Month: April 2024

Week 15  Psalm 98

Down near the end of the psalm there’s a bunch of joy & excitement in the world. The whole world. Not just countries full of people. The psalm says shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth – and includes oceans rivers & mountains.
A question that comes to mind is: What’s All the Excitement About?
The answer is that the Lord is coming: to judge the earth. (And) He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.
That’s a pretty intriguing thing to hear in the modern world since there’s already no shortage of laws & rules & regulations & statutes & bylaws & courts & lawyers & judges in Canada. There’s plenty of judgment-justice going on. But the writer’s point is that when the Lord comes he’s going to judge everyone-and-everything with a specific kind of justice. Righteous & Equitable Justice. So the issue is: Quality of Justice.
I wonder about how much Righteousness & Equity there is in our justice system. I’ve gotta figure that if everyone-and-everything in the world is going to be cranked-up because justice will be Righteous & Equitable Justice then it sounds like currently departments-of-justice aren’t exactly highlighting Righteousness or Equity.
If a justice-system is a regulatory scheme that fundamentally operates on – let’s just say – Unrighteousness & Inequity (meaning some people get unjustly advantaged and others get unjustly disadvantaged) then how big a surprise is it if (almost) everyone is happy when Unrighteousness & Inequitable Justice gets replaced?

Note: quotes from Psalm 98:4 9 (NIV)

Week 15  Psalm 90

Today I’m thinking about yesterday: Numbering My Days. Wondering what-all’s involved.
For one it’s useful to think of my days as a resource. Days are doled-out to me one-by-one. Each one mine…almost by magic.
But for two I realize my days are limited. I have a top-end number – my Total Day Limit. Terminal & non-renewable.
For three I think about what ‘best use of my day’ means concretely. I start by thinking about definite things. Things to do in the next 12 hours.
But for four I have to convert my hypothetical ‘best use of my day’ list into do-able actions. (For instance if a ‘best use of my time’ idea is to help someone in-need then I have to convert the idea into action that actually helps someone.)
For five I have to realize that this is a combination exercise: a) ‘what best-use actions do I value most?’ But then also b) ‘what does the Lord value most?’
For six – and this is a tricky one – I keep in mind that the objective of numbering my days isn’t just to do things. It’s to gradually ‘gain wisdom’. I’m Numbering-My-Days – Okay. But Wisdom Acquisition is the top-end outcome of ‘numbering my days’.
For seven I’ll be doing a cross-checking exercise. Trying to be sure my do-able actions are aimed in the general direction of wisdom-building / wisdom-finding.
If lack of wisdom is what’s behind all my unnumbered-days & wasted-time then chasing down wisdom is my Objective #1.

 

Week 15  Psalm 90

So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
I thought about this verse because I once heard a story about a guy who used Psalm 90:12 in a literal way.
I think this guy lived in Victorian England. I don’t know at what point in life he came up with this idea…but let’s say it was at age 30. Let’s say the national life expectancy of people in England at the time was 60-years old. Since he was 30 he could project that – statistically-speaking – he’d live 30 more years.
So his Life Calculation was: 30 years x 365 days-per-year = 10,950 (he could say “I have ~10,950 more days to live”). So then when he was 31 years old he could figure he had ~10,585 days to go (10,950 – 365 = 10,585).
The guy kept a journal and each day he wrote that day’s number. So his journal recorded a steadily declining Number of Days Left as he counted down the years.
I checked six other bible versions to see what they said.
All seven versions began with the expression teach us.
Five out of seven used the expression to number our days.
Six out of seven had wisdom as being the preferred outcome.
It’s the outcome that intrigues me more. Asking myself “how much time do I have left?” seems kind of quirky (no disrespect to the Victorian guy). I’m really more interested in the goal of pursuing wisdom.

Note: Psalm 90:12 (NASB and also NIV Modern-KJV Amplified Living-Bible NLT Contemporary-English)

Week 15  1 Samuel

Last week I focused on David’s on-the-run psalms.
I wanted to see what David was thinking & feeling when he was under serious pressure. What was his reaction to actual life-and-death threats?
Coming at it from the front end I wished-hoped I’d find out if there was a pattern of interaction with the Lord (maybe even a formula I could plug-in). What did Duress Praying look like?
So anyway I only looked at four psalms. I was uncertain about 34 & 63. And 52 – the Doeg psalm – wasn’t really an on-the-run psalm. That left: 59 56 54 & 57.
One thing that showed up in all four cases – the pretty obvious thing – was that David more-or-less just blurted out: “HELP!”:
Rescue me from my enemies, O God
O God, have mercy on me
Come with great power, O God, and rescue me
Have mercy on me, O God. I look to you for protection.
The second thing – an unexpected thing – that came out each time was an assured confidence in the Lord:
You are my strength; I wait for you to rescue me
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you
God is my helper. The Lord is the one who keeps me alive
The Lord will send help from heaven to save me.
Asking for help was predictable. No surprise there.
What wasn’t predictable was David’s solid confidence in the outcome. I’m left thinking about how he arrived there. Wondering how long it took for him to arrive.

Note: quotes from 59:1 56:1 54:1 57:1 59:9 56:3 54:4 57:3 (NLT)

Week 14  1 Samuel

David seems like one of the most resourceful talented decisive and also cunning & ruthless outlaws imaginable. But Psalm 57 shows he was sometimes fearful and discouraged too.
David described his opponents as being like fierce lions – and he prayed a couple of when-a-lion-is-standing-staring-at-me prayers:
Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy!
I cry out to God most high.
But he only asked for help a couple of times before moving on to other things. I noticed two of them:
First David had a forecastive-sense that things would turn out okay: (the Lord) will send help from heaven to save me.
Second he repeated this (what seems like an unrelated) phrase:
Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens! May your glory shine over all the earth.
David started with a conventional Please-Help-Me-Lord type of prayer. But he moved forward to a (surprisingly) settled sense that help would be coming. And he made a point of ‘exalting’ to the Lord.
Three key elements of David’s prayer were:
1. Please help me
2. I’m confident that I’ll get Help-From-Heaven
3. You – Lord – are the Greatest.

Note: quotes from Psalm 57:4 1 2 3 5 & 11 (NLT).
Psalms 57 & 142 both say that they’re Cave-Psalms. The Psalm 57 subtitle says: ‘the time David fled from Saul and went into the cave’. But so does Psalm 142: ‘David’s experience in the cave’.
And there are also two Cave-Stories in 1 Samuel: 22:1-2 & 24:1-22.
1 Samuel 24 is the better story but it looks to me like which psalm refers to which story is an open-question.

Week 14  1 Samuel

Ziph – in my bible map – is in Judah’s territory – latitude-wise at about the midway-point of the Dead Sea and maybe 15 kilometers to the west. That’s where David had run to: the hill country of Ziph.
The locals knew he was there and some of the men of Ziph went to Saul in Gibeah and betrayed David to him. They had to make what looks like a two-day trek – maybe 45-kilometres – to connect with Saul. The king was murderously happy with the news and was soon headed south.
In the end nothing much came of it. David had already left the region so the Ziph treachery didn’t pan-out. But Psalm 54 was written at (or about) that time (the subtitle says: ‘the time the Ziphites came and said to Saul, “We know where David is hiding”’).
As you’d expect in an on-the-run psalm David asked for help. But two other things stand out:
The first one is that David said two things about the Lord: God is my helper. The Lord keeps me alive!
The second one is a kind of confident sense that the Lord heard him and would help him: I will praise your name, O Lord, for it is good. For you have rescued me from my troubles.
Saying something true about the Lord seems like a wise & safe thing to do.
Predicting that the Lord had already intervened seems slightly overconfident. Like crawling out on a limb.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 23:14 19 & Psalm 54:1 4 6-7 (NLT)

Week 14  1 Samuel

The backstory to this on-the-run psalm makes it a bit different from the others. After escaping from Saul David had stopped at the home of a priest who he knew – Ahimelech – who helped him with provisions. Unfortunately for Ahimelech a man named Doeg witnessed the exchange and reported it to Saul. David was an enemy-of-the-state. That made Ahimelech a traitor. Saul’s own soldiers wouldn’t kill a priest. Doeg didn’t hesitate.
That’s why the subtitle to Psalm 52 says: ‘regarding the time Doeg the Edomite told Saul that Ahimelech had given refuge to David’.
The psalm really doesn’t say much of anything about David-in-exile. Nothing about how he  managing as a refugee / vagabond.
But Psalm 52 does have something to say about the future of Doeg the murderer: you love to destroy others…you liar! But God will strike you down once and for all. He will pull you from your home and uproot you from the land of the living.
In every bible book I’ve read so far this year (except Ruth) I’ve seen a lot of murder going on. I keep reading about murder after murder after murder and I’m revolted & angry over the unfairness.
But David – even if he is on-the-lam – takes the time to remind readers one thing about a murderer’s future (something that’s consoling – even if it’s not completely adequate in the moment). Eventually God will strike a murderer down once and for all.

Note: quote from Psalm 52:4-5; story 1 Samuel 22:9-19 (NLT)

Week 14  1 Samuel

Because David had saved Israel by killing Goliath in chapter 17 almost everybody was happy. The one not-happy exception was the king: from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David. And so since David could read the signs he ran.
It seems like a weird choice but David went to the Philistines looking for help.
What doesn’t seem weird was that the Philistines weren’t happy seeing him. The subtitle of Psalm 56 is describing that exact situation: ‘the time the Philistines seized (David) in Gath’ (which  is helpful info since the 1 Samuel story doesn’t say David was arrested).
Anyway Psalm 56 was David’s reaction and response to his going from-Saul’s-frying-pan-into-the-Philistine’s-fire predicament. And three of the things he said were pretty interesting:
The (understandable) first thing David did was to ask for help: O God, have mercy on me, for people are hounding me.
Second thing was the (intriguing) comment about his reaction to fear: when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. There were other options. But he moved from Fear toward Trust.
Third thing was that David followed up his Fear-to-Trust comment with a (logical) question: I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? (he asked the same question twice). And it’s a good reminder about how David figured things stood. How much of a threat is a Weak Guy if I know a Strong Guy?

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 18:9 & Psalm 56: 1 3 4 11 (NLT)

 

Week 14  1 Samuel

The subtitle of Psalm 59 says that it’s “a psalm of David, regarding the time Saul sent soldiers to watch David’s house in order to kill him”.
Saul’s murderous hatred of David developed pretty much overnight. Chapter 17 is the great David-and-Goliath story where David becomes a national hero. Even though the chapter ends with Saul wondering about David he doesn’t hate David – so far. But by the end of the very next chapter everything has changed. A lot: Saul sent troops to watch David’s house. They were told to kill David when he came out the next morning. But Michal, David’s wife, warned him, “If you don’t escape tonight, you will be dead by morning.” So she helped him climb out through a window, and he fled and escaped.
And so now David is on-the-run.
Mostly I’m wondering about David’s Psalm 59 reaction to the attempt on his life. To being almost literally under-the-gun. I notice two things:
First: you are my strength; I wait for you to rescue me, for you, O God, are my fortress.
And second (near the end): as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when & I am in distress.
David’s confidence & assurance are what stand out as being the most impressive & unexpected responses.
So I’m wondering what-all else will show up in the other on-the-run psalms.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 19:11-12 Psalm 59:1 9 16 (NLT)

Week 14  1 Samuel

A couple of years ago I started tracking the subtitles of the psalms.
Quite a few of the psalms have no subtitle at all. But the ones that do give some extra information about the psalm. For instance:
• who wrote the psalm (“a psalm of David” or “a psalm of Asaph”)
• a specific person addressed (“for Jeduthun, the choir director”)
• recommended instruments (flutes or stringed instruments)
• recommended tune (“Death of the Son” or “Doe of the Dawn”)
• the psalm’s purpose (“a love song” or “a meditation” or “for teaching” or “a prayer” or “a song for the ascent to Jerusalem”).
All that’s okay but my one reason for looking at psalm subtitles is because some psalms were written by David when he was on-the-run from Saul. And last year I wrote myself a note (that I just found): “in 2024 try matching-up the ‘flight-psalm’ subtitles with the actual events in 1 Samuel”.
I found six on-the-run psalms with a pretty definite 1 Samuel connection:
1 Samuel 19:1 11-18 (Psalm 59 David escapes from Saul)
1 Samuel 21:10-15 (Psalm 56 David & Achish of Gath)
1 Samuel 22:9-19 (Psalm 52 Doeg rats on the priest)
1 Samuel 23:19-24 (Psalm 54 the Ziphites betray David)
1 Samuel 23:29-24:7 (Psalm 57 hiding in-the-cave )
1 Samuel 23:29-24:7 (Psalm 142 hiding in-the-cave).
So my plan is to look at each event in 1 Samuel and check to see what David was thinking about during that event.

Note: I didn’t include Psalms 34 or 63. They seem like possible-maybes. But at the same time they might be maybe nots.