My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 70 is essentially a repetition of a portion of Psalm 40. There are some differences that may prove to be instructive, and provide opportunity for comment. The following tables will provide my reader an opportunity to quickly compare each verse between the two psalms and consider the differences for themselves.

As before, variations between the two Psalms will be noted by italicized font. Earlier comments for this first portion may be found at Psalms for Psome – Ps 40.07

Let’s consider the last two verses.

Psalm 70	Psalm 40
4 – May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!”	16 – But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!”

The difference in this verse when compared with the parallel in Psalm 40 is the psalmist’s reference to God. In Psalm 70, he uses the common name for the creator God. Our psalmist speaks of God in the more general terms, where in Psalm 40, the psalmist refers to God by using the more personal name of Jehovah. Two short posts are available for my reader if they are interested in following up on these names.

Names of God – ELOHIM (GOD) – 1

Names of God – JEHOVAH (LORD) – 2

Psalm 70	Psalm 40
5 – But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!	17 – As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!

In our final verse, we see the psalmist repeating his immediate need, and removes the description of “the Lord takes thought for me”. This seems to reflect an intentional “depersonalizing” of the Psalm, yet the psalmist refers to God with the more personalized name of God in the end.

No matter how we interpret this adjustment to the message of this man in need, it is refreshing to hear in both the 40th and 70th psalm that these men knew their place. They were poor and needy.

They knew their position before the God they prayed to. May we remember also, that we are but poor and needy people, looking to the Lord God for our assistance.

---

Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com

My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 70 is essentially a repetition of a portion of Psalm 40. There are some differences that may prove to be instructive, and provide opportunity for comment. The following tables will provide my reader an opportunity to quickly compare each verse between the two psalms and consider the differences for themselves.

Variations between the two Psalms will be noted by italicized font. Earlier comments for this first portion may be found at Psalms for Psome – Ps 40.06.

Prior to getting into the Psalm, it may be good to consider that this Psalm begins with “To the choirmaster. Of David, for the memorial offering.”

This Psalm is stated as related to an offering associated to a past occurrence, a memory, and may refer to Psalm 40, basing this psalms cry to God on the previous Psalm.

This may give the modern believer justification for the repetition of prayers and petitions that are not original from the saint. This thinking is somewhat foreign in my circles, but I have met good and honest believers, those who “merely repeat”, prayers. My judging of this practice is wholly unfair, for what man can judge another man’s motives in his prayers?

Let’s consider the first three verses.

Psalm 70	Psalm 40
1 – Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me!	13 – Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me!

It seems this prayer is motivated by an immediate need, more so than the original request. Hurry up O God.

Psalm 70	Psalm 40
2 – Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life! Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt!	14 – Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt!

The apparent difference between “confusion “and “disappointed” is translational, for the Hebrew word is the same, but the concept of the disappointment not being complete or “altogether” in psalm 70 may imply the Psalmist is looking for an individual, instead of a group of enemies.

Psalm 70	Psalm 40
3 – Let them turn back because of their shame who say, “Aha, Aha!”	15 – Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

The difference in this verse may be seen in Psalm 70, and that the psalmist is praying for them to be “turned back” or to retreat from any advancement on his life. To be appalled is a much more forceful word in that it describes a desolation, or a ravaging.

Psalm 70, for the minor differences, seems to present to God a prayer of an immediate need, or at least a greater concern with a response from God without delay. The psalmist has modified the prayer to God in Psalm 40, presenting his need as more urgent, and somewhat less concerned with the treatment of his enemies. He is more focused on his salvation than the retribution of his enemies.

A question for my readers. How should a believer, one who has trusted in the Messiah and understood His message, consider the retribution of those who seek his harm?

Leave me a message in the comments below.

---

Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com

My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 69 is a psalm of sorrow, of apparent defeat and deep emotional stress, of a distress in the heart and of being overwhelmed, of a weariness of soul, and of a waiting for an answer from God. It is a psalm that speaks of loneliness, of disappointment and of extended trials.

As we venture through the psalmist’s deep confession, his pain and his sorrow, we will encounter passages that will be referred to in the New Testament, providing a recounting of the sorrow of Jesus.

Let’s read the last three verses of this revealing psalm.

Psalm 69:34 Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them.
Psalm 69:35 For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it;
Psalm 69:36 the offspring of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall dwell in it.

It’s been over three months since we started this psalm of distress, weariness, fear and anger. It contained some of the harshest judgments wished upon the enemies of David in the Psalms. Not the harshest in my opinion, but we will wait until Psalm 137 to consider that passage.

Throughout the passage the psalmist begged for deliverance, referring to the steadfast love of God, of His faithfulness, and of his enemies pursuing him, poisoning him, and providing him sour wine to drink (vs 21). Does this not hint at not only an exterior enemy, but an enemy within the camp?

He had suffered every angle of treachery, was on the edge of destruction, spoke of the flood sweeping over him, of the pit closing up on him. He was a death’s door, and with no one in sight to assist, no one that he could trust.

All alone.

Of course he wasn’t all alone, for he had the God of Israel, and he sought His help.

There was One was was completely, utterly all alone, and whom was saved after death took Him.

For David, he was rescued from death, and due to his rescue, Israel would become a world power. As we think of Jesus, we know that through His death, all heaven and earth shall praise Him, literally all of creation. This praise will be the direct result of the Lord having erupted out of the grave, for all of creation has been groaning in agony.

Romans 8:22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

He goes on the declare that God will save Zion, and build up the cities of Judah. Of course this has been accomplished in the reign of David, as he took control of Judah, at least the first 7 years of his reign.

For the completion of the saving of Zion, we need to look to the Son of David, as…

He is the One who comes to Zion for salvation

Matthew 21:5  “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

He is the One who is salvation.

1 Peter 2:6 For it stands in Scripture: Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

He is the One who builds the True Zion, the church

Heb 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,

And He is the One who delivers Zion

Romans 11:26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;

Yes Jesus is the complete fulfillment of the salvation of Zion, the building of the cities of Judah (praise), and of the character of those resident in Zion. Note that those that inherit this salvation are the offspring of His servants, those who are of service.

Did not Jesus echo this truth in the beatitudes?

Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Even as He echoed this truth, He expanded it to include the earth, and not just the single hill of Zion near Jerusalem. No – the entire earth will be the inheritance of the meek, lowly Man named Jesus, and with Him His servants.

His salvation was hinted at in the Old Testament, but the realization of what is now, and what is about to be, is far more than we can think or imagine!

---

Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com

My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 69 is a psalm of sorrow, of apparent defeat and deep emotional stress, of a distress in the heart and of being overwhelmed, of a weariness of soul, and of a waiting for an answer from God. It is a psalm that speaks of loneliness, of disappointment and of extended trials.

As we venture through the psalmist’s deep confession, his pain and his sorrow, we will encounter passages that will be referred to in the New Testament, providing a recounting of the sorrow of Jesus.

Psalm 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Psalm 69:31 This will please the LORD more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.
Psalm 69:32 When the humble see it they will be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
Psalm 69:33 For the LORD hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.

Let’s return to the passage I started to discuss last week, but as you may remember, got a bit distracted from the text by realizing I am more like Michal than David. To say the least, my discovery of a certain aspect of praise certainly took me aside last week, but for this time together, let’s consider more than just one of the words David used for this portion of Psalm 69.

As I read this four verse portion of Psalm 69, I am struck with how New Testamental David sounds in expressing his faith. He speaks of how praise and thanksgiving is greater than the prescribed sacrifices of bulls and oxes. This attitude, in an age dominated and ordained with a sacrificial system that was required by the faithful in order to approach God formally – this is a massive spiritual understanding of the priority of God’s desires.

Note that David refers to the humble seeing “it”. What is it that the humble see?

Is he reaching back to verse 29, speaking of God’s salvation in setting the distraught saint on high? Or might he be thinking of the universal opportunity to approach God based on humility, brokenness, poverty and desire?

Of course, the end result is that the salvation of God set’s the undeserved on high, but I think the humble rejoice in “how” this occurs, from the standpoint of the saint.

First, note that verse 30 speaks of praise, songs, magnification and thanksgiving. These attitudes or characteristics are not restricted from the believer due to their financial class, at least no due to their lack of finances. There is something to be said about how abundance can dull the saints proper stance before God, but we speak of the humble here.

Vere 33 gives more justification to think the humble rejoice in the “how” of approaching God and not specifically the end result of being lifted up. The verse speaks of the needy, and of prisoners, those who have no resources other than their hearts and souls before God.

Yes, the humble rejoice in that they are provided no restrictions in approaching God, that they are not “buying” time with God, but simply expressing a deep need for the Lord, and this is what pleases God, even more than sacrifice!

This is such a freeing concept, a freeing understanding of the type of God we have, that he sets no restrictions to our approaching him in humility and brokenness, and yet I fear we sometimes approach Him in our pride and a wholeness that must nauseate the Master.

As you may know, I got me some grandkids and I love those little rugrats, but when they come to me thinking they are equal, or that they want to manipulate me, or that they can boss ol’ gramps around, that turns my nose up. Don’t get me wrong, I still love them, and I wanna hug em all the time, but a period of repositioning the child in the family has to occur for rightness to occur in the relationship.

But I do have a short story if you don’t mind me sharing, for we had a bunch of my favorite people together for a long weekend. My youngin’s and I were a drivin and singing together, playing old Macdonald, going 75 mph on the highway, when all of a sudden, the group got real quiet. That is a rare situation with four grandkids and grampa, but it happened – no joke! During that interlude, I looked back at one of those youngins, and he simply looked me in the eye, and completely out of the blue, said clear as a bell…

“I love you grandpa”

I can’t communicate the inflection in his voice or the softness of his eyes, the gentle smile on his face or the innocence of the moment, but trust me – at that moment in my life, all was well in my world!

Now, imagine God in a similar circumstance. Since He created us in His image, and though we be a broken and weak reflection of Him, if a simple expression like that melts an ol fella like me, might our simple, humble confession, especially out of the blue, capture God’s attention?

That is the type of God we serve. An active God that is alive and relatable. He is a loving God.

Thank you Jesus. I love you!

---

Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com

My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 69 is a psalm of sorrow, of apparent defeat and deep emotional stress, of a distress in the heart and of being overwhelmed, of a weariness of soul, and of a waiting for an answer from God. It is a psalm that speaks of loneliness, of disappointment and of extended trials.

As we venture through the psalmist’s deep confession, his pain and his sorrow, we will encounter passages that will be referred to in the New Testament, providing a recounting of the sorrow of Jesus.

Psalm 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Psalm 69:31 This will please the LORD more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.
Psalm 69:32 When the humble see it they will be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
Psalm 69:33 For the LORD hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.

As you know, I love to try to understand the words we read in our English Bible with the original meanings that men and women have researched. They have provided for us a treasure of knowledge in the work of lexicons and dictionaries of the New and Old Testament.

This morning, as I was just beginning to dig into this passage, I reviewed the word “praise” in the first verse, reading through the Strong’s definition.

Let me share with you what I found.

Did you notice what I noticed? See the reference to “foolish”? Strong’s dictionary defines this word to include the meaning of to be clamorously foolish, even to rave! “Clamorously” refers to that which attracts attention. Something is wrong here. To praise is not to make a fool of myself, is it?

I had to check another source. Let’s consider Gesenius Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon. The fourth paragraph speaks the same.

The idea of praise in the Old Testament has an element of boasting (which I get) but, which surprised me, a boasting to the extent of appearing foolish.

Why is this such a concern Carl?

A short confession may help my reader understand.

I am an introvert. Give me 8 – 12 hours of study, and I will walk away content and happy. Occasional bursts of emotion, though they may erupt in my heart and soul are “handled” until I can explain myself logically, or at least methodically. Does not the Scripture teach me that the Spirit Himself guides us into a life of self control? Am I not justified in “controlling” my praise to God, in bringing honor to Him while retaining my own?

How is a believer to reconcile this apparent tension. A self controlled believer or a boasting, clamorous fool. Is this a necessary conflict in my thinking? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

My friends – I think I have described a man above who seeks to protect his reputation to the detriment of the glory of God. I am the embodiment of a crusty old believer (I think of it as “mature”) that appears to have little or no joy. If God shows forth His greatness to a ol’ fool such as I, should I control that? Should I damp down that joy?

I can’t help thinking of a passage that has always somewhat bothered me.

2 Samuel 6:16 ESV – As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.
2 Samuel 6:20 …Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, “How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!”
2 Samuel 6:21 …David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD–and I will celebrate before the LORD.

Am I to act as Michal, or as David? Now that is disheartening! I know which of these characters I reflect. I am the controlled, contained, concerned Michal.

2 Samuel 6:22 will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.”

David expressed his concern over Michal’s complaint by throwing his own honor (in her sight) under the bus for the sake of the Lord’s honor. Remember David was King of Israel, and he had risked it all for this position. Yet his concern over any honor he may loose was nonexistent.

David was led of the Spirit to worship God and openly show his love for God.

Regarding the self control I resort to when this topic of praise comes up, I am seeing that I have controlled the One who is to control me. Yes, He will, as I depend on Him, provide the strength to resist sinful behavior, providing a self control that honors Him. But any of this self control I exercise, that is any controlling of my heart expression when it comes to God’s glory and His goodness is simply a dampening, an extinguishing of Spirit led praise to God.

Paul saw me coming when he repeatedly wrote of this possibility in the believer

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 Do not quench the Spirit.

For a brief moment this morning, join me is a prayer that as believers, we (I) would allow the goodness, the greatness, and the glory of the Lord to be expressed in our lives, even in a foolish way, a clamorous way, but only in a way that honors Him. That we (I) would show our love and amazement of the One on the throne, who hung on a cruel cross for us, clearly boasting as the Spirit leads, of His goodness and love for us, willing to sacrifice our own ego, self esteem, pride and reputation to the gutter for the sake of His honor being seen, even for a moment.

How this works out in our lives is up to the One who is over us. May we trust Him enough to follow even in this!

May His name be honored, and mine forgotten.

---

I fear I have departed from the text this morning, but this has been an unexpected illumination on my part. I will come back to Psalm 69:30-33 in our next posting.

---

Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com