalms, "Book V." This is a Psalm of wild contradictions, exhorting everyone to give thanks for God's "unfailing love" and celebrating the good things he provides for his worshipers, but at the same time also celebrating the miseries, captivity, and deprivation that those who "rebelled against the words of God" are subject to. Love can apparently be both unfailing and extremely conditional.

108 A military Psalm, calling on God to support the armies of David and ensure their victory.

109 We haven't seen any of the paranoid Psalms for a while, but this one starts out in good form with complaints against wicked, deceitful enemies full of hatred. From there, it transforms into a scorching curse, wishing all manners of misfortunate and woe on the people who wished the Psalmist ill, as well as their friends and family.

110 And Psalm 110 is just kind of... weird. It's definitely about the power of God, but... well, it's short, I'll just give it to you whole.

1 The LORD says to my Lord:
"Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet."
2 The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion;
you will rule in the midst of your enemies.

3 Your troops will be willing
on your day of battle.
Arrayed in holy majesty,
from the womb of the dawn
you will receive the dew of your youth.

4 The LORD has sworn
and will not change his mind:
"You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek."

5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will crush kings on the day of his wrath.

6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead
and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.

7 He will drink from a brook beside the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.

Psalms 90-100

Wait, What?

I still have a Bible project? And I'm still in the Psalms? Sigh....

The good news is, I've finally made it to Psalm 100! ...and the bad news is, there's 150 Psalms. Well, onward! The strategem today is just to identify the main point of each Psalm -- this batch consists for the most part of thematically unified chapters -- and give you a short soundbite that captures the mood. Ready? Let's go!

Psalm 90

This is another Psalm on a topic that is always surprising to me, how much the world as created by God kind of sucks. The tone isn't complaint, but resigned acceptance of the limitations of human life, and the harshness of God:

7 We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.

...and then you die, as lain out in this famous passage:

9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
10 The length of our days is seventy years—
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

There is just this one upbeat, uplifting passage to break the gloom, toward the end of the Psalm:

14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Otherwise, this is a hard-bitten, that's-just-the-way-it-is sort of Psalm. Psalm noir, as it were.

Psalm 91

A far more optimistic Psalm than its immediate predecessor, #91 is on the popular theme of how God will protect and shield his worshippers.

9 If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-
10 then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

These assurances always seem a little problematic in a prayer or a religious song. After all, does God really provide complete physical protection for all his believers? Well, ask any saint.

Psalm 92

This one is a straightforward song of celebration, an upbeat celebration of greatness of God and the greatness of worshipping God.

5 How great are your works, O LORD,
how profound your thoughts!

The second half continues in the same mood, but reintroduces the theme of material benefit for believers:

12 The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon

Psalm 93

A short piece, five verses long with a loopy, repetitive quality, you can just imagine this one as a a slow number in a minor key. It is on the theme of the mightiness of God.

4 Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the LORD on high is mighty.

Psalm 94

The 94th Psalm is, by contrast, a long and rather blunt recitation on the theme of God's vengeance. It complains of the actions of the evildoers, and predicts their punishment by God, rooting God on in the process:

1 O LORD, the God who avenges,
O God who avenges, shine forth.
2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth;
pay back to the proud what they deserve.

Psalm 95

The 95th starts out as a call to worship God and ends with a sort of monologue by God to the Israelites. It is hard to tell exactly where one morphs into the other, but I think it's somewhere in here:

7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the desert,
9 where your fathers tested and tried me,
though they had seen what I did.

At and before verse 7, God is "he"; at and after verse 9, God seems to be "I."

Psalm 96

A fairly ecstatic song of praise, with a bit of a prosylatizing edge to it:

3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
4 For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.

You don't often see calls in the Old Testament for believers to spread their faith, but this seems to be a bit of an exception.

Psalm 97

Another straightforward song of praise.

5 The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory.

Psalm 98

This is one of a great many Psalms that starts along the lines of Sing to the Lord a new song, which is kind of ironic seeing as how they are all now old, old, old songs. Of course, every song is a new song when it's being written, but the phrase happens often enough so that one wonders if it has any particular meaning in this context.

This is, in any event, another song of religious celebration, specifically religious celebration through music.

4 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
5 make music to the LORD with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn—
shout for joy before the LORD, the King.

Psalm 99

A song of praise and thanksgiving -- we seem to have uncovered a rich vein of them here -- this time with references to earlier Old Testament history.

5 Exalt the LORD our God
and worship at his footstool;
he is holy.
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel was among those who called on his name;
they called on the LORD
and he answered them.

Psalm 100

And Psalm 100, finally, an uncomplicated thanksgiving Psalm that simply exhorts the reader to get happy and praise God:

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

And with that, we're 2/3 through the Psalms.

Psalms 83-89: Eighties Songs

Psalm 83

This is a solid example of a Psalm about enemies and about smiting enemies. The first eight verses talk about and list the foes that have it in for God's people, and the last ten verse exhort God to punish them and punish them good.

...pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your storm.
Cover their faces with shame so that men will seek your name, O Lord.
May they ever be ashamed and dismayed; may they perish in disgrace. (15-17)

The idea that God should lay into enemies of his followers with especial harshness in order to make a big impression is a very common one in the Bible; we've seen it at least since the Plagues of Egypt, which Exodus says were orchestrated by God in order for a chance to showcase his power. It is always a disappointing thing to read about a God whom you hope will be less about vengeance, hate, and destruction and more about mercy, goodwill, and loving thy
enemy.

Now Psalm 83 is a Psalm, a song of praise, and there is no indication in the text that it aspires to predicting the future. Indeed, it is pretty self-evidentally a plea to God for support in a local crisis of the moment. This has however not stopped Biblical prophecy nutters from getting all excited about the enemy nations listed in Verses 6-8. A web search reveals several discussions of "prophecy in Psalm 83," illustrated with maps like this:


Well, the Bible is abundant with cryptic detail, and if you want to use it as a magic fortune-telling book there is enough material to keep you chasing your own tail indefinitely. It is an abuse of both the text and of your own intellect, but I suppose it keeps you off the street.

Psalm 84

This Psalm is about the "dwelling place" of God, which immediately resonates with ideas of heaven. But I don't think the house of God here is anything but the Temple in Jerusalem. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you, reads Verse 4, and it's hard to take that as anything but a metaphorical way of talking about the community of believers. But I think it's quite literal, and is referring to the priesthood which actually lived and worked in the temple and indeed was always praising Him. The clue is in the next three lines, which talks about pilgrims comes through the Baca Valley to "appear... before God in Zion"; this is almost certainly referring to the annual pilgrimages that believers were supposed to make in order to make their most important sacrifices at the one temple.

Psalm 85

The Psalms since Psalm 73 have tended to be much more individual coherent and unified than the "Psalms of David" that preceded them, and this one is another example. It is again on a common theme: the idea that God punishes a lack of faithfulness by withdrawing his favor and his favors from his people. Apparently written during a dark time, it asks for forgiveness as of an angry spouse:

will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger through all generations?
Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? (5-6)

As before, we see an element here of bargaining with God -- if he overdoes his withdrawal of favors, than people will lose interest in him and it will cost him the worship he has become accustomed to. However, later in the Psalm it's implied that righteousness is supposed to come first.

The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps. (13)

In other words, you aren't supposed to wait and see what God offers, and then worship accordingly; you are supposed to start worshipping, and if you do that will please God and he will provide for you.

Psalm 86

Now THIS is kind of interesting: Psalm 86 is so ecstatic in it's praise of God, and has such a ring of paranoia in its sudden invocation of mysterious enemies -- The arrogant are attacking me, O God; a band of ruthless men seeks my life (14) -- that I thought "uh oh, this really breaks down the division I've noticed between the Psalms of David and the post-David Psalms." But then I noticed up at the top that Psalm 86 is, indeed, a "Psalm of David." Spiritually blissed out, paranoid, brazenly asking for divine favors like some guys bum cigarettes -- that's David for ya all right. The Chapters of Psalms said to have been written by David may or may not have actually been written by the possibly fictitious king, but they certainly seem to have been written by someone with a distinctive set of concerns.

Psalm 87

A short Psalm about how much God loves Jerusalem: the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. There's a list of surrounding countries that will submit to Jerusalem, and lots of famous people are going to be born there. After Solomon, this song would obviously appeal more to the Judeans (who controlled Jerusalem and its local region) than the remaining Kingdom of Israel (who controlled everything else).

Psalm 88

The theme of despair is all over the Book of Psalms, and it runs through all 18 verses of this chapter. The singer addresses God, reminding God that he prays continually for help and comfort but receives only sickness, trouble, and humiliation. Why, O Lord, he asks, in a fairly common Psalms lament, do you reject me and hide your face from me? (14) Often times, these kinds of passages end on a positive note, with an indication that God has come through in the end or with a solumn determination to redouble one's faith, but not this time. You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend. (18)

In Verses 10 through 12, the Psalmist reasons with God in an interesting way. In a heavily paraphrased form, the argument goes "It won't do you any good to let me die young; dead people can't praise you or tell people how great you are." This shows that the Israelites thought of God as needing, or at least wanting, their praise and acclaim for reasons of His own; again we see the idea that to a certain extent, they can bargain with Him because He NEEDS them. It is also further evidence for the notion that the Israelites did not believe in a significant life after death.

People who make inspirational images are way too selective in the scripture they choose to illustrate. Wouldn't this image be so much more challenging, bracing, and thought-provoking with the text You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend?

Psalm 89

A very long Psalm, number 89 begins with 18 Verses of praise addressed to God, telling him how powerful, awe-inspiring, and righteous he is. After that, there is a recounting of God's covenenant with David that lasts another 19 Verses.

Then, a surprising detour: the next eight lines talk about how God then borke his covenant with David, and how without God's protection the kingdom has been subject to humiliation, plunder, and the scorn of its enemies. A final seven Verses plead with God to resume his support and love, to make things better for his people. Essentially, it is a plea for mercy, although there is a subtle reprise of the idea that God is being silly to let his people experience so much trouble, since they can't be praising him if they are always getting killed off.


Whoops, that's the end of "BOOK III" of the Book of Psalms.

NEXT TIME: The first half of "BOOK IV" of the Book of Psalms.

This Week's Text: Psalms 83-89

Psalms 73-82: Psalms by Numbers II

I broke off last time because Psalm 73 marks the transition from the Psalms of David to the Psalms of Asaph, whoever he is. I wasn't expecting this to be a terribly significant shift, though. Truth be told, I've been pretty skeptical about the idea that the "Psalms of David" were really written by King David -- people who study such things are apparently not even unanimously convinced that such a person really ever existed, after all, let alone that we can say much about his life and works.

That as may be, however, there is a definite stylistic shift between Psalm 72 and Psalm 73, marked enough so as to suggest -- through the many complications of translation, form, and history -- a different authorial voice. As a Psalmist, "Asaph" is more even-tempered and narrative. The sudden shifts of mood and topic are gone, and Psalms follow a single line of thought more or less from beginning to end. These Psalms are less personal and less emotional, more about the history and experience of the Israelites as a people. They have fewer resonant, ringing phrases -- I'm guessing that they are far less popular as sound-bite Psalms -- but are much easier to read in their entirety.

They still touch on many of the same themes as the previous 72 Psalms, however, so I was by and large able to evaluate them according to the categories I was using last week. Three chapters didn't quite fit the pattern, though, so the following number-crunching is for Psalms 73-77, 79, and 80.

Characterizations of God as Powerful

Asaph preaches the power and might of God. In 25% of the verses enumerated, Asaph is in some way referring to the past, present, or potential ability of God to shape the world and its events. Psalm 76, for instance, is about God's ability to make peace through the use of might: Surely your wrath against men brings you praise, and the survivors of your wrath are restrained. (10)

Two of the Psalms that didn't work with my categories are also largely about the power of God as well. Psalm 78 has an 8-verse preamble followed by a 64-verse summary of Israelite history from Moses to David -- two hundred and two pages of text, from Exodus to 2 Samuel, laid out in a single chapter! This summary, moreover, stresses God's power to bless the Israelites when they are properly obedient, and to lay them low when they stray.

Then, Psalm 82 stresses God's authority and power among the ""gods."" Got that? The ""gods."" That is, it talks about God's authority over the gods as if he were the CEO of a polytheism, but the word "gods" is in quotation marks. The text doesn't make clear if it is actually referring to other deities -- as I have often said, polytheism always seems to be lurking at the edges of Old Testament theology -- or whether it is making fun of puffed-up human bigshots:

"I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.'
But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler." (6-7)

Psalms of Despair

This new set of Psalms is no less willing than the first 72 to complain of the absence of God. The theme of despair, which represents 20% of the text, is most evident in Psalm 74, where Asaph asks questions like "Why have you rejected us forever, O God?" (1) and says things like "We are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be." (9) This continual refrain has been the most surprising element of the Psalms to me, but its presence has also been kind of reassuring. To me, doubt seems a necessary element of faith in a divine, inscrutable supernatural being, and I am always surprised and rather confused by people who claim to have never doubted, or feared that God might be other than they imagine or indeed altogether absent. That the Psalmists wrestled with this most obvious of religious problems lends them a credibility that escapes the blindly faithful.

The Wicked

Description of the Wicked was the third most common theme in this set, with 16% of the text. Most of this came in Psalm 73, which lists most of the typical problems with the wicked -- tautological characteristics like iniquity, evil conceits, malice, and oppression, and vague characteristics like violence, arrogance, and the propensity to lie. It begins, though, with a startlingly different take on the wicked than we've seen previously:

For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong
They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. (3-5)

This flies straight in the face of what has been the party line throughout earlier Psalms, that the Wicked are due for a comeuppance in this world. It is quite a while -- not until verse 17 -- that Asaph makes clear that you shouldn't go out and sign up for the Wicked team. The Wicked do well in the short term, he suggests, but despite their prosperity, or indeed because of it, they are in trouble in the long term: Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! (18-19) This stands out as the first suggestion I've seen in the Bible that wealth could be a morally problematic or hazardous thing, as opposed to a simple blessing or even a sign of God's favor.



Let's Make a Deal!

Another theme that runs through the Psalms, although it would be hard to enumerate, it that of deal-making between God and humans. This element shouldn't be surprisingly, I suppose in a religion that is based on a Covenant, but it is still sometimes rather jarring and -- to my arguably prissy middle-class sentiments -- sometimes seems a bit distasteful in a sacred context. Psalm 81 talks about the deal from God's point of view, and quotes God as saying essentially "if you would obey the laws and lay off of other gods, I'd make things really easy for you; when you go do your own thing, though, you are totally on your own.


But then elsewhere, as in Psalm 80, the Psalms present God with a laundry list of complaints and requests, sometimes with the implication that worship is going to require a bit of a quid pro quo. If God restores the prominence of the Israelites and makes them successful among the surrounding kingdoms, Psalm 80 suggests, then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name. (18) It all suggests a rather practical relationship, a sort of alliance, between deity and worshiper, with less in the way of unconditional love than a modern observer might expect. Did they have unconditional love in the iron age? Hard to say. The Psalms are, we are often forced to remember, from a culturally very distant world.

Psalms 65-72: Psalms by Numbers

Last week, I was kind of flirting with classifying the Psalms into different types -- I mentioned "Sanctuary Psalms," for instance, and "Celebratory Psalms." The problem with that idea is that, as I have mentioned numerous times, most Psalms don't cleave to a single topic. Like a lot of songs, they are filled with sudden mood swings and changes of topic.

In looking at today's set of Psalms, I decided to try to ennumerate out some of the key themes and see what proportion of the text they occupy. We've seen a lot of fretting about enemies in the Psalms, for instance, and calls for God to punish these enemies. This theme SEEMS super-prominent, but that's partially just because it's so jarring; I guessed that in terms of raw volume, it would be somewhat less impressive, and that seems to be more or less true.

Caveats:

• If fifty people read the Psalms and enumerated out the main themes, you would very possibly have fifty different versions of what constitutes "the main themes." Nothing special about MY version.
• Even if you thought my themes were the definitive set, we would probably argue from time to time about which category an individual verse belongs to. Categorizing stuff is always a messy exercise.
• Doing this at the verse level obfuscates that there are some Psalms that are relatively thematic, some that split into two or three coherent themes, and some that ramble around all over the place. (In this set, #s 67, 65, and 68 are prime examples). The first three Psalms in this set are all reletively celebratory in nature, and so the set as a whole is probably more celebratory than your "average" ten Psalms, whichever those ones are.
• Occasionally, there are verses that go right over my head. See below.

I meant to just tally up the next ten Psalms, 65-74, but predictably there were complications. One complication is Psalm 72, which is unlike anything I've seen previously; it's all about how great the king is and how things are going to be wonderful because of him. It is bracketed with a request for God to bless the king, but as (it says) a work by Solomon, it seems not a little self-serving. It is also a breakpoint, the end of the "prayers of David." The next several Psalms are all "of Asaph." Who? I don't remember an Asaph, but then I've read an AWFUL lot of names in this book.

So, anyway, the numbers here are just for the seven Psalms 65-71. The plan is, I'll come back next time and see if I can use the same breakdown for Psalms 73-82. K? K. With no further ado:

Celebratory Psalms

In this category, I place anything that amounts to pure praise: ecstatic professions of faith or devotion, as well as statements of intent to praise, give sacrifice, and so on. These kinds of verses are sometimes addressed to God in second person and sometimes about God in third person; I didn't distinguish these in my counting.

Examples:

65:1 Praise awaits you, O God, in Zion; to you our vows will be fulfilled.

66:17-20 I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;
but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.
Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!

In this sample, these made up a whopping 37% of the Psalmic real estate by verse.

Psalms of Sanctuary

The second most prevalent category of Psalm was the appeal to God for physical shelter and protection.

71:2-4 Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness; turn your ear to me and save me.
Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
Deliver me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of evil and cruel men.

These verses made up 14% of the sample.

Psalms of Despair

You can not escape the depressive streak that runs through the Psalms, as so often they address God with a catalog of profound miseries.

69: 1-3 Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

At 10%, these were the third most common kind of verse in this batch.

Other Categories

The other categories I've come up with so far are

1. the related Complaints Against Enemies and Calls to Smite Enemies. At 4% and 7% of the same, you would say that they constitute 11% in an "Enemies" category and outweigh "Despair." Although there is some overlap between "Enemies" and "Despair," too. THIS IS JUST A LEARNING EXERCISE. IT ISN'T SCIENCE!!!
2. Characterizations of God as Powerful (10%)
3. Characterizations of God as a Bringer of Abundance (7%)
4. References to Past Trials and Punishments Endured by the Israelites (2%)
5. Discussion of The Wicked (1%) and The Righteous (1%)
6. Mystical Visions (3%)
7. Self-Accusation (1%)
8. ?!???!!! (4%)

I'll talk more about some of these categories next time if they still seem to be meaningful. But if you are wondering what "?!???!!!" is all about, that would be those verses that I'm unable to make much sense out of. The main stumbling block this time was Psalm 68: 11-16, which goes like this:

11 The Lord announced the word, and great was the company of those who proclaimed it:
12 "Kings and armies flee in haste; in the camps men divide the plunder.
13 Even while you sleep among the campfires, the wings of my dove are sheathed with silver, its feathers with shining gold."
14 When the Almighty scattered the kings in the land, it was like snow fallen on Zalmon.
15 The mountains of Bashan are majestic mountains; rugged are the mountains of Bashan.
16 Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the LORD himself will dwell forever?

It probably belongs under "mystical visions," but it's so quirky that I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Which of course makes me rather fond of it.

NEXT TIME: Psalms 73-82 -- the Breakdown.

This Week's Text: Psalms 65-72

Psalms 55 - 64: The "Second Batch of Colorado Psalms"

Psalm 55

We begin a second set of Colorado Psalms – using the Revised Standard Version I have here at hand in the Centennial State – with Psalm 55, a fine example of a Psalm that doesn’t make any kind of conventional narrative sense. It starts off as a fairly typical riff on the “enemies” theme, asking God for protection from “the enemy” and “the wicked.” The Psalmist says he wishes he had “wings like a dove” so that he could fly away into the wilderness, and just get away from his troubles; then, that not being an option, he asks God to just destroy his opponents for him instead.

Then, there is a rapid mood swing, and instead of addressing God the Psalm addresses some former buddy of the Psalmist:

It is not an enemy who taunts me – then I could bear it;
It is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him.
But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend,
We used to hold sweet converse together;
Within God’s house we walked in fellowship. (12-14)

This is an abrupt and confusing shift not only because we don’t know what the hell he is talking about – it’s possible that this is all about the Saul/David rivalries, but it sure isn’t spelled out – but because the Chapter up to now has clearly been talking about a large group of enemies, not just one guy.

Speaking of rapid mood swings, the text continues immediately into:

Let death come upon them;
let them go down to Sheol alive;
let them go away in terror into their graves. (15)

We have whiplashed back into addressing God and talking about a host of enemies. And after this single bizarrely vindictive verse, our mood changes again:

But I call upon God;
and the Lord will save me. (16)

See what you miss when you get just a few lines of Psalms in quotation? Everything seems so much more inspirational and level-headed after a good cherry-picking. And behold! We are only 2/3 of the way into Psalm 55. It continues through seven more verses of self-pity, confident affirmation of God’s protection, more accusations against the “companion,” a call to trust in God’s support, and a confident statement to God of trust that he will humiliate and kill the bad guys. It’s a twisty road, Psalm 55.

Psalm 56

Psalm 56 is far more straightforward, and follows what seems to be a fairly common pattern: seven Verses describing the downtrodden state of the Psalmist, followed by six Verses of ecstatic affirmation of faith in God. It is to be sung to the tune of “The Dove on Far-off Terebinths,” which is cool, and here in the NRV contains the startling claim that Thou hast kept count of my tossings. (8) I must remember to cross reference this with another translation.

Psalm 57

Here again we have an easily understood song. It has abrupt changes of mood and content, but they are in the regular rhythm of chorus and refrains. A few Verses describing the Psalmists suffering and despair are followed by a few Verses celebrating the intervention and power of God, and this pattern is repeated three or four times. It is sung to the tune of “Do Not Destroy,” which must have been a big hit as it is also the music for Psalm 58.

Psalm 58

Despite its tune, this is a text about destroying. The first five verses are about how very bad bad people are, and how some people are just born bad. It also, in this translation, mentions the amorality of other gods aside from God, which is the first really noteworthy example of Old Testament polytheism we’ve seen in awhile; a footnote, however, gives an alternate translation of “mighty lords.”

The next four Verses call on God to punish the bad guys in creative ways: having their teeth broken and torn out, vanishing like evaporating water, being trampled like grass, dissolving into slime like a snail, etc. There is, here as elsewhere, no suggestion that “the righteous” should care much about the fate of “the wicked.” Indeed,

The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. (10)

This is followed immediately by:

Men will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth.” (11)

Hypothesis: I am guessing that Psalm 55:11 is fairly popular in quotation, but almost invariably de-linked from the context of the proceeding verse. I am guessing that Psalm 55:10 is invoked not at all, save in the most marginal and extreme of churches.

Results: Quick internet search reveals little to confirm or disprove the hypothesis.

Psalm 59

A mildly disturbing Psalm in its naked xenophobia, characterizing “all the nations” as snarling, lying, plotting packs of dogs, and calling on God to punish them, but to draw it out a bit so their suffering provides a good object lesson.

Psalm 60

Another downbeat, military Psalm, the 60th begins with a complaint of the troubles God has inflicted on people, and then shifts into a ambiguous series of passages that seem to both gloat of the military victories that will be achieved with the help of God and to accuse God of having abandoned the military effort.

Psalm 61

A straightforward example of what I am starting to think of as the “Sanctuary Psalms” – those that request and/or celebrate the physical protection that God provides to the faithful.

Psalm 62

Perhaps there is a category of the “Jumble Psalms.” Number 62 has two Verses of devotion; two of ranting about enemies (one in second person, one in third); four mystical Verses on the “sanctuary” theme; two Verses admonishing against the desire for worldly things; and two Verses that are hard just to get your head around, let alone to categorize:

Once God has spoken;
Twice have I heard this:
That power belongs to God;
And that to thee, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.
For thou dost requite a man according to his work. (11-12)

Psalm 63

Mostly what you might call one of the “Celebratory Psalms,” this one is an ecstatic professing of faith and devotion. It moves through a comparison of God to water in the dessert, something thirsted for which sustains life – a powerful metaphor in the Middle East, then as now – to a comparison of God to a rich and sumptuous feast. Here as in so many Psalms, though, the mystical vision of a just, loving, affirmative God is complicated by an intrusion of fear and vengeance:

But those who seek to destroy my life
shall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword,
they shall be prey for jackals. (9-10)

Psalm 64

Psalm 64 is a plot point in the book I read last night! Jar City is an enjoyable and engrossing detective novel by the Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason. He uses this Psalm, a complaint against the malice and aggression of an unnamed enemy, to good effect. I have been thinking of these as the “Psalms of Paranoia” but that seems a bit loaded; “Psalms of Despair” isn’t quite right either. “Psalms of Complaint Against the Malice and Aggression of an Unnamed Enemy” is just too cumbersome. I’ll have to think on this.

Psalms 43 - 47: Five More Psalms!

Psalm 43

This is another one in which David complains of an absent God -- "why have you rejected me?" -- but resolves to be faithful and hopeful regardless. In retrospect, I wish I had kept track of the content of the Psalms since the beginning. The "why have you forsaken me" theme is really quite pervasive. I think this is interesting, because I don't believe I've ever heard or seen it cited in the various settings where we see or hear Psalms cited.

Psalm 44

Take Psalm 44, for instance! The first eight verses are a confident soldier's prayer, three verses extolling God's role in victories of the past, and five saying things along the lines of my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory over our enemies. (6-7) This is followed, though, by 18 verses of dispair and abandonment: You gave us up to be devoured like sheep.... You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from the sale. (11-12) It goes on to specify that All this happen to us, though we had not forgotten you or be false to your convenant. (17)

...For your sake we face death all day long; it continues, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. (22) After a few lines of pleading for God to awake and not to reject his people forever, the Psalm ends with an affirmation of faith that seems almost ironic in context: Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love. (26)

Again, you don't hear much about this in church, and I am finding a conspicuous shortage of inspirational images based on this particular Psalm. This makes perfect sense, of course, since most churches and religious people are more interested in messages of joy, hope, and redemption, and less excited about contemplating abandonment, despair, and divine capriciousness. But that's one of the ways that the Bible is so deeply problematic -- it does not, at least as far as I've read to date, offer an exclusively positive message about the relationship between God and His humans. The most that could be said is that God is often kind to those people that he has selected for his special regard, and although we see occasional references to His enormous compassion and mercy, little of this is actually seen in the acts attributed to Him. Psalm 44, then, is not especially out of place here in the Old Testament. It's just out of sync with the modern Christian conception of God.

Psalm 45

Psalm 45 is a wedding song fit, literally, for a king, praising his deeds, wishing him success in future endeavors, and offering some of the complements to him and his bride. It notes at one point that the person to whom the song is addressed love[s] righteousness and hate[s] wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy. (7) Wait, don't most people hate wickedness? And love righteousness? Whatever "righteousness" is? Well, that's Psalmic logic for you.

Best thing about Psalm 45? It's supposed to be sung to the tune of "Lilies." You can't make this stuff up.

Psalm 46

This one is a three-parter. The first three verses affirm that God is an "ever-present help" and that with his assistance one fear nothing, not even the proverbial mountains falling into the sea. Except we're in Psalms, not Proverbs. How come we say things are "proverbial" but never "psalmic"?

The second part is something of a mystical vision, which I find lovely and trippy enough that I'm just going to repeat it without comment:

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.

6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

The third part speaks of God's ability to end war: he makes wars cease to the end of the earth. (9) I will guess that religious of an anti-war persuasion will have appropriated this snippit with some enthusiasm, but this is really not lion-lying-down-with-lamb stuff. In context, it's talking about ending war the hard way, with violence and fire.

Psalm 47

Nine verses of pure religious celebration, the concept of "praising the Lord" in a compact and ecstatic form. The first two verses seem tailor-made for those hippyish Christian youth groups that were popular in the 1970s:

1 Clap your hands, all you nations;
shout to God with cries of joy.

2 How awesome is the LORD Most High,
the great King over all the earth!

As is true of most songs of simple celebration, the content is not exactly what you would call deep thinkin':

6 Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.

7 For God is the King of all the earth;
sing to him a psalm of praise.

Here's an idea! Let's stop on an upbeat note for a change!

NEXT TIME: I've got the idea of trying a little quantitative analysis of Psalmic themes! I bet you're on the edge of your seat!

Psalm 42 Illustrated

I've complained before that the Psalms seem more coherent and more significant in sound-bite form that they are in their totality. It is significant, I think, that we almost never hear a Psalm in its entirety. Readings at public events or worship services tend to pick out three or for consecutive verses that are relatively unified in content, so we are rarely confronted with the radical subject changes, mood shifts, and/or allusions to malicious enemies that likely lie before and after.

Another place you are likely to run into Psalms is in religious inspirational images. These are a commonplace; now that you are thinking about them you will likely start noticing them taped to your coworkers' monitors, in little frames in your relatives' homes, in the waiting rooms of businesses owned by religious entrepreneurs, and so on. Or, if you are a churchgoer, you can probably count a half-dozen of 'em between the foyer and the pastor's office. They're ubiquitous.

The inherent problem with using Psalms in religious art is, I think, quite similar to the inherent problem with television news programs. The problem with television news programs is that important things that affect people's lives (policy, laws, diplomatic efforts, economics, social trends, technological change, scientific development) aren't very photogenic, and things that are exciting to watch (police chases, fires, crowds, weather, baby ducks) aren't really important. The very nature of the medium pretty much guarantees that television news will be trivial, as is in fact the case.

In the case of Psalms, what happens is that passages that can be matched with attractive photography get immediate preference in the inspiration business. Let's take a look at the first three verses of Psalm 42.

1 For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah.

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

3 My tears have been my food day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

We have three verses here that, read together, are a lament of the perceived absence of God. This is a regular theme in the Psalms, something that initially surprised me but which I have become used to at this juncture. Verse one compares the longing for God to the thirst of a deer (probably a more potent image in the deserts of the Middle East than here in verdent Oregon). Verse two states the point directly, and verse three contains an interesting image of tears as food and complains of the mockery of unbelievers. And we are not, of course, given any guidance as to any one of these verses being more significant or important than the others.

So: Would you care to guess which of the three verses is more likely to show up in inspirational art?

The opportunity to match a Psalm with an attractive image of a deer wins the day, of course. I was in fact unable to find a single image of Psalm 42:3 as an inspirational image. It would be easy enough to create an appropriate photograph -- a desolate man weeping while passers-by mock him -- yet no one seems to have gone to the trouble.

Well, duh. Obviously, people who are going to decorate with scriptural quotations want to do it in a pleasant and tasteful way. It's more than understandable, it's perfectly obvious -- at yet, it significantly distorts which Psalms we are paying attention to. The nature of the medium highlights Psalms about, say, bunnies, flowers, and sunrises and buries those about wounds, grief, and being attacked by beasts.

But it goes deeper than that, too. Looking at the images above, you see that they all cite verse 1 or verses 1 and 2. Only one goes on to verse 3, and it does so in extremely fine print. This effectively changes the meaning of the passage, changing it from a complaint of God's absence into an affirmation of zeal for God. So the inspiring wisdom of these images is perhaps all fine and good, but it is not really the wisdom of Psalm 42. In its entirety, Psalm 42 is about resolving to remain faithful to God even though he may completely abandon you and there's nothing you can do about it. Putting verses 1 and 2 with a picture of a deer creates an image that is about being totally into God, and liking that deer are pretty. There's a difference.

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Here's a gallery of the other Psalm 42 images I found in my carefully unscientific search. And the full text of Psalm 42, if you need that.

No Fear: Psalm 41

For Post #100, something a little different. Yesterday in the Life & Times, I made fun of the No Fear: Shakespeare books, a "study aid" that badly paraphrases the more popular Shakespeare plays into colloquial English. So today, I thought I would try this out on the next Psalm to happen along. Which happens to be Psalm 41:

1 Blessed is he who has regard for the weak;
the LORD delivers him in times of trouble.
2 The LORD will protect him and preserve his life;
he will bless him in the land
and not surrender him to the desire of his foes.

3 The LORD will sustain him on his sickbed
and restore him from his bed of illness.

4 I said, "O LORD, have mercy on me;
heal me, for I have sinned against you."

5 My enemies say of me in malice,
"When will he die and his name perish?"

6 Whenever one comes to see me,
he speaks falsely, while his heart gathers slander;
then he goes out and spreads it abroad.

7 All my enemies whisper together against me;
they imagine the worst for me, saying,

8 "A vile disease has beset him;
he will never get up from the place where he lies."

9 Even my close friend, whom I trusted,
he who shared my bread,
has lifted up his heel against me.

10 But you, O LORD, have mercy on me;
raise me up, that I may repay them.

11 I know that you are pleased with me,
for my enemy does not triumph over me.

12 In my integrity you uphold me
and set me in your presence forever.

13 Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Amen and Amen.

Here's my version:

People who are nice to the unfortunate will always have good fortune themselves. God will take care of them when they have problems, and will look after them and make sure they don't get killed. He will make sure they don't get hurt by either natural forces or their human enemies. If they get sick, God will make sure they pull through.

"God, have mercy on me," I said. "I am sick, and even though I realize that I've sinned, I still ask you to make me well again." My enemies think it's great that I'm sick, and they hope I'll die. They come and see me, but only so they can go out and tell their friends how bad I look. They have fun imagining how bad off I am. Since I've been sick, even my best friend has been trying to turn the situation to his own advantage.

But you, God, are merciful with me. I hope you will make me strong again so I can take revenge. I know you must be happy with me, or I wouldn't have lasted as long as I already have. Because I'm faithful, you take care of me and are always looking after me. Praise the Lord!

Assessment: This was a moderately interesting exercise to complete, but probably not a very interesting one to read about.

Next: Psalm 42 Illustrated

Psalms 32-40: The Beat Goes On

Oh, how I weary of the Psalms!
Their vagueness and their repetition, they lead me unto sleep.
Each verse alone rings out with the sound of wisdom,
Yet the verses in their masses neither inspire nor inform.

In my torpor I cried out, saying
"I know that song lyrics are not made to be read as other texts!"
And yet, this is the way the Psalms have been passed down to me.
This is the Bible, here for me to read.

So give me strength, to endure the same metaphors endlessly,
The endless petitions of David, blatantly self-serving,
Vindictive toward all who do not think at he does,
Disingenuous in all questions of good and evil.

I cry out in fear that all my posts are now the same!
Yet how can it not be so, when the Psalms are all the same?

OK, that was silly and not especially well done, but reading the Psalms really is starting to get to be a little like driving across the desert. There are landmarks here and there, and any given view has a sort of austere beauty to it, but the essentially unchanging scenery quickly becomes mind-numbing.

Now, I chose that comparison carefully, knowing that some people love the desert and love driving across the desert, and couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than a desert landscape. And good for them! And for anyone who finds the Psalms endlessly beautiful and inspirational, good for them too. But we clearly have different tastes.

Psalm 34

In today's slate of Psalms, the 34th was the one that caught my eye the most. I was struck, as I often am when I encounter it, with the notion of fearing God:

8 Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him
9 Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

This is the kind of exhortation that is everywhere in the Psalms, but as you focus on it you realize that it makes a uniquely complex demand on the emotions of the worshipper. Generally, you take refuge FROM the things you fear, not IN the things you fear. Here and elsewhere, we are told to trust in God, to regard him as an earthly salvation, but also to live in fear of him. My first impulse is to disregard this as an emotional impossibility, but that would be naive of me. It is actually a common complex of emotions that one might feel for a boss or a commander, and which most people feel to some extent for their parents.

I have oserved from time to time in this blog that the capital-B Bible is not really a small-b bible. If you were to buy a book called, I don't know, "The Gardener's Bible," you would expect a how to book that would present all the information you need in order to be a good gardener in a coherent, instructive fashion. Whereas THE Bible, although flecked here and there with religious rules (some considered important, some obsolete) and with potentially instructive stories, can't at this point really be said to lay down much of a game plan for either how to conduct a moral life or how to conduct one's relationship with God. So, I was excited in Psalm 34:11-14 to see a brief catechism taking shape:

11 Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
13 keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking lies.
14 Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.

So. Don't lie, reject this vaguely-defined thing called "evil," and seek peace, and you will live a long time. Really? Does David -- a fine one to recommend seeking peace, incidentally -- think we were born yesterday? It's disappointing how often the ringing wisdom of the Psalms crumbles into mere rhetoric when you attend to it. So much of the Psalms treats the banal and obvious (don't lie! avoid evil!), or the meaninglessly vague (turn from evil and do good!), and the nakedly false promises. I've resisted saying this, but I will now: the Psalms are often simply and unambiguously false. Check it out:

19 A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all;
20 he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.

Now, it's tempting to me to accept this as absolutely true, because I've never broken a bone. But I don't think this really makes a good acid test for righteousness, do you? Do you think God makes sure that no righteous person ever breaks a bone? Do you, in fact, think that any sensible person has ever really believed such a thing? Of course not! So my question is, what's David putting it in his song for! And more to the point, why is it in the Bible! The presence of stuff like this really makes it hard to make the Bible as a whole seriously.

Psalm 35

David's exhortation to seek peace in Psalm 34 is actually relatively rare in the Psalms, at least relative to more military language. The 35th Psalm is an example of the many songs that employ military themes and metaphors. The third verse is a great encapsulation of David's martial faith; it feels like a radically mixed message to a peacenik like myself, but might resonate nicely with a religious soldier.

3 Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me.
Say to my soul, "I am your salvation."

The military Psalms typically condemns "enemies" in ways that strike me as morally childish. An obvious example of this is in verses 7 and 8:

7 Since they hid their net for me without cause
and without cause dug a pit for me,
8 may ruin overtake them by surprise --
may the net they hid entangle them,
may they fall into the pit, to their ruin.
9 Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD
and delight in his salvation.

This is not a seeking after peace, nor even a basic attempt to recognize the humanity of others and wish them well. It is more the grim world view you find when you study marine biology: the desire to kill instead of to die. And perhaps that is sometimes the choice a person or a people was faced with, back in the iron age, but it's not a worldview that requires a religion to support it, nor a core concept that you want in your system of belief if you hope to have a sustainable civilization.

Psalm 37

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Psalms seem destined to be used as soundbites. Even when read in a religious service, you seldom hear more than three or four verses run together, and of course their use (often accompanied by or superimposed onto photographs of nature scenes) as short inspirational messages. To read through the Psalms, I find, is to continually bounce off of soundbites that sometimes seem very positive, sometimes very negative.

Here in the 37th, for instance, I find myself profoundly annoyed by the shamelessly pandering false promise of verse 4:

Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

and the spookily vindictive image of the Almighty in verse 13:

the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he knows their day is coming.

But in between, there's a soundbite that seems like a fine piece of wisdom:

7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret -- it leads only to evil.

This is a sound council of patience, endurance, and tolerance, and looks great out of context. In context, unfortunately, its message is that you should have patience because God will soon arrive on the scene like some kind of divine Batman to vanquish evildoers and restore the meek. That obviously doesn't work, though. If it did, we wouldn't have had to invent Batman.

Psalms 38 & 39

These two chapters are interesting in that they are very negative in tone, beseeching an absent God to return and redeem the situation. They describe a speaker in depressed desolation, less rejoicing in God than desperate for God.

39:12 Hear my prayer, O LORD
listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping.
For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were.
13 Look away from me, that I may rejoice again
before I depart and am no more.

This is a more or less recognizable state of mind for most people, and songs like these add a level of emotional wholeness to David's song cycle. It must be said, however, that the tenor of Psalms 38 & 39 is a long way from, and puts the lie to, the happy nonsense of "delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart."

Psalm 40

...is an old U2 song! Kind of!

1 I waited patiently for the LORD
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out fo the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the LORD.

See ya soon.

NEXT TIME: No Fear Psalm 41