Psalm 119:100 – More Understanding than the Elders

I have more understanding than the elders,
for I have kept your precepts.

One of the difficult things to keep in balance is respect for one’s elders and at the same time the realization that those elders are not always right. In fact, those elders can be corrupt.

Rather than my own discussion of this, I’m going to take a different approach. There are some Greek additions to the book of Daniel which are part of the Old Testament Apocrypha, accepted as scripture by Roman Catholics, Orthodox and some others. One of these additions is the story of Susanna.

Susanna is a godly and beautiful women. Two elders develop lust for Susanna and contrive to catch her alone in her garden, as she has sent her maidens away. They tell her they will testify that they saw her with a young man if she does not yield to them. She stands firm.

They take her before the other elders and testify that she is an adulteress and she is sentenced to death. A young man, Daniel by name (surprise!) is disturbed by the verdict and through his wisdom catches the men in a lie, finding that they contradict themselves about the type of tree under which they had encountered her with her supposed lover.

As a result, Susanna is set free and Daniel becomes famous.

The English Revised Version of this story is available online. The NRSV Catholic Edition is available on BibleGateway.com.

Some time ago I created a retelling of the story on my Jevlir Caravansary blog.

(Featured image credit: ID 193588715 © Nicoleta Raluca Tudor | Dreamstime.com)