Seder 68: Psalm 141---Prayer for Deliverance, Wisdom, and Vindication

Psalm 141 has been classified as an individual lament.  The psalmist (traditionally David) begins with an urgent plea for deliverance (vv 1-2).  

He then asks God for protection from evil in speech, thought, and action (vv 3-5c).  This part of the prayer reminds us of a line from the Lord's Prayer:  "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Mt 6:13).  

Those who tempt us to sin are often wealthy, powerful, and influential (v 4).  A good policy is to depend on God and avoid bad company.  It is better to spend time with the righteous, who tell us what we need to hear rather than what we might want to hear (v 5).   

David prays for God to judge those in high places who do evil.  Then others may listen to David and hesitate to follow the wicked (v 6).  In verse 7 he quotes a proverb that commentator Willem Van Gemeren paraphrases this way: "As the famer breaks up  the soil and brings up the rocks, so the bones of the wicked will be scattered without a decent burial."

Through his prayer David's faith is strengthened; he knows that the Sovereign LORD can save him.  He prays that God judge the wicked and vindicate him (vv 8-10).

 During the Second Temple period, Psalm 141 became associated with the evening sacrifice at the Temple, based on  verse 2:  "Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!"  Incense was seen as symbolizing prayer, and people often prayed at the time when incense was being offered at the Temple (Dan 9:21; Lk 1:9-10).  

In the book of Revelation, incense offered in the heavenly Temple is identified with the prayers of the saints (Rev 5:8; 8:1-5).  Since the prayers in Rev 8:1-5 are followed by judgments on the wicked, the implication is that the saints were praying for God to make things right, as David was doing in Psalm 141.    

Seder 33: Psalm 83---National Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies

 Psalm 83 is an imprecatory psalm, in the same category as Psalms 35, 58, 69, 109, and 137.  It is a national lament asking God to intervene against the enemies of Israel.

A number of specific enemies are listed.  Commentator Willem Van Germeren asserts that these enemies can be seen as symbolizing the enemies of God's people in any era.  He divides them into three categories:

• troublers---Edom, Ishmael, Moab, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia.
• seducers---Gebal and Tyre;
• oppressors---Assyria.

This is a prayer that exhibits love for enemies.  The prayer is that these enemies be corrected so that they would come to seek the true God---verse 16.

The enemies plot against God's "treasured ones," a reference back to Exodus 19:5.  The words attributed to them, "Come, let us wipe them out as a nation," (verse 4) compare them to the rebels at Babel (Ge 11:3-4).  The enemies want autonomy from God, and so they plan to wipe out God's representatives.  Ultimately they are fighting against God (verse 5).

The prayer refers to previous times when God had delivered his people during the era of the Judges under Gideon and Deborah and Barak (Judges 4-8).  The request is for God to rescue Israel again, as he had in the past.  This rescue will be a witness to all nations and lead enemies to submit to God.

Seder 19: Psalm 131---Praying in a Childlike Attitude

 Commentator Willem Van Gemeren (REBC) classifies the brief Psalm 131 as "an individual psalm of confidence."  The psalmist (traditionally David) wants to encourage the community by telling about his own experience with God.  He comes before God in an attitude of humility and contentment "like a weaned child with its mother" (verse 2).  

In an essay about Abraham and Sarah (collected in the book Abraham's Journey), Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik looks at the report of Sarah's death in Genesis 23:1.  Her age was "a hundred years and twenty years and seven years."  Soloveitchik notes that these three groupings of years describe a child, a young adult, and a mature adult.  

He says that we usually think of a person going through these three stages of life consecutively, one stage at a time.  But Sarah and Abraham were in some sense in all three stages simultaneously.  Becoming parents when Sarah was 90 and Abraham 100, they were like younger adults again when Isaac was born and grew up.  

Going one step further, Soloveitchik asserts that every person of faith needs to be the same way.  In the study of God's Word, we advance as we grow in knowledge, sophistication, and wisdom.  Bible study is for mature adults.  

On the other hand, in prayer and acts of faith we need to relate to God with childlike trust and submission.  So we need to be mature and childlike at the same time as we grow in a relationship with God.  Soloveitchik cites Psalm 131:2 in reference to the proper attitude for prayer. 

Seder 5: Psalm 93---God's Kingship over Earth, Sea, and Sanctuary

 Psalm 93 is the first of a group of psalms (93-100) affirming God's rule over everything, including the earth, the waters, and Israel.  

This was a psalm sung before the Sabbath during the Second Temple Period, on the sixth day of the week--see Tamid 7:4 in the Mishnah.  The psalms for each day are

1. !st day--Psalm 24
2. 2nd day--Psalm 45
3. 3rd day--Psalm 82
4. 4th day---Psalm 44
5. 5th day---Psalm 81
6. 6th day---Psalm 93
7. Sabbath--Psalm 92.

The psalm begins by emphasizing that the God of Israel, and no one else, reigns.  (Verse 1 reminds us of Rev 19:6.)  He reigns because he has always existed, before anything else did, and he has created and established everything.  The world does not behave erratically because God rules over it.

In the ancient world, ocean currents were feared.  Verses 3-4 say that though the waters of the world rise, God is far above them and is unaffected.  The seas are not independent forces; God rules over them too.

Commentator Willem Van Gemeren points our that in the Bible, the sea is also a metaphor for the nations, which God also rules (Isa 8:7-8; Jer 46:7-8, for example).  

Finally, God rules over his people and dwells in their midst (verse 5).  

Seder 1: Psalm 104---A Psalm of Creation

 Commentator Willem Van Gemeren calls Psalm 104 a "descriptive song of praise."  It presents beautiful pictures of Go's greatness as Creator of all.  

There are a number of connections between Psalm 104 and the book of Genesis.  Verses 6-9 are related to the third day of creation from Genesis 1.  Verse 9 refers to the covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:  "You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth."

Verse 19 refers back to Genesis 1:14 and the roles of the heavenly bodies in helping define a worship calendar and setting up an orderly structure for the activities of life: "He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting." 

Creation as pictured in Psalm 104 is not a one-time event, bur rather an ongoing process.  God sustains and renews life, and he may also choose to take it away.  

The psalm ends in verse 35 with a prayer that all creation would be submitted to God: "Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!"  In the midrash on Psalm 104, the sages assert that this is a prayer for all to repent and cease from sin.  When that occurs, they say, everyone will praise God as at the close of verse 35.  

Much of Psalm 104 addresses God in second person.  There is some shifts, though, in vv 3-5 and verse 19 from second person to third person.  Some early Christian interpreters viewed these shifts as places where God the Father speaks about the Son.  We see this in Hebrews 1:7, where the author quotes Psalm 104:4 as an example of the Father speaking of Jesus' superiority over the angels. Psalm 104:4, according to Hebrews 1:7, has God saying that Jesus "makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire."

There are traditions about the creation of special "wind angels" and "fire angels," and about God changing angels to wind or fire according to his will.  Hebrews 1:7 implies that the Son has authority over the angels.  

 Early Christians identified several passages in the Tanakh in which members of the Godhead speak about or address each other.  This kind of interpretation is known as prosopological exegesis and has been the subject of some recent research, for example by Matthew Bates, Kyle Hughes, and Madison Pierce.  

Seder 156: Psalm 47---Praise for the King!

 In Psalm 47, all peoples are called upon to hail the God of Israel as king over all the earth.  

Commentator Willem Van Gemeren points out that in the Ancient Near East, rulers loved to be called, and to call themselves, "the great king."  One example is the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (2 Ki 18:28; Isa 36:4).  Kings who gave themselves this title could not tolerate competition.  But God is the real "great king,' and he has no rival (v 2).  

God is to be praised for his mighty deeds on behalf of his people---for example, in freeing the Israelites from Egypt and granting them the land he had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (vv 3-4).  

In verses 5-8 of the psalm, he is pictured ascending to his throne in heaven accompanied by the sound of the shofar.  (Because of verse 5, this psalm is associated with the Feast of Trumpets in Jewish worship and with Ascension Day in Christian worship.)  Again, all are encouraged to sing praises to him.  

Verse 9 looks forward to the time when all peoples become "the people of the God of Abraham."  This verse goes on to say that "the shields of the earth belong to God."  The Septuagint has "kings" instead of "shields." Indeed, the two are basically synonymous; they are presented in parallel in Psalm 89:18:  "For our shield belongs to the Lord,; our king to the Holy One of Israel."  God is highly exalted as the ruler of all.  

Seder 125: Psalm 38---A Lament in the Midst of Suffering

 Psalm 38 is an individual lament and one of the seven penitential psalms.  The psalmist is suffering greatly, partly as a consequence of his own sin and partly because of undeserved persecution (vv 3, 17-20).  He admits his sin and asks for God's mercy, that he not have to suffer all that he might deserve.

He pictures his suffering in graphic terms.  "For your arrows have sunk into me," he says in verse 2.  Commentator Willem Van Gemeren points out that in Canaanite mythology, Resheph the god of archers is also the god of plagues and diseases.  It's possible that the psalmist is borrowing Canaanite imagery here.

He is experiencing great physical suffering and also mental anguish, realizing that his sin has caught up with him (vv 3-6).

In his agony he cannot communicate well, but God can hear his groaning and sighing (vv 8-9).  He calls upon the God who heard Israel's groaning in Egypt (Ex 2:25) to hear him as well.

He feels isolated and hears little of what is going on around him.  He has no interest in defending himself, unlike Job, for example.  He waits for God to answer, submitting to his will, and hopes for divine vindication (vv 15-16).  In the end he leaves things in the hands of Yahweh, his covenantal God and Father and the Great King (vv 21-22).

Christians recognize in the suffering of the psalmist a foreshadowing of Jesus' suffering on the cross, particularly in verse 11:  "My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand afar off."  This reminds us Luke 23:49:  "And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things."  Of course not everything in Psalm 38 points ahead to Jesus, in particular the psalmist's acknowledged sin.  

Seder 118: Numbers 20---Edom's Hostility

 God would be directing the Israelites to invade Canaan from the east.  The most direct route to the region east of the Jordan River led through the territory of Edom, the nation descended from Jacob's brother Esau. 

Moses made a formal request for Israel to be granted safe passage through the territory of Edom, but the Edomites turned it down (Num 20:14-21).  This was an early instance of the hostility that developed between the two sibling nations.  

A famous later instance came at the time when Babylon conquered the kingdom of Judah in the early sixth century BC.  Edom rejoiced in Israel's misfortune (Ps 137:7), an attitude for which they were rebuked by the prophets (Obadiah 11-14; Jer 49:7-22; Ezek 25:12-14; 35:1-15).  By cheering on the Babylonians, the Edomites "were hoping for the destruction of the 'foundations' of the Yahweh's rule on earth," Willem Van Gemeren observes in his commentary on Psalm 137.  The Edomites, in Numbers 20 and later, placed themselves in opposition to God's purpose and plan.

Seder 80: Psalm 65---A Thanksgiving Hymn

 Delitzsch suggested that this psalm might have originally been prompted by the retreat of the Assyrians after the prayer of Hezekiah (2 Kings 19).  Since the psalm speaks of Israel coming to worship God at Zion, it could have been associated with worship at a pilgrim festival.

Van Gemeren notes that verses 1-4 of this psalm speak of the blessedness of God's presence, while verses 5-13 speak of the blessedness of God's rule as King over all.  

In verses 1-4, God's people come to worship thankfully, expressing gratitude for God's forgiveness and answers to prayer.  Those brought near in verse 4 include priests and, more broadly, God's kingdom of priests (Ex 19:6).

The rest of the psalm pictures God as not just the hope of Israel, but the creator and ruler of all the earth.  Verse 7 ("who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves") reminds us of Jesus stilling the waters of the Sea of Galilee (Matt 8:26; 14:32). 

Seder 78: Psalm 5---Seeking Help with Confidence

In Psalm 5 the psalmist comes before God confident that God will hear both his spoken words and his thoughts ("my groaning" in verse 1).  These come out as a cry for help (v 2).  

With a new day comes renewed hope.  God's mercies are "new every morning" (Lam 3:23).  In the morning the psalmist reaches out for help (v 3).  He faces difficulty caused by evildoers, and he knows that God hates and judges evil (vv 4-5).  

While the wicked are not admitted into God's presence, the psalmist believes, based on God's mercy, that he will be accepted when he bows before God in submission (v 7).  He asks for God's guidance in taking the right path (v 8), and for God's righteous judgment upon the wicked (vv 9-10).  

In verses 11-12, his prayer expands to include all who seek refuge in God.  Commentator Willem VanGemeren sees this prayer as prefiguring Jesus' prayer for his disciples in John 17.  The psalmist concludes with the confident assertion that God blesses and protects the righteous.

This psalm is quoted once in the New Testament.  Paul quotes verse 9 in Rom 3:13 ("their throat is an open grave") as part of a chain of verses describing human sinfulness.

Seder 17: Psalm 30---Individual and Community Thanksgiving

Psalm 30 is, first, a psalm of individual thanksgiving, associated with David.  The psalm begins, "I will extol you", and ends, "I will give thanks to you forever."  David had been very ill, and God rescued him from death (vv 1-3).  Commentator Willem Van Gemeren (Expositor's Bible Commentary) notes some similarity between this psalm and Hezekiah's prayer in Isa 38:10-20.

David contrasts the temporary nature of God's judgment compared to his mercy:  "For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime" (v 5).  He confesses that he had felt self-reliant in a time of prosperity (v 6), but that his real strength is rooted in dependence upon God (v 7).  He pledges to praise God publicly, making God's greatness known, if he is healed (vv 8-12).

Psalm 30 also calls upon Israel to praise God collectively (v 4), It is a psalm traditionally associated with Hanukkah.

In a communal view of the psalm, Israel thanks God for bringing the nation back from exile to build the Second Temple.  Later, God delivers Israel through the Maccabees from persecution by the Seleucids, and the temple is rededicated.

Some verses in the psalm are associated with other times of deliverance in the history of Israel.  For example, the end of verse 5 ("Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning") has been related to the Persian persecution chronicled in the book of Esther, where Haman the persecutor is hung in the morning.

Seder 4: Psalm 139---God of the "Omnis"

Psalm 139 is an important Psalm from a theological standpoint.  In any biblical study of God's omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, this Psalm will be central to the discussion.

The traditional heading labels this as "a Psalm of David."  It begins, "O Lord, you have searched me and known me." Different forms of the word "know", connoting intimate knowledge, appear frequently in this Psalm.  

A midrash observes that Adam could just as well have said these words.  God's knowledge of Adam was evident when he said that it was not good for the man to be alone (Gen 2:18).  God is our Creator and has complete knowledge of his handiwork.

David marvels at the extent of God's knowledge of him.  "You know when I sit down and when I rise up" (v. 2).  In other words, God knows everything he does.  "Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether" (v. 4).  

Today we worry about the extent of the knowledge that large corporations have about us.  This can seem very intrusive and even a little creepy.  I remember a story about a young husband who picks up the mail one day, which includes personalized coupons from a supermarket.  He sees a coupon for disposable diapers and asks his wife what is going on.  She says that she has just found out that she is pregnant and has been waiting for a good time to tell him.  

God's knowledge of us goes way beyond that of the corporations, but this is not a threat to us.  David is comforted by the fact that God uses the knowledge to protect him.  "You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me"(v. 5).  Commentator Willem Van Gemeren (Expositor's Bible Commentary) says that God's "hand" connotes protection and blessing.  Think of God's hand covering Moses in the cleft of the rock (Exod 33:22).  

The completeness of God's knowledge is unique.  David declares that it is beyond his comprehension (v. 6).

Verses 7-12 picture God's omnipresence.  Yahweh is not just some minor territorial deity.  God can protect David wherever he is, in any location, day or night (v 10).  God's light overcomes the darkness (v. 12).      

The next verses emphasize God's detailed involvement with each of us as individuals.  "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb" (v. 13).  David's response to these great works of God is praise (v 14).   

David again pictures the extent of God's foreknowledge.  "In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, where as yet there was none of them" (v. 16).  I wonder how many zettabytes of information are in that book!  David marvels at the vastness of this database (vv 17-18).

David next abruptly turns to problems he is facing with those who oppose him and falsely accuse him.  Given God's power and goodness, David wants to know what purpose is served by the continued existence of those who oppose God or him (vv 19-20).  David affirms whose side he is on and invites God's scrutiny and guidance in his life (vv. 21-24).