5/20/11
Psalm 7 -- Psalm 27 -- Psalm 31 -- Psalm 34 -- Psalm 52
Psalm 7
Plea for Help against Persecutors
A Shiggaion of David,
which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.
1 O Lord my God, in you I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,
2 or like a lion they will tear me apart;
they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.
3 O Lord my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
4 if I have repaid my ally with harm
or plundered my foe without cause,
5 then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,
trample my life to the ground,
and lay my soul in the dust. Selah
6 Rise up, O Lord, in your anger;
lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
awake, O my God; you have appointed a judgment.
7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you,
and over it take your seat on high.
8 The Lord judges the peoples;
judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
9 O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
but establish the righteous,
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God.
10 God is my shield,
who saves the upright in heart.
11 God is a righteous judge,
and a God who has indignation every day.
12 If one does not repent, God will whet his sword;
he has bent and strung his bow;
13 he has prepared his deadly weapons,
making his arrows fiery shafts.
14 See how they conceive evil,
and are pregnant with mischief,
and bring forth lies.
15 They make a pit, digging it out,
and fall into the hole that they have made.
16 Their mischief returns upon their own heads,
and on their own heads their violence descends.
17 I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,
and sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.
Psalm 27
Triumphant Song of Confidence
Of David.
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evildoers assail me
to devour my flesh—
my adversaries and foes—
they shall stumble and fall.
3 Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
yet I will be confident.
4 One thing I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple.
5 For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will set me high on a rock.
6 Now my head is lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.
7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me!
8 "Come," my heart says, "seek his face!"
Your face, Lord, do I seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me.
Do not turn your servant away in anger,
you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me,
O God of my salvation!
10 If my father and mother forsake me,
the Lord will take me up.
11 Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
12 Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they are breathing out violence.
13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
Psalm 31
Prayer and Praise for Deliverance from Enemies
To the leader. A Psalm of David.
1 In you, O Lord, I seek refuge;
do not let me ever be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me.
2 Incline your ear to me;
rescue me speedily.
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me.
3 You are indeed my rock and my fortress;
for your name's sake lead me and guide me,
4 take me out of the net that is hidden for me,
for you are my refuge.
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
6 You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
but I trust in the Lord.
7 I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have taken heed of my adversities,
8 and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my eye wastes away from grief,
my soul and body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my misery,
and my bones waste away.
11 I am the scorn of all my adversaries,
a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.
12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.
13 For I hear the whispering of many—
terror all around!—
as they scheme together against me,
as they plot to take my life.
14 But I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, "You are my God."
15 My times are in your hand;
deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.
16 Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your steadfast love.
17 Do not let me be put to shame, O Lord,
for I call on you;
let the wicked be put to shame;
let them go dumbfounded to Sheol.
18 Let the lying lips be stilled
that speak insolently against the righteous
with pride and contempt.
19 O how abundant is your goodness
that you have laid up for those who fear you,
and accomplished for those who take refuge in you,
in the sight of everyone!
20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them
from human plots;
you hold them safe under your shelter
from contentious tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord,
for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
when I was beset as a city under seige.
22 I had said in my alarm,
"I am driven far from your sight."
But you heard my supplications
when I cried out to you for help.
23 Love the Lord, all you his saints.
The Lord preserves the faithful,
but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily.
24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord.
Psalm 34
Praise for Deliverance from Trouble
Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech,
so that he drove him out, and he went away.
1 I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.
3 O magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
6 This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,
and was saved from every trouble.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
8 O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
9 O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.
10 The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
11 Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Which of you desires life,
and covets many days to enjoy good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil,
and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil, and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their cry.
16 The face of the Lord is against evildoers,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,
and rescues them from all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted,
and saves the crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord rescues them from them all.
20 He keeps all their bones;
not one of them will be broken.
21 Evil brings death to the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
Psalm 52
Judgment on the Deceitful
To the leader. A Maskil of David,
when Doeg the Edomite came to Saul and said to him,
"David has come to the house of Ahimelech."
1 Why do you boast, O mighty one,
of mischief done against the godly?
All day long 2 you are plotting destruction.
Your tongue is like a sharp razor,
you worker of treachery.
3 You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking the truth. Selah
4 You love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.
5 But God will break you down forever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
6 The righteous will see, and fear,
and will laugh at the evildoer, saying,
7 "See the one who would not take
refuge in God,
but trusted in abundant riches,
and sought refuge in wealth!"
8 But I am like a green olive tree
in the house of God.
I trust in the steadfast love of God
forever and ever.
9 I will thank you forever,
because of what you have done.
In the presence of the faithful
I will proclaim your name, for it is good.
Devotionals, Videos and more ...
by Bill Federer
This day, May 20, 1927, at 7:52 am, one of the greatest feats in aviation began, as Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field in New York, in his silver monoplane named "The Spirit of St. Louis." Thirty-three and a half hours later he landed in France, completing the first solo flight across the Atlantic. At twenty-five years old, he was decorated by the president of France, the King of England, and President Calvin Coolidge. At the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, stated: "It was not the outer granduer of the Roman but the inner simplicity of the Christian that lived through the ages."
Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.
by whoever
God is an unutterable sigh,
planted in the depths of the soul.
--- Jean Paul Richter
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
--- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, 1734
Perhaps history is a thing that would stop
happening if God held His breath,
or could be imagined as turning away to think of something else.
--- Herbert Butterfield, Christianity and History
... from here, there and everywhere
by D.H. Stern
A whip for a horse, a bridle for a donkey,
and a rod for the back of fools.
Don't answer a fool in terms of his folly,
or you will be descending to his level;
but answer a fool as his folly deserves,
so that he won't think he is wise.
Telling a message to a fool and sending him out
is like cutting off one's feet and drinking violence.
The legs of the disabled hang limp and useless;
likewise a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
Like one who ties his stone to the sling
is he who gives honor to a fool.
Like a thorn branch in the hand of a drunk
is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
A master can make anything,
but hiring a fool is like hiring some passer-by.
Just as a dog returns to his vomit,
a fool repeats his folly.
Do you see someone who thinks himself wise?
There is more hope for a fool than for him!
Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.
A Daily Devotional by Oswald Chambers
The realm of the real
In your patience possess ye your souls. --- Luke 21:19.
When a man is born again, there is not the same robustness in his thinking or reasoning for a time as formerly. We have to make an expression of the new life, to form the mind of Christ. “Acquire your soul with patience.” Many of us prefer to stay at the threshold of the Christian life instead of going on to construct a soul in accordance with the new life God has put within. We fail because we are ignorant of the way we are made, we put things down to the devil instead of our own undisciplined natures. Think what we can be when we are roused!
There are certain things we must not pray about—moods, for instance. Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking. A mood nearly always has its seat in the physical condition, not in the moral: It is a continual effort not to listen to the moods which arise from a physical condition; never submit to them for a second. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we will find that we can do what we said we could not. The curse with most of us is that we won’t. The Christian life is one of incarnate spiritual pluck.
Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest
the Poetry of R.S. Thomas
Forest Dwellers
Men who have hardly uncurled
from their posture in the
womb. Naked. Heads bowed, not
in prayer, but in contemplation
of the earth they came from,
that suckled them on the brown
milk that builds bone not brain.
Who called them forth to walk
in the green light, their thoughts
on darkness? Their women,
who are not Madonnas, have babes
at the breast with the wise,
time-ridden faces of the Christ
child in a painting by a Florentine
master. The warriors prepare poison
with love’s care for the Sebastians
of their arrows. They have no
God, but follow the contradictions
of a ritual that says
life must die that life
may go on. They wear flowers in their hair.
Thomas, R. S. Selected Poems, 1946-68
Sanhedrin 105a
In certain religions, a person can be excommunicated—expelled from the fellowship of the church—because of committing a serious sin or breach of canon law. In Judaism, by contrast, there is virtually nothing a Jew can do that would result is his or her being cast out of the religion. "Even though he sinned, he is still 'Israel.' " Should a Jew become an apostate, denounce Judaism and convert to another faith, he or she is still considered a Jew in many respects. While there were categories of excommunication once practiced by the Jewish community (such as ḥerem and niddui), they were used merely as a means of social pressure to get an individual to change behavior. Others cannot take away our Jewishness; we ourselves are unable to renounce it. Criminals and heretics still remain Jews, no matter what they have done.
Why is this so? True love does not come with conditions or with strings attached. While respect and admiration have to be earned, love is freely given. When a child does something wrong, it may be difficult for a parent to like the youngster at that moment, but a father's or mother's love is never withdrawn. The same is true of divine love for God's children. God may be angry with us and may even chastise us for doing wrong. But God never disowns us. We have to earn the titles of "mensch," a decent human being, or "tzaddik," a righteous person, but no matter what we do, the title "Israel" is always ours. A priest can be defrocked; a lawyer can be disbarred, a soldier can be dishonorably discharged. But a Jew can never be denied the honor of the name "Israel."
That special honor entails special responsibility. We have to think twice before we do wrong, because our actions will always reflect on the rest of our people. Like Achan, what we do can adversely affect other Jews. The concept that "Even though he sinned, he is still 'Israel' " also implies that there is always the possibility of return and reconciliation. No matter what we may have done, we can always redeem ourselves and "come home" again. We always carry within us the "holiness" (to use Rashi's term) of the name Israel. We can always reach within us and draw on that holiness, and in doing so, make ourselves worthy of the honor that the name carries.
Audacity even towards Heaven is effective.
Text / ["The elders of Moab and the elders of Midian, versed in divination, set out. They came to Balaam and gave him Balak's message. He said to them, 'Spend the night here, and I shall reply to you as the Lord may instruct me.'] So the Moabite dignitaries stayed with Balaam" [Numbers 22:7–8]. Where had the elders of Midian gone to? Once he had said to them, "Spend the night here, and I shall reply to you," they said to themselves: "Is there a father who hates his son?" Rav Naḥman said: "Audacity even towards Heaven is effective." In the beginning it is written: "Do not go with them" [Numbers 22:12], but in the end it is written: "Go with them" [Numbers 22:20].
Context / There are other cases in the Bible of people who exhibit audacity towards Heaven with the same good intentions as Abraham and Moses but which inexplicably do not result in the same happy ending. The most striking example is in 2 Samuel 6, the story of King David moving the Ark of God. David has chosen Jerusalem as his capital city, and the Ark of God must be brought there.
Context / They loaded the Ark of God onto a new cart and conveyed it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, and Abinadab's sons, Uzzah and Ahio, guided the new cart. They conveyed it from Abinadab's house on the hill, [Uzzah walking] alongside the Ark of God and Ahio walking in front of the Ark. Meanwhile, David and all the House of Israel danced before the Lord to [the sound of] all kinds of cypress wood [instruments], with lyres, harps, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals. But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out for the Ark of God and grasped it, for the oxen had stumbled. The Lord was incensed at Uzzah. And God struck him down on the spot for his indiscretion, and he died there beside the Ark of God. (2 Sam. 6:3–7)
Context / To our minds, Uzzah acted justly, trying to stop the cart with the Ark on it from tipping over. Yet, Uzzah's actions are strangely seen as an affront to the Lord. What appears as obedience is taken as overstepping. Uzzah pays with his life. Sometimes, ḥutzpah towards Heaven does not work and can even result in the most extreme consequences.
In the eleventh chapter of Sanhedrin, there is a lengthy interpretation of the story of Balak and Balaam, found in Numbers 22–24. In the biblical account, Balak, king of Moab, wants to hire Balaam, a famous prophet, to curse the Israelites. Balaam tries to refuse, but Balak won't take no for an answer. King Balak sends emissaries to convince Balaam. These are "the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian." Thus, the opening question of the Gemara focuses on the difference between the beginning of verse 7, where both "the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian" are mentioned, and the end of verse 8, where only "the Moabite dignitaries" are cited. What happened to the Midianite elders? The answer is that once Balaam asked them to await God's reply, the Midianite elders knew that their cause was in vain: The father (the Father in Heaven) always loves his child (the children of Israel) and will display this love by preventing Balaam from harming the Israelites. Thus, there was no need to waste the night in anticipation, waiting for a negative reply from God.
With Balak's dignitaries spending the night under Balaam's roof, Balaam awaits God's instruction. God tells Balaam: "Do not go with them. You must not curse that people, for they are blessed." What should Balaam do? We would expect Balaam to send the emissaries on their way, for God has already made the answer known. Yet this is not what Balaam does. He tells the elders: "So you, too, stay here overnight, and let me find out what else the Lord may say to me." This is what the Talmud calls "audacity even towards Heaven," that is, flagrantly ignoring God's specific command not to go with the elders. Once God had said no, and Balaam tried to obtain a different answer, he has exhibited "audacity towards Heaven."
Despite the fact that it is impudence towards God, it works! God allows Balaam to go with Balak's messengers. The word translated as "audacity" is, of course, ḥutzpah, one of the Hebrew words that is best known to the Western world. One cannot hold God hostage, but one may, at times, challenge God and win. The guidelines of this ḥutzpah toward Heaven are not clear. In the story of Sodom (Genesis 18), Abraham argues with God, lowering the number of righteous required to save the city from fifty to ten. This is certainly audacious, since "the outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave" (Genesis 18:20)! In the aftermath of the Golden Calf, Moses puts his own life on the line. He tells God either to forgive the sin of the people, or "erase me from the record which You have written" (Exodus 32:32), that is, take my life away. This would seem to be ḥutzpah towards Heaven, yet it is audacity that works, for God backs down from destroying the entire Israelite nation.
Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. (1998). Swimming in the Sea of Talmud: Lessons for Everyday LIving
by Diana Wallis
One day Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, should I not try to find a home for you, where you will be well provided for?" --- Ruth 3:1
Two words in the chapter call for detailed explanation. The Book of Ruth (A Devotional Commentary)
The position of an unmarried woman in the ancient world was both perilous and unhappy. Only in the house of a husband was a woman sure of safety, respect, honor. And consequently the Hebrews spoke of the husband's home as the woman's menuchah, or place of rest, her secure haven from servitude, neglect, and license.
In like manner, they regarded a hereditary possession of land as the menuchah, or rest, of a nation. Thus Moses said to the children of Israel, "You have not yet reached the resting place [menuchah] and the inheritance the LORD your God is giving you" (Deuteronomy 12:9); they had no haven of repose and freedom, no settled and well-defended inheritance.
King Solomon was the first Hebrew chieftain who could bless God for the gift of complete "rest" to his people. He could thankfully acknowledge that the land had become the secure inheritance of the Hebrew race. And hence, at the opening of the temple, he said, "Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest [menuchah] to his people Israel just as he promised" (1 Kings 8:56).
The prophets rose to a still higher conception of and use of the word. For them, God was the true rest, or menuchah, of humankind. And hence they predicted that when God came, in the person of the Messiah, Paradise would return and the whole world would enter into its true menuchah, its final and glorious "rest." When the Messiah came, he invited the weary and burdened to come to him, on the express ground that he was their rest, that in and with him they would find such a haven of freedom and honorable repose as the Hebrew wife found in her husband's home, such a rest as the Hebrew race found in the Promised Land when it was wholly their own—no, such a rest as the prophets had taught them to look and hope for only in God.
Naomi sets herself, with courage and hope, to find a menuchah, a haven of rest and honor, for the daughter who had clung to her with a love so rare.
--- Samuel Cox
(27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.Teacher's Commentary
The Psalms have a wonderful capacity to capture the reality of our human experience. Dr. Samuel Schultz notes in The Old Testament Speaks: A Complete Survey of Old Testament History, 5th Edition
In every experience of our own, no matter how deep the pain or how great the frustration or how exhilarating the joy, we can find psalms which echo our inmost being; psalms which God uses to bring comfort or to confirm release.
The Psalms were written over an extended period of time, most probably coming between 1000 and 400 B.C. They were written by different authors, and at several times new groups of psalms were added to the collection. Seventy-three of the psalms were written by David. Forty-nine are anonymous.
The psalms were used in public worship in Israel, as well as for private devotions. They show us how intimate and free our relationship with God can be, as we share every thought and feeling with Him.
Selah. This word appears 71 times in the psalms. The word means "to lift up" and most believe it is a musical sign, perhaps of a pause.
Commentary / The era of David brought not only political but also literary revival. Many of the psalms recorded in Scripture come from David's own pen, and many others were written during his reign.
The 150 psalms are organized into five books, which represent four later collections added to the first worship book. Book I (Psalms 1–41) is Davidic, compiled prior to his death. Book II (Psalms 42–72) was most likely added in the era of Solomon. Books III and IV (Psalms 73–89; 90–106) were probably collected during the Exile, and Book V (Psalms 107–150) in the time of Ezra. This last book is the most liturgical.
The various books of Psalms, then, are not organized by content but by the time they were added to the official worship collection. It is likely that many if not most of the psalms were used before the official compilations were made.
The structure of the books is just one of several things we need to understand before we look into this wonderful Bible book.
(323). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.