Day #106

Sermon - Audio
Pslam 56, 120, & 140-142 - Audio
Pslam 56, 120, & 140-142 - Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

Lots of notes--use them as seems best :)

Psalm 56

The superscription of this Psalm tells us it is written in response to David’s being seized by the Philistines. While the event undoubtedly did occur, we have no actual story of the event in the Bible.

56.1 “hotly pursue” is a picture of animals relentlessly tracking down their prey.

56.2 Slander—speaking falsely about a person and so damaging his/her reputation—is a common theme in the Psalms. Those who are destroying his reputation with their mouths are also trying to destroy David’s life.

56.2: “in their pride” can also be translated, “fight proudly against me”. The idea is that these foes are attacking him in their arrogance—forgetting that God is on David’s side.

56.3: “afraid” carries the picture of shaking. David’s fear is no small thing.

56.3: “Trust” is to feel secure in, to be confident in, to rely on. All of these shades of meaning touch on what David is saying about God. But we should also see that such trust flows from knowing and believing God’s covenant promises made to David and the nation. In other words, there is a solid foundation for his trust.

56.4: “mere man do to me” – it seems they can do plenty, but finally God’s covenant promises will sin out.

56.5: His enemies not only slander him, they also tell lies about what he says. This is an attack on all fronts.

56.7: David’s words echo what God had said to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse…” Genesis 12.3 Again, we see a tie in with the covenants that God has made with his people.

56.8 “List my tears on your scroll” notice the NIV text note “put my tears in your wineskin” Later in Jewish history people would collect their tears and wear them in a bottle around their neck. The size of a wineskin would certainly imply the amount of weeping David has been doing.

56.9: There is a danger of reading this verse as, “If my enemies turn back, then I will know that God is with me.” But that is not what David is saying. He is saying, “when my enemies turn back—and they surely will—then it will be clear that God has been with me the entire time.

Psalm 120

120.1: As the people begin their journey toward celebration their first song seems unusual--it is a lament. The picture, as it often is in the Old Testament, is one of being in confined space, being pressed in and unable to escape. Which is an interesting picture to use when you are beginning a literal journey that takes you into open places.

120.2: The distress is coming from people who are slandering the Psalmist. Slander was considered one of the greatest sins in the Israelite community because of its power to destroy community. The sin of slander was put in the same category as murder, idolatry, and adultery.

120-1-2: Although we don!t know for sure, there is good reason to believe that Psalm 120 is the first of the Psalms of Ascent because trouble can drive us on a pilgrimage toward God. As the people started on the road to Jerusalem their lament reminds of their need for God and for their

desire to be with him in Jerusalem.

120.3: This verse continues dealing with the tongue and slander. But if you read carefully you see that it is possible that not only the Psalmist!s enemies are being given warning, but the Psalmist himself. For the warning about what is coming to the deceitful tongue is about all tongues.

120.4: The arrows and burning coals are pictured as being delivered by God, not by the Psalmist. The prayer of the Psalmist is for God to take up his cause, not for the Psalmist to deliver himself.

120.5: Meshech is in Asia Minor about 400 miles north of Jerusalem, it was a place that was away from God!s people. Kedar is to the south of Jerusalem about 200 miles—it!s people were known for their desire to acquire wealth and things. The Psalmist is saying we dwell either north or south of the Holy Land, we stay on the outskirts, but if we want to move to the heart of God we have to leave the outskirts because God is in Jerusalem, we have to make a pilgrimage there, leaving behind our other wanderings.

120.6: Those who hate peace are those who hate shalom--which is the Hebrew word for a life that flows with the blessings of God as one lives the ways of God.

Psalm 140

Psalm 140 is a psalm of lament in which the psalmist cries out for deliverance from his enemies. The psalmist begins with a call for rescue and ends with a declaration of praise. The setting of the psalm can either be taken literally, as God protecting the psalmist in a battle, or metaphorically, as God protecting the psalmist from a different kind of trouble. In the history of the church, this psalm has been commonly read before John 18-19 during Good Friday services.

• • 140.1-3: These verses form the the beginning of the Psalmist’s lament in which cries out to God for protection. Evil men have plotted against the psalmist in their hearts-- the place from which emotion and action flowed in the Old Testament. The psalmist describes their action using the metaphors of a serpent's tongue and viper's poison to describe the speech and plans of his enemies. These metaphors give a vivid picture of the evil faced by the psalmist.
• 140.3: Tongue In the psalms, the tongue is often described as a lethal enemy which causes fear and destruction. In the NT, Paul applies this verse to all sinners: Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips.” Romans 3:13 NIV
• 140.4: Keep me. After describing his situation in vs. 1-3, the psalmist again petitions God for protection.
• 140.6-7: After calling out for rescue and describing his situation, the Psalmist makes a bold statement about his confidence in God who has been his deliverer and protector. The psalmist also refers to God as the one who shields his head on the day of battle. This military metaphor compares God to a helmet which protects a soldier on the battlefield.
• 140.8-11: Not only does the psalmist want God to protect him, but he also calls upon the LORD to violently defeat his enemies. The psalms in which the psalmist calls upon God to destroy the psalmist’s enemies are called imprecatory psalms. The Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible writes, “Even the psalms that include imprecations, or cursing, find fulfillment in Christ. These psalms cry out for the vindication of the righteous and for God’s judgement on the wicked (e.g. Ps. 69:22-29). Such prayers reflected the calling of the Israelites to holy war as God’s instruments of judgement. With the coming of Christ to bear God’s judgement, the nature of the warfare of God’s people has changed. It is now more intense, but directed first and foremost against the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 6:12). When Christ returns in glory, the time of mercy will be ended and the imprecations (curses) of the psalms will be fulfilled against all the enemies of God.”

Psalm 141

Psalm 141 is a call on God to hear prayer and to protect one from evil: both doing evil and having evil attack.

141.2: Since incense is pleasing to God and acceptable to him the Psalmist asks that his prayers be like incense to God. In the book of Revelation we discover that the prayers of the saints and incense are connected: Revelation 8. 3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. 4 The smoke of the

incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

141.3: The Psalmist asks for God’s power to keep his words from being evil. There seems to be a temptation to join those who are evil in using his words in ways that can destroy.

141.4: The Psalmist professes that evil can look good and draw us to it. He speaks of their evil as being delicacies. This word is used in other places to describe the beauty of lovers (Song of Song) the inheritance that Issachar receives in the promised land (Genesis 49) and other good things--including God himself. It is a reminder of the power of evil to look good to us and draw us to it.

141.5: In a passage that causes most people wonder the Psalmist celebrates righteous people who correct him. He sees such correction as a reason to celebrate because it keeps him walking in God’s paths rather than paths of wickedness.

141.8: David professes that he is keeping his focus on God as his refuge and so will not use the tactics of evil people to defend his cause. In doing so he recognizes the risk of sticking to faithfully following God’s ways and so seeks his protection.

Psalm 142

Psalm 142 gives a powerful picture of what it is like to a person who is in danger and one who lives in safety. When a person is in danger his “spirit is faint”, there are “hidden snares”, he has “no refuge”, “no one cares for his life”, “he has people who “pursue” him, and he is in “prison”--a place from

which he cannot praise God. When a person is safe God is his “refuge”, he has a “portion in the land of the living”, he is able to “praise” God’s name, and the righteous gather around him.

142.1: “cry aloud” There is a rawness to the pain of the Psalmist. He is not murmuring a soft complaint, his complaint is loud before God.

142.3: The Psalmist expresses the hope that even when he is completely worn out and in danger that God still knows where he is.

142.4: The “right” is the direction from which help comes. We often read of God’s mighty right hand. The Psalmist looks in the direction where help should come from and he finds no help.

142.5: God is seen as the only refuge the Psalmist has in a world that has turned against him.

142.5: “my portion” The word portion is connected with the inheritance that God gave to each Israelite clan as they entered the land of promise. David, hiding in a cave, seems to have no portion of land, but he declares that God is his portion. This declaration calls to mind God’s word to the Levites that he is their portion (see Deuteronomy 10.9).

142.7: “prison” is a metaphor for being in the land of the dead, a place from which the Psalms hold you cannot praise God.

142.7: “the righteous will gather about me” These words most likely mean that the righteous will come to David’s aid. We read in 1 Samuel 22.1Sam. 22:1 David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. 2 All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him.