Week 17 Psalm 114
This psalm is an extreme condensation/summary of a 140-chapter chunk of the bible (Exodus 1 to Joshua 4). Hard to believe he’d even try…but the writer did a pretty nice job of squashing it into 8 verses. Hundreds and hundreds of details are skipped in the process but the writer got away with it because he was really just trying to make one main point: when the Israelites escaped from Egypt – when the family of Jacob left that foreign land – the land of Judah became God’s sanctuary, and Israel became his kingdom.
I tried to visualize the point by drawing a simple diagram/map – a small box inside a big box. In the small box I wrote Israel – God’s Sanctuary. Then in the big box I wrote Outside-Israel – Not God’s Sanctuary (and since I had room I penciled-in a couple of geo-political territories: Egypt & states of Africa & tribes of Europe & kingdoms of India & Chinese dynasties. Like that.) I don’t think this Sanctuary-&-non-Sanctuary distinction is a case of Better vs. Worse. Not Superior vs. Inferior. It’s more like The Safety Zone vs. The Danger Zone.
The Promised Land became the geographic unit where Israel would be safe & protected & secure. In OT Bible World it was Israel’s safe territory. All the rest was unsafe territory in a state of slow degradation.
Unfortunately I remember what’s coming. Non-Sanctuary-type life will be imported into Sanctuary Land. Corrosive renovation’s on the move. Soon enough nowhere will be safe anymore.
Note: quote from Psalm 114:1-2 (NLT)