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Week 4  Psalm 24

David asks: who may climb the mountain of the Lord?
There’s no actual physical Mountain of the Lord to climb so I figure David is trying to freeze a pretty fluid idea for me– solidifying-for-manageability’s-sake.
I draw an inverted-V on a sheet of paper (the mountain) & a squiggle at the apex (the Lord) & a stick figure at the bottom (me). He’s there and I’m here…so how do I close that gap…climb the mountain? That’s the question.
David’s answer is that I have to become a certain kind of person. He names three qualities I need…
My hands and heart have to be pure
I can’t worship idols
I can’t lie.
I’m guessing this is an abbreviated list but even if it isn’t there’s still three things to do/not do and a certain kind of person to become before I get into the vicinity of the Lord.
I look at my sketch and wonder how things unrelated to climbing get me up the mountain. The answer seems to be: indirectly. Work on things I can work on so I can make progress on the thing I can’t.
So…for instance what happens if I quit lying to myself and to other people?
David lists four results:
…the Lord will bless me
…I’ll be in good standing with him
…I’ll be able to approach him
…and I’ll be able to worship him.
Doing something hard to achieve something impossible.

Note: see Psalm 24:3-6

Week 3  Exodus 14

While I’m reading about the exodus today I’m still thinking about David’s comment: some nations boast of their armies and weapons but we boast in the Lord our God. Which means – roughly – that a difference of opinion will emerge when people have different assumptions about what they can or can’t rely on.
That difference of opinion comes to life in the story of Israel’s escape from Egypt. It’s a case study of an event where a man with a numerically superior force assumed that numerical superiority would ensure a predictable outcome.
The only hard data I can discover is that Pharaoh had 600 top-of-the-line chariots (plus all the other chariots in the country) and had officers in each of them. Things that I don’t know are the ratio of officers to soldiers & the size of the cavalry & the number of infantry & if there were mercenaries and like that. Comprehensive numbers are tough to land on.
But Egypt was fighting an unarmed ragtag bunch of slaves. Sure…there were a lot of them – 600,000 men – but the contest really shaped up to be like shooting fish in a barrel. On paper the Egyptian army should have massacred the Hebrews.
So…question: if I had total material dominance over a foe would it be possible for that enemy to defeat me?
Answer #1: Not very likely.
Answer #2 (David’s answer): Wrong question! You should be asking: who or what can the enemy count on for help?

Note: quote from Psalm 20:7 (NLT). And see Exodus 14:7 & 12:37.

Week 3  Psalm 20

Last night in the news I saw where a big country is threatening a small country. Let’s call them Red Country & Blue Country. Red Country is powerful and parks 100,000+ troops – plus tanks artillery jets and like that – on Blue Country’s border. It there’s a war Reds will beat Blues because of pure numerical superiority. That’s how numbers work.
It’s hard not to think about the Reds & the Blues while I read verse 7: some nations boast of their armies and weapons. Today’s application of this verse would read something like this: Red Country can boast & strut & rattle around because they have more soldiers and materiel than Blue Country and so they’ll win a war.
I keep reading to the end of verse 7: some nations boast of their armies and weapons but we boast in the Lord our God. So for David another uncounted factor was in the mix.
I can’t say with any precision how this non-numerical element works out in real day-to-day life – like for instance with the Reds and the Blues. My guess is that it’s a bit unpredictable and dependent on other factors. But that’s not the real point…which is that a Basic Principle in Bible World is that there’s a world I can see and I world I can’t see.
Reds and Blues run their numbers assessing tangible-material-visible assets. Meanwhile – if David is right – a pretty crucial wild-card isn’t getting factored into the spread sheets.

Note: quote from Psalm 20:7 (NLT)

Week 3  Psalm 19

I read Exodus 10 today. The book is absorbing right now but I know that in a couple of days I’ll be getting into bible-reader’s deep water – a long block of laws regulations directions and like that. So it was a pretty nice coincidence that I also read psalm 19 today.
The reason 19 jumped out was because – with the last half of Exodus and then Leviticus staring me in the face – David surprises with his enthusiasm for the law.
He describes the law with about eight specific words. Because of time I was mostly interested in the first four…the law is: Perfect Trustworthy Right & Clear (helpful reminders because the law is sometimes described as: imperfect untrustworthy wrong & fuzzy).
Anyway I also noticed a value-added feature – the four descriptor-words include what I’d call Personal Outcome Statements…
…the perfection revives my soul
…trustworthiness helps me shift away from simplicity and towards wisdom
…rightness brings joy to my heart
…clarity gives me insight into life.
Even if I’m not sure how the connections work this information changes things up for me.
Am I interested in reading the law? Not really.
But do I want to:
…have my soul revivified?
…move toward wisdom?
…have more joy in my heart?
…have my life come into better focus?
Well…yeah, for sure.

Note: quotes from Psalm 19:7-8 (NLT). Added: I haven’t put together a list of My Top Ten Psalms but if I did I think 19 would be in the mix.

Week 3  Psalm 17

David starts out by asking the Lord to: pay attention to my prayer, for it comes from an honest heart. David seems to be saying “I know you won’t pay attention to a dishonest heart but it’s okay to listen to mine”.
And he doesn’t just leave it there. He says: you have tested my thoughts and examined my heart…You have scrutinized me and found nothing amiss, for I am determined not to sin in what I say. I have followed your commands, which have kept me from going along with cruel and evil people. My steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you.
I’m really impressed. Maybe a bit jealous. David’s probing interior self-examination resulted in emphatic personal affirmation. (Probably the very best example of this kind of I-know-that-I’m-ok testimonial is Job. He was: blameless, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil… And he knew it.)
Anyway the thing I notice is that David then right away asks the Lord for help because he’s under attack from murderous enemies. Even though he has a clean sheet.
This is a good bible-reader’s reminder that being a good guy doesn’t insulate me from trouble. Whatever-all are the results of following the Lord it looks like having a trouble-free life isn’t one of them.

Note: quotes from Psalm 17:1, 3-5, Job 1:1 (NLT)

Week 3  Genesis 49

I finished Genesis and started Exodus today.
The second last chapter of Genesis is the passage where Jacob blesses his twelve sons. Some of the blessings make better & clearer sense to me than others and I sit thinking about them for a little bit. So I’ve got them in mind when I start Exodus and see the boys’ names listed again (except for Joseph who was already in Egypt).
The list in Exodus 1 says:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher.
I turn back a page. The list in Genesis 49 says:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph, Benjamin.
The order is different. I look back to the long birth-of-the-boys narrative in Genesis 29 & 30:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin.
There’s another short list in chapter 35 that I cross-check:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher.
I don’t think any of the lists are exactly the same. As far as I can tell the Genesis 29-30 list is the strict chronological sequence. The other lists look like they group the sons by their mothers – so Dan & Naphtali are back-to-back in three lists because they had the same mother. Ditto for Gad & Asher.
Even though I can make some sense of a couple of differences the order is still a bit curious & perplexing to me and I wonder if I’m missing something. But for now I’ll keep these in mind.

Week 2  Genesis 47

Jacob’s family had emigrated to Egypt in the middle of a devastating multi-year famine and against all odds they prospered and thrived in Egypt (thanks to their connection with Joseph).
The really interesting & disturbing part of the story is how this national emergency was used by the Egyptian state to a) gain absolute despotic control and to b) totally subjugate the country’s entire working class (illustrating that there’s nothing more useful to powerful people than a good emergency).
It’s hard to know how much or little the people of Egypt knew about Joseph’s forecast of troubles that were coming. But either way they didn’t prepare for famine. By contrast the government had been busy for years stockpiling millions of tons of grain. And then the hammer fell.
First the people spent all their money buying government-supplied food
…when their money ran out they traded livestock-for-food
…then they sold their land-for-food
…and finally with nothing left but their bodies they became slaves of the state.
So in the end they-had-nothing.
I’m not sure why this story is included in Genesis. Maybe to contrast the suffering of the Egyptians with the Hebrew’s unexpected prosperity.
But for me the story is dominated by how quickly a powerful country’s fortune can turn and especially how quickly citizens can be pauperized by the actions of their state.

Note: the story of the awesome power of state power is in Genesis 47:13-25. The prosperity of the Hebrews is told briefly in 47:11-12 & 27.

Week 2  Genesis 36

I read through the chapter at a fairly high rate of speed. That’s my normal practice with lists of names and I read about the Esau family without feeling too invested.
But I slow down when I see this: the sons of Zibeon were Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the wilderness when he was grazing his father’s donkeys.
That unexpected detail caught my attention and I checked a word book. Anah’s name came up nine times in this chapter and his claim-to-fame (apart from the hot springs) was that Esau married his daughter Oholibamah.
Thinking about this tidbit on Anah reminded me that sometimes the bible tells me virtually nothing about a person (and sometimes doesn’t tell me a single thing). So I’m left wondering what to do when it doesn’t fill-in any of the blanks for me.
One thing I don’t figure it means is that I’m free to fill them in with whatever I want.
And one thing I do figure it means is that I can – maybe have to – search around looking for answers somewhere else in the bible.
But if I can’t find a legitimate answer that makes sense I’m going to leave it blank.
I could try writing a 300-page novel about Hot Spring Anah but it wouldn’t put me any farther ahead than leaving the blank empty.

Note: quote from Genesis 36:24 (NLT)

Week 2  Psalm 11

Question: How are things going for Israel in psalm 11?
Answer: the foundations of law and order have collapsed.
If the system has broken down into anarchy the next question would be: what-to-do?
A guy who isn’t identified offered some advice to David: fly to the mountains for safety… And bugging-out definitely seems like an instinctive & logical & self-protective plan.
But David’s reaction was counter-instinctive. First he said: I trust in the Lord for protection. Then he said: the Lord still rules from heaven. Which – when the structures of society are collapsing around me – seems – on the surface – naïve and maybe even kind of dumb.
I look around at what’s going on nationally. The country is coming apart and supply chains are breaking and virus is stalking us and we’re drowning in fiat currency. And every day is more news about war injustice poverty violence financial & economic collapse international-conflict income-inequality racial & ethnic-hatred here and everywhere and like that.
The world disintegrates so there’s no room for anything else but its wreckage.
But not from David’s viewpoint. However much the ruins of collapse fill things up he’s seeing a domain that’s uncluttered and free.
David concludes by saying: the Lord is righteous and he loves justice… In this psalm one of the points seems to be that total-looking collapse isn’t as total as it looks.
Which I’ve seen in the bible before. But it’s a hard thing to always stay convinced about.

Note: quotes from Psalm 11:1, 3, 7 (NLT)

Week 2 Genesis 21

Hagar’s two-part story is told in chapter 16 & chapter 21. It’s a pretty selective story – only 30 verses all together – so quite a bit of her life is missing.
But there are similarities between the stories.
In both stories Hagar leaves home – voluntarily the first time but forcibly the second.
In both stories she ends up alone in the desert.
In both stories the angel of the Lord appears.
In both stories the Lord promises that her family line will thrive and succeed.
Anyway what jumped out at me – in the second story – was the Lord’s timing.
Abraham banished Hagar. Exiled her and Ishmael from the safety and security of the family settlement.
Alone and with nowhere to go Hagar just wandered.
She used up all her food. Drank the skin of water.
She and her son were dehydrated and famished and finally just gave up.
With the Grim Reaper vulturing around her Hagar left her boy in the shade of a bush and walked away to let him die.
During all that time the Lord was silent & out of sight.
It was only at the very very end that the Lord finally appeared and saved them. So it ended ok.
I wondered why the Lord didn’t act more quickly but I couldn’t figure out why so I filed the story away. But I’ll keep it in mind: the Lord could have acted more quickly. But he waited and waited ‘til it was almost too late.