Let the arrogant, who wrong me with lies, be put to shame. I will meditate on your precepts.
The Psalms are very real. You’ll get all the emotions represented. “Get the bad guys” is a common prayer, though it’s often disguised as praying for them, asking God to change them into someone we would like better.
I’m taking a bit of a side-trip with this verse, because the question is so familiar. When people ask about God and what God does for/to people, there are two big questions. First, why do such bad things happen to good people? Second, why do the wicked (or the proud or arrogant) prosper?
Both of these questions come from comparing ourselves to others. The question is why don’t we do better than people who are not as good as we are, and why do people who are nastier than we are prosper.
And thus the prayer to get the bad guys is most often a prayer for God to make people who are worse than we are prosper less than we do or suffer more. After all, they deserve worse than what we do!
I don’t blame the psalmist for praying that his enemies be put to shame. From time to time I’ve joined him. I don’t think God goes along with that plea. God’s more interested in getting through to me. And I expect to them.
Let those who boast, boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who recommends himself who is genuine, but the one the Lord recommends.
2 Cor 10:17-18 (Author’s Translation)
Whose recommendation are you seeking?
Due to the connection to theodicy, I’m embedding my own interview in my series on that topic, just for fun!
Let your lovingkindness comfort me as you have promised your servant.
Lovingkindness is the Hebrew word hesed, which can also refer to faithfulness, favor, goodness, or grace. It also refers to the loyalty involved in a covenant relationship.
I think one of the most commonly forgotten aspects of Christian faith (also true in Judaism) is living in the knowledge of being in a relationship with God. A covenant is a relationship. We often talk about our relationship with God as a sort of romantic adventure based solely on emotion.
I don’t want to deny emotion. Emotion is important. Experience and the emotion that grows out of it is as critical as the facts on which it is based. One can get lost either way. The idea of meeting a God who demands that we keep his commands outside of such a relationship is quite daunting.
You know that YHWH your God, he is God. He is a faithful God who keeps covenant and lovingkindness – to those who love him and to those who keep his commands – for a thousand generations.
Deuteronomy 7:9 (author’s translation)
Now keeping all those commands is a lot of work! Works will not save you. Works will not make you a child of God. But the book of Deuteronomy doesn’t teach that the works are somehow earning the favor. Rather,
Not because you were more numerous than all the peoples did YHWH passionately desire you and choose you, for you were the smallest of all the peoples. Rather, because YHWH loved you and because he kept the oath which he swore to Abraham, YHWH brought you out with a powerful hand and ransomed you from the house of servitude, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
Deutereonmy 7:7-8 (author’s translation)
Now there’s something interesting about the word used to describe God’s passionate desire. It’s the same word used by Hamor of his son Shechem and his desire for Dinah, daughter of Jacob. I don’t bring this up to somehow ransom the sordid story of Shechem and Dinah. But this illustrates the strength of the emotional bond. Hamor, in using this word of his son, is telling the people of the town that the prince has to have the girl he desires. He can’t do without her.
God’s love for God’s people is powerful, demanding, and must be satisfied. When God gives a covenant to Abraham, and repeatedly renews and restates it, God is saying that his love is overwhelming.
In ancient times, the breaking of a covenant was regarded as a very bad thing, often resulting in a penalty of death. In Ezekiel 17:11-21 God’s message is that the people made a covenant with the king of Babylon and then violated it. God asks regarding the king who did this, “Will such a man be successful? Will he escape destruction if he acts in this way? Can he violate a treaty and escape unpunished?” (Ezekiel 17:15b). This is a condemnation of violating a human treaty.
In Jeremiah 31:31, God says he will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah, and in verse 32 he says the old one was “one they broke.” Do you hear what’s going on here? Violation of a human covenant is condemned. And yes, violation of God’s covenant is condemned. But what does God do?
God makes a new one. Why? Because he loves his people so much. He has to have that relationship. Notice that the new covenant is in what we Christians call the “Old Testament.” The same love expressed in Deuteronomy 7 as Israel prepares to enter the land, is again expressed by creating a new covenant to replace the broken one.
So does this only apply to Israel? We have only to pay attention to the covenant from the start to realize that God invites Israel to be his to be a blessing to all. God claims sovereignty over all the nations and moves the save them.
It is in this overwhelmingly faithful, overpoweringly loving relationship that we can find that comfort. That kind of love is the best atmosphere in which to grow. Holiness only occurs immersed in God’s all-encompassing grace.
I know, LORD that your judgments are righteous. It’s in truthfulness you have humiliated me.
If I were making a translation for publication, there would be a footnote on “truthfulness” that would include “faithfulness,” “honesty,” and “trustworthiness” as a minimum. It’s important not to imagine that a Hebrew word brings all of its applications into each use. The Amplified Bible does this by giving many synonyms in a single verse.
But in poetry, we can see a less limited way of reading, because the text is intended to be brief and to evoke a range of related ideas.
I’m leaving “righteous judgments” for another day. But righteous judgments are also truthful judgments. In much of what I’ve read of court cases, I get the feeling that the judgments rendered by human judges are often constrained by current custom, and less so by written law or by principles of justice. I would say that the idea of divine justice involves an expectation of total truthfulness and faithfulness as well as adherence to statutes of law. This is an unreachable goal for humans, I think, though it is a good goal for which to strive.
I couldn’t think of an efficient way to say it, but the final words of this verse suggest that we are brought humiliation by truthfulness/faithfulness. One might say “integrity.” God simply brings truth to bear on our actions, and it’s humiliating.
It’s in our human nature to get upset at this. We don’t want to be humiliated. But how often does reality do that to us? We think we’re great, and then reality strikes and something goes wrong. We announce that we can handle a situation, make a repair, or pass a test. Then reality comes to get us.
Most spiritual things have everyday analogies. Spiritually, we decide to do things a certain way, accomplish certain goals, spent certain amounts of time in prayer or service, keep our motivations pure, avoid unjust anger. And then we get busy and we don’t get that time in prayer, we don’t read out Bible as we planned, and we find we have less time and resources to serve others as we had determined.
I can give an example from this series. On the one hand, I’m happy to be 75 verses (and days) into a 176 verse plan. But I can’t count the number of times I’ve actually forgotten which verse I was working on during the day. I’ve sat back, intending to bring the verse to mind, and I can’t remember it. I’m supposed to be meditating on it. That’s a minor failure, but it’s still a failure, and it annoys me that I do it.
I wish I could say that my faults are generally small, like forgetting a verse. I can always look it up again. But when I speak hurtful words in anger, for example, the problem is not so easy to repair.
So what shall I do? To echo Paul, “Who will rescue me?”
Well, actually, the same God who provides the truth that puts me in my place over and over. The same God the psalmist has been praising for these 75 verses and will continue to praise for another 101. This help comes in three ways:
I can learn to know my own limitations. It may be humiliating to come up against the truth, but if I’m not arrogant, it’s not going to hurt as much!
The same God also provided this law, this distant goal, that helps keep me pointed in the right direction.
Coming up against the real standard is good for us in all these ways. We tend to want to pretend that the standard is lower so we can feel better. We’d like God to protect us from the results of our own stupidity and failures. But those options results in a lack of growth. God wants to grow you up. To take the next step. And the next.
Those who fear you see me and rejoice, Because I wait for your word.
Again, there are a number of ways to translate, especially the verb tenses. In a poetic form, that is challenging. I see this as a continuous state rather than a prediction. Those who see the psalmist rejoice, precisely because he is awaiting God’s word.
We could discuss the value of recognizing God’s work in the lives of others. That is one of the things that helps create community. We recognize God’s grace in action and it’s time to rejoice.
But the word that caught most of my attention today is the word “wait.” It can be translated “hope” as well as “wait.” We don’t like the word “wait” and even “hope” can be a problem when we remember that if we’re hoping, we don’t have it yet! And we’re back to “wait,” which we don’t like.
But waiting is critical. Timing can be important and if you don’t learn to wait, you are likely to miss many things. You can miss something as easily by rushing and being too early as by being too late.
And what is the psalmist waiting for? God’s word.
With waiting there is listening, listening for God’s word. This can come to you in so many different ways. I recall once that I had been trying to make a decision. The situation was one were right and wrong seemed ambiguous. I was talking with a friend asking for prayer and advice, and as we were praying and talking about it, suddenly something became very clear.
Did I hear a voice? No.
Were there words written on tablets of stone? No.
Did I have a vision? No.
I believe God can speak in all of those ways. God has spoken in all those ways. But the “word of God” that I received after waiting that time was simply the sudden understanding of what was the right thing to do. In a flash I knew that one of the courses of action I was considering could not be carried out ethically, so there was really only one choice.
Can you wait for that knowledge of what God’s word says about any situation?
Here are some helpful books I publish on this topic
Your hands made me and put me together. Give me understanding, and I will learn your commands.
This verse starts the next eight verse section, but it’s still discussing God’s relation to us. We’ve seen God as good, and also as one who either brings or allows hardship. Now we get to the basics. God is the creator. More precisely, God is our creator.
This verse illustrates why we bring nothing we independently own to the table. We owe our very existence to God. We are not in a position to demand anything. God created it all and made all the rules. We can say that all understanding as well as all existence comes from God.
There are hints throughout the psalm that point to our dependence on God to truly carry out God’s commands. This verse points to our dependence on God even for our understanding of what those rules are.
We often debate about whether we can earn or complete any part of our salvation. In doing so we are missing this one major point. Not only can’t put God under obligation by anything we do, we can’t conceive of how to or not to do so on our own.
Does this seem oppressive? Well, as created beings we are, by definition dependent. Such independence as we have is made, fashioned, and established (all possible translations of the words of the first half of this verse) by God. Our desires are. Such freedom we have (and I believe in the power of the human will) is also a gift given by God at God’s own choice.
And we are given great freedom, which we frequently misuse, and the same sovereign, all-powerful God lets us go and do those things.
My company, Energion Publications, uses the slogan “Educate! Energize! Empower!” If you feel empowered today, remember whose gift that empowerment is.
It was good for me to have suffered hardship so I could learn your statutes.
We tend to complain a good deal over hardship. We don’t like it. We ask why God allows it, or perhaps does it.
But hardship is worked into the basic structure of the universe. That’s where we get the law of sowing and reaping. Our standard condition has us destined to work hard for many things. This is, in fact, how we learn most things.
Two stories from my childhood and youth come to mind. When I was just eight years old I announced that I wanted to learn to use a typewriter. This launched a family debate. Would I ever learn to write? Could I actually learn to use the typewriter at that point. At that time “typewriter” meant a manual machine and took a certain amount of energy to use.
My dad made the decision. I’d be allowed to learn to type, but only if I would complete every single lesson in the Typing Made Simple workbook perfectly. There was no number of allowed errors. I could redo the lessons as many times as I wanted to, but I couldn’t move forward until I had completed it without error.
I honestly don’t know whether my dad expected me to succeed or not. There was no pressure other than the one requirement. That was a hardship! I had to do some of those lessons several times. But I learned something that has served me all my life. In high school, I attained a top typing speed of over 120 words per minute without error.
Again, when I wanted to raise goats, my parents simply made sure I understood the work involved. There would be no morning when I didn’t have to get up early to milk. There would always be things that I needed to do at various inconvenient times. I understood, and I got the goats.
Now raising those goats was hard! In my spare time I had to install an electric fence. Then I had to deliver the milk to customers up to a mile or so away, which I did either on foot or by bicycle.
The point of these two experiences is that they are not extraordinary. Nobody was trying to make my life difficult. The hardships involved were not that terrible. Some people have told me the “perfection” requirement was outrageous, but I disagree. It gave me a goal and a standard, and it was attainable. The work done to attain that goal contributed to much of my work since, including the speed with which I am typing this.
We can make a distinction between causing trouble or allowing trouble. I think that is a distinction of limited value. If someone is picturing God sneaking about looking for ways to make their life difficult, that might be theologically problematic. But God has created a universe in which everything from stars and planets to human beings are shaped by things that put pressure on them.
And what do we suppose is necessary to make us ready for eternity?
“But grace!” you say.
Yes, God’s grace saves us. Yes, God’s grace is sufficient. It brings us into the family. But that is the beginning of a journey, not the end.
“And grace will see us through,” you say.
Yes, indeed it will. But it’s going to see you through the process of growing you up, of preparing you for eternity in the presence of God.
Be “carried on to perfection” (Hebrews 6:2) for a few more steps today!
Their hearts are clogged with fat; I delight in your instruction (Torah).
A very literal alternative for the first half of the verse would be “fattened with fat are their hearts.” The REB translates:
[T]hey are arrogant and unfeeling, but I find my delight in your instruction.
With the heart being more the seat of thought than of emotions in Hebrew imagery, we could say that their thinking and perceiving equipment is all clogged up. Some cognate words in related languages suggest foolishness.
This is a good example of translating an idiom. There are those who prefer word-by-word translation, what is called formal equivalence, which means the translator tries to represent each grammatical form (word or sometimes phrase) in the source language with an equivalent in the target language. In this case, translating “their heart is fat with fat” would be formally accurate, but not necessarily communicative.
While I like the way in which the REB translates, I would tend to replace “unfeeling” with “insensitive.” (Assuming I was aiming for functional equivalence.) The reason is that this verse suggest to me a contrast. Unlike the Psalmist, those who smear him are not able to delight in God’s law. This accords with the psalmist’s many prayers that the Lord will teach him and keep after him even if he goes astray.
The word sensitivity was on my mind in my meditations today. It seems to me that there are two closely related types of sensitivity that are necessary for the one that delights in God’s law in the theme of this verse. The first is a sensitivity to God’s commands. The second is a sensitivity to those around, to the community of which one is a part.
Sensitivity to God’s commands in a way that makes them a delight requires that one care about good, ethical, and productive behavior. Indifference is not delight. The psalmist wants to do right. The slanderers want to do injury. They are not sensitive to what their actions do to others. Their hearts are blocked up and unable to receive new, clean blood.
Create in me a new heart, Oh God, and renew an upright spirit within me (Psalm 51:12)
The second part of this sensitivity is a sensitivity to other people. It is very easy to come to the point of not caring what happens to other people. But this attitude is decried in scripture. Besides commanding the Israelites to love the LORD their God with all their hearts, they are commanded to love their neighbor as they love themselves (Leviticus 19:18).
To love someone as you love yourself, you need to be able to appreciate them as a person of value, independent of what they can do for you. You need to be able to understand who they are and what their needs are. You need to be able to recognize and acknowledge their differences. You will begin to disregard someone you don’t respect as their own person.
God’s instruction is filled with concern for others. When we get to the New Testament, we have Philippians 2:4, which tells us that we should not each seek our own well-being, but rather then well-being of others. This is followed by the famous passage of Philippians 2;5-11, which tells us that Jesus gave up more for us than we can even comprehend, going from infinite something to nothing for us.
With this in mind, how can we, as Christians, fail to care about the needs of others? How can we fail to take them seriously?
Who is there that you just can’t stand, but that God is asking you to love?
The insolent smear me with falsehood, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts.
Meditation on God’s word in all its various forms is useful when you feel that others are smearing you with lies. That is the most direct lesson to learn from this verse.
But there is a benefit to meditating on the verse and then writing what has come to me–I can talk about a variety of things. And what my mind turned to was how one can be insolent (arrogant is also a possible translation) and smear people.
You see, we tend to read scripture as one of the good people. This verse is written from the perspective of someone wronged, but steadily sticking to the right path himself. But how often are we in that sort of a “pure” position.
I’m thinking especially of our behavior in the church community, but this sort of problem can occur when we speak about people in our families, our communities, and even of celebrities. We tend to delight in gossip. We tend to repeat it.
Any time you pass on negative information you’ve heard about a person to someone who doesn’t need to know it, you are harming that person. Now in the secular world, we consider “truth” to be an adequate excuse for the most part. If it’s true, we think repetition is justified.
But in the church community, gossip is listed as a sin. And unless you’re following an appropriate path to reconciliation, or engaging in a loving effort to help someone, repetition is hurtful. Matthew 18:15-20 provides a procedure that starts with talking to the person who has offended first, and ends with talking to the whole church. All too often, the entire church has heard before any effort is made to talk directly to the person concerned.
When we do this, we’re part of the first half of this verse, not part of the second. We need sometimes to read these verses in reverse.
Now I’m going to add something. Gossip is not a major temptation of mine. This is not a claim to righteousness of my own. It’s just that the ultimate bad guy knows what to tempt me with. What I’m tempted to do is to listen politely, not comment, and then leave.
But let me suggest to myself and to all of you that listening to gossip in a polite way can itself be smearing someone’s character. You encourage the gossiper. You pollute your own mind with bad things about that other person. You may unconsciously poison your own relationship.
You can’t stop all lies. There are too many of them. But whenever you can, you need to explicitly say no. When someone says, “Have you heard about what ____ did?” You need to say, ‘No, and I don’t want to.”
You are good, and you act in goodness. Teach me your statutes.
If you find the turn from God’s goodness, to “teach me your statutes,” you may not have been following the Psalm thus far. One of the themes here is the value of God’s self-revelation in the form of laws and instructions.
The Septuagint (LXX) of this verse transfers the second instance of good, the active one, to the second part of the verse: “You are good, and in your goodness teach me your statutes.” This makes the teaching function of the law part of the goodness of God.
The parallel terms of the verse apply “goodness” to God’s statutes. This is not the way we usually think of goodness. Rules are annoying things you have to live with. They are not blessings for which we should be grateful.
This is a very human response. Just consider our response to traffic laws. If a cop stops us and gives us a ticket, we’re complaining about the stupid laws and generally feeling much put on. If there’s a really slow speed limit in a neighborhood, we’ll often complain that it is ridiculously slow. If we lived in that neighborhood, however, we’d likely be advocating for slow speed limits and effective enforcement.
8 And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?
Deuteronomy 4:8 (NRSVue, quoted from BibleGateway)
This is one of the most difficult “heart” things. It is hard to regard the law as a blessing while at the same time realizing we are not perfect. Far from it! But the law itself is a call to greatness, a greatness that is a gift of God and not a personal achievement.
Try to think of a rule today that is a real blessing in your life. Do you keep that rule?
Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word.
What is your reaction to difficult times? I’m not a terribly optimistic person, and I don’t take to it all that well.
I’ve noticed that modern Christians have inconsistent responses to trouble. On the one hand, they’ll say that if God is in it, everything will be there. Sometimes they go so far as to say that Christians shouldn’t really have any trouble if they’re “in God’s will.” I always run this view up against the lives of the people listed in Hebrews 11. No, it’s not always easy for God’s people.
On the other hand, people will say that the person who’s having trouble is being attacked by the devil, usually because that person is doing things that threaten the devil’s kingdom. I always want to ask how they’re sure it’s not because they’re not in God’s will.
Experience suggests that you will have hard times and good times. That’s how the universe works. I believe in both God’s blessing and in God allowing us to experience difficult times. So there is a third option. Perhaps things are going wrong not because I made the wrong choices, but because others did, and I’m collateral damage.
Let me suggest a response to affliction, which can be any sort of difficult season in your life. Rather than trying to figure out just what God is doing, perhaps we should simply ask what we, ourselves can do.
No matter whether you are suffering the normal vicissitudes of life on this crazy planet, or God is trying to teach you something through hardship, or the devil is trying to block you because he doesn’t like what’s you’re doing, the best next move is to do right as best as you can while relying on God.
And that reliance on God is important. It isn’t an excuse not to act. It is an assurance that when you act, you will accomplish more than you could do on your own. It is also the assurance that even in failure, you’ll be part of God’s family.
Exodus 2:14-15 tells us that when he realized that the fact he had killed an Egyptian had become known, Moses was afraid. Hebrews 11:27 records that he left Egypt, not afraid of the king’s wrath. That’s the faith view of our actions.
