Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Psalms

  • Psalm 119:66 – Teach Me

    Psalm 119:66 – Teach Me

    Beauty, order, and knowledge teach me,
    for I have put my trust in your commands.

    I went straight off on a rabbit trail thinking about this verse, because those first three words cover a very large area. They have overlapping semantic ranges, and a variety of possible glosses. I tried to choose three words to would combine the senses. As I read the three words they convey a combined sense of learning to see knowledge for multiple angles, looking for beauty, order, and data with understanding.

    We often see religious instruction as a matter for the church and for Bible study, while everything else is a secular activity. This is not the view that would have been held generally by those in Bible times. With God as the creator, everything is seen as part of God’s creation. So when you study the things in nature, you are studying divine beauty, order, and information.

    There is a danger in this sort of thinking, but let me say that we are always in danger when we study. Danger that we will quick seeking these three and start trying to force the information to take shapes of our own desires. Thus religion has often tried to control scientific research by reference to their interpretations of scripture.

    Thinking that scripture and also all of reality come from God, doesn’t mean that scripture teaches us about everything. Scripture should teach us to be truthful, to seek accurate knowledge, and then also to deal with that knowledge responsibly. It does not claim to be a text on any field of science. Rather, it points to a creator who created things and established an order for them such that objective study is possible.

    We miss that order when we try to force these elements to fit into a pre-conceived scheme and refuse to acknowledge what’s there.

    Recently there has been increasing skepticism of traditional sources of news and other data. This skepticism, in itself, is good. We should be skeptical of popular and official story lines. The problem is that we have all too frequently gone from a source that has failed in some ways to sources that don’t even attempt to be accurate. We judge the accuracy of the information by how pleasing it is to us.

    You may think I’m talking about current American politics. And I am, but not only that. I’m talking about the way we have handled scripture for a very long time. We step away from traditional institutions of the faith because they have failed us in some way. Martin Luther was driven to his break with church authority by very real problems. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before he and other reformers were ready to deny the journey to others. Having found a better place, they found it more comfortable and they felt the need to defend it

    But when we find our new comfort zone theologically and we fail to be constantly corrected by God’s Word and God’s Spirit. It’s a truthful Spirit, and doesn’t like us to lie, even, or especially, to ourselves.

    Whether you’re studying cutting edge scientific theories, reading the newspaper, or studying scripture, always beware of the comfortable rut and the safe, unchallenging mental vacation spot.

    Take the time to study, to meditate, and yes, to pray. Take time to listen. Be challenged. Be correctable, but only by solid material.

    There’s a beauty awaiting the determined traveler along paths of knowledge. Determine to take that journey!

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

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  • Psalm 119:65

    Psalm 119:65

    You have treated your servant well,
    according to your word, LORD.

    I pause to note a milestone. This is the first verse in the new section of Psalm 119. We’re in the section in which each verse starts with the ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Teth. That is the first letter of “TOV” which is in turn the first word in the verse in Hebrew.

    In the previous verse we were talking about God’s grace filling the entire world, and I think, by extension, the entire universe. Our universe has grown from the time it was conceived of as “the heavens and the earth.” Our concept of God needs to come up against the vastness of the known universe and realize how much more there is as we expand our ability to observe.

    God is good. Just what do we mean by that? We really don’t have a measure of the goodness of God. I assume that God is better than I can actually conceive. But that is a statement that is by nature not subject to demonstration. I don’t have a range of gods to compare and say, “This one is the greatest. By nature, I can do nothing about it if I decide that God is not good, because God will still be God, the creator of that inconceivable universe.

    Here is where I rely on experience. Experience that happened a long time ago and is still remembered is called tradition, and the Bible is very old tradition indeed. My own experience parallels that of the psalmist. It parallels that of many friends. But it is fundamentally mine. My faith in God is informed and in some cases directed by external data, but is not fundamentally a rational conclusion because it very simply can’t be.

    So I say that God is good, more an act of acceptance and praise than a rational assessment to be laid alongside other rational assessments.

    It is this experience that should be the content of our testimonies. It is something we should be willing to talk about. We spend a great deal of time trying to prove miraculous events in previous millenia, while frequently forgetting to talk about what has happened yesterday.

    I like Psalm 78:

    1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
        incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
    2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
        I will utter dark sayings from of old,
    3 things that we have heard and known,
        that our ancestors have told us.
    4 We will not hide them from their children;
        we will tell to the coming generation
    the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might
        and the wonders that he has done.

    5 He established a decree in Jacob
        and appointed a law in Israel,
    which he commanded our ancestors
        to teach to their children,
    6 that the next generation might know them,
        the children yet unborn,
    and rise up and tell them to their children,
    7     so that they should set their hope in God,
    and not forget the works of God,
        but keep his commandments;
    8 and that they should not be like their ancestors,
        a stubborn and rebellious generation,
    a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
        whose spirit was not faithful to God.

    Psalm 78:1-8 (NRSVue)

    Notice the passing on of God’s deeds to the next generation. This is how we teach God’s goodness. It’s not just a catalog of data. It’s much more. It’s the collected experience of the community.

    How will you add to the story of faith today?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

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  • Psalm 119:64

    Psalm 119:64

    LORD, Your lovingkindness fills the earth.
    Teach me your statutes.

    “Lovingkindness” could also be translated “grace” or “favor.” It covers a lot of ground. It also refers to obligations fulfilled under a covenant. When we think of it that way, we should remember that God has voluntarily created a covenant with us. Any obligations God takes on are a gift!

    It’s easy to miss the power of a verse like this. In very simple form it expresses an important theme of scripture. I’ve referred to it earlier in this series. Grace comes before law.

    We frequently preach and teach this in the opposite order. We preach about getting cleaned up so that we can be acceptable to God. We have to be good enough. Then we can come to God and find favor.

    Or we may preach salvation, becoming a child of God as something that is by grace, and then follow it with a rat race to be good enough. This isn’t an exclusively New Testament theme as some Christians think. We often don’t have the patience to read and understand the Bible Jesus knew, so we miss what’s going on.

    7 “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

    Deuteronomy 7:7-8 (NRSVue)

    It is clear that God’s choice comes first, but especially if you read further in the context, it is God’s purpose to make the chosen people a holy people. But again, this comes through God’s action.

    If we are preachers, teachers, or leaders in the church we need to make sure to keep this order in mind. If we look at the biblical standards, making ourselves meet those standards is a daunting task. Impossible, in fact. If we push those standards as a matter of making ourselves acceptable to God we’re going to create a raft of problems. What we won’t make is holy people.

    Self-sanctification is a common belief, and it is the root of all kinds of evil. On the one hand, those who can’t imagine their actual problems decide that they are, in fact, holy. We use the term self-righteousness, and that’s precisely what it is. It’s a meeting of self-made standards. Ungratefulness, judgment, relentless criticism, discouragement, and even despair follow all this.

    But God’s grace fills the earth, even the universe. Teaching us how to live is a blessing that comes because God loves us not so that God can love us. In that context, the laws, which are the very order of our universe, are a gift of God. Those laws make it possible for us to exist. They hold off total chaos. In fact, we can come to see those laws as a reflection of the character of the God we serve and a joy.

    We should also note that a God who provides us with such grace is unlikely to mandate or to bless ungracious behavior. A God who is love is asking us to love one another.

    “Teach us your statutes” becomes the story of a life of faith, blessed by God, with glory to come.

    As you live your blessed life today, consider the statutes of God that define it and make it possible.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:62

    Psalm 119:62

    In the middle of the night I rise to praise you
    for your righteous judgments.

    I rarely think of being awake in the middle of the night as a good thing. Sleep is a good thing. I like to get a good sleep. A couple of years ago when various potential medical issues made me decide to start a regular exercise program, I was needing to get around 9 hours. Two years later, I’m fine with seven. I thank the Lord for the better sleep, but I do it in the morning, not the middle of the night.

    I suspect there isn’t a greater level of righteousness involved in waking up and praising God in the middle of the night. While the psalmist says he does this, I don’t see midnight praise, at least on a regular basis, commanded in scripture.

    Thinking about this led me to a different question, however, which is just what you do if you wake up in the middle of the night. One of the things that wakes me up is worry. It can be the sort of thing that requires that I check on something. This can be prudence or useless worry. When Jody was having certain medical problems, I would set an alarm and intentionally wake up to check on her. I think she would have preferred that I didn’t. She valued my sleep more highly than I did.

    On the other hand I can end up awake in the middle of the night worrying about things that I really cannot fix, especially not at that time. This ends up being useless. I have to distract myself from whatever is worrying me. I can read, play a mentally stimulating game, or, shocking as it seems, I could pray and praise God.

    What good does that do? I don’t think God is more likely to help me with things if I wake up at 3 am in order to pray about it. God hasn’t forgotten what’s going on. The purpose of any activity here is to quit making myself sick worrying about things I can’t change. There are relatively few things I can change at 3 am.

    The value in the time of prayer is in settling my mind and spirit and bringing my focus back to what is important. That’s the one thing I can do, which is get some sleep so that I can be more effective at various things the next day.

    If I recite this verse, it is not a boast. It’s not a claim to greater spiritual accomplishments. It’s an admission that I was so busy worrying, I couldn’t do the most useful thing, which was to get the appropriate amount of rest.

    Which leads me full circle back to exercise. One of the advantages for me of deciding that exercise was a duty to restore my health (which, by the way, it has done), is that I don’t feel like I’m lazy or dodging work. I can feel righteous as I walk. I’m improving my health so I can work more effectively. Which tells me something else. I’m too much driven by that work.

    So perhaps I need to spend some time doing something I can’t claim is a “good work.” Perhaps I need some time that is actual rest, and do so without tricking my brain into believing I’m still doing important stuff.

    What stuff might you need to get out of the way?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:61 – Bound?

    Psalm 119:61 – Bound?

    The bonds of the wicked encompass me,
    I do not forget your instruction.

    These posts are meditations, not attempts at exegesis. I’m pretty sure the psalmist is here congratulating himself and pointing out to the Lord how he has been faithful under difficult circumstances.

    But what occurred to me is the number of times the “wicked,” or so they seem at the time, become the excuse for our own behavior.

    There is such a thing as teamwork, where we combine our strengths to accomplish greater things than any of us could accomplish on our own. Such is the vision of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12), with all using various God-given gifts to join together in serving others. The whole is greater than the parts because it functions together, combining strengths. And we must not forget God’s Spirit empowering everyone.

    But much more commonly groups of people actually demonstrate lower intelligence than any of the individuals in the group and combine to do very stupid things. “The devil made me do it” becomes “my friends dared me to,” or even “I thought my friends would think I was dull or timid or wimpy if I didn’t do it.”

    People my age like to think this is a problem of the young. Young people do this sort of thing. But most of us are subject to influence in a group, and we will frequently do things in groups that we would consider suboptimal if we were considering them individually.

    The normal tendency of a group of humans is not to become a team, serving others with greater strength, but rather to become a mob, tearing others down. With encouragement from one another, we can become truly horrible people, generally in ways we individually would avoid.

    What does this have to do with our passage? Well, we’re very susceptible to the very thing the psalmist says he’s avoiding. The wicked are trying to bind him, to carry him away from God’s instructions and get him on another path. Despite their influence, he is avoiding this problem.

    We have a problem with this in socializing children and youth, and it carries on into adulthood. We want our children to get along. Popularity is, well, popular! Parents don’t want their children to be outsiders at school or in other social groups.

    Getting along isn’t a bad thing, but when it’s priority is above doing right, it becomes the means of non-grace, of getting us into greater and greater problems.

    The bonds, or ropes, or chains that bind us can be very pleasant. We are surrounded by the traps of popularity, of agreement with the crowd, of the approval of peers and perceived superiors. It doesn’t feel like bondage. It feels good. And we forget God’s instructions. We forget what’s right.

    This is not to say that we always have to be going against the crowd we’re with. They might just be going in the right direction. What we have to do is remember. Remember what the right path is and be willing to break those bonds and go the right way, even when it seems hard.

    What gentle, attractive bonds are drawing you away from God’s instruction? Break away from them today!

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:60 – Obedience without Delay

    Psalm 119:60 – Obedience without Delay

    I hurried, and didn’t delay
    in obeying your commands.

    The Message has an interesting way of expressing this:

    I was up at once, didn’t drag my feet,
    was quick to follow your orders.

    Psalm 119:60 (The Message)

    Some might like me to talk about what seems like a rash statement. Who can claim to have always been quick to do everything God says? But I think the Bible is fairly balanced on this. It presents a nice combination of claims and practical stories of its characters so we can see them in all their humanity and also see their relationship to God and how all that works.

    What I actually was meditating about was on this “hurry.” Do what God says quickly. The word used in this verse most commonly is used to refer to God’s individual commands rather than a body of law. I took another step and was thinking of an ongoing relationship with God. One of the things that gets me labeled as charismatic is that I believe anyone can hear from the Lord.

    I’m not talking (necessarily) about hearing a voice. I’ve heard so many ways in which God has directed one person to another. I married Jody because God practically hit me over the head with a clue-stick and said, “Not only are you not to stay single, you’re going to marry this one.” God had to speak similarly to Jody because neither of us were looking in the other’s direction. I’m going to come back to this regarding the word “hurry” in a moment.

    In an ongoing walk with God one may receive many directions. These may be simple things, or complex things. These things never replace either the study of the written word or the experience of being in community as part of the Body of Christ.

    Let me give a couple of examples of really simple things. A couple of weeks ago I was coming back from church and passed a sign that said “Fresh Shrimp.” On the other side of the four lane highway was a pickup truck with a canopy off the back. I got the distinct thought that I was to turn around, go back, and buy a pound of that shrimp for Jody, who really likes them steamed. So I did. It was a pleasant contact. I suspect I’m going to be sent back for further contact with the young man who sold me the shrimp.

    Oh, and Jody said the shrimp were excellent. After I steamed them!

    On an occasion some years ago I was in an equally inconvenient situation with a man at the side of the road with a sign asking for money. I don’t make a habit of stopping, but what I heard was that I was to stop and give the man the $20 bill in my wallet. I didn’t have specific plans for that particular bill, but I would rarely hand $20 to somebody at the side of the road.

    I asked to pray with him and he lit up. It turned out he was himself a missionary, traveling roads and reaching out to minister to those who were homeless. We had an enjoyable chat and then I went on.

    Now neither of these events could be presented as evidence for miracles. I don’t feel inclined to argue with anyone who would suggest other causes. I don’t have to be right about this.

    But what I have found is this: When I follow these promptings, which others might see as whims, good things happen. The result has always been positive. I don’t know what would happen if I ignored them. But I’m going with the results.

    Now there’s something important to remember about hurrying. Being alert and willing is good. But there is also a matter of God’s timing.

    To return to the way Jody and I got together, timing was an issue. We were both teachers in the church, both involved in the prayer team, working together. There were a number of people who had an interest in what we were doing. We got every kind of advice.

    “You need to go slowly and be careful.”

    “You should get off the dime and ask her to marry you!” (to me)

    Now the thing is God’s timing isn’t necessarily slow or fast. We kept praying all the way through. I asked her after about a week of prayer, seeking what God wanted me to do. There were many arguments for delaying further. There were a few to get moving. I ignored them all. When I felt peace that now was the time I asked. When I did so I told her, “I’ve been praying about this for a week, so I’m not asking for an answer on the spot. I expect you need time to pray as well.” And she did. and the answer was “Yes.”

    I regret not one moment of our courtship, nor any of the time spent in prayer. I am glad that I ignored all the pushing one direction or another and didn’t hurry in my very human way, or delay and dither, as is much more my own way. Rather, I waited for my best understanding of God’s timing.

    Remember this: God’s way is not to select a point on our timeline, or to select a speed from our personal speed-o-meter, or to choose a theological position from our mental list of options. God’s way is to take us God’s divine distance at God’s divine speed. When you know God is leading you, that’s the time to move.

    Will you be sensitive for something God wants to bring to your attention today?

  • Psalm 119:59 – Consider

    Psalm 119:59 – Consider

    I considered my ways
    and turned my feet to your testimonies.

    As I translate it, this looks a bit like a mixed metaphor, but “turning my feet” is a idiom for “changing my ways.” I’ve been following more older translations. (See my post on Psalm 119:58). In this case there’s not a huge amount of difference, though I’ll note that in the second line the Peshitta uses a word for “pathways” that makes a nice synonymous parallel with “ways” in the first line. In another interesting variant, the LXX says, I considered your (God’s) ways.

    What I thought of during the day, however, was this matter of considering one’s own ways (sorry LXX!). It made me think of two of my own experiences.

    The first was while traveling across Virginia, south to north. I could have taken an interstate, but I chose instead to stay on back roads. I like to do this when I have time, and I had the time. Now driving time is thinking time, letting my mind wander on various subjects. I took a look at the map and figured I had my route in mind. This usually works for me if the route is not complex.

    Suddenly I brought my attention back to the present, and a road sign told me I was on a road that I couldn’t recall. I pulled over and studied the maps (and the clock, for that matter) and realized I had missed a turn and had driven on for more than an hour out of my way. Given the nature of back roads, I ended up losing almost two hours. My day was relaxed enough that I could handle it, but it was quite a shock to the system.

    The second was while leading a mission team to Hungary where we (or rater “they,” as in the rest of the team) ran a children’s camp. Due to odd routing and timing I missed a connection in Atlanta, and ended up on a flight several hours behind my team. It was a bit disconcerting as I had to send two team members who had gotten in that long line ahead of me on their way, and they had never been on a mission trip before.

    I was several hours behind and had to get a hotel room in Budapest. I got Jody (my wife) to get the travel agent to get me a hotel near the airport and definitely on the eastern side of the city, and change my rental car reservation to Budapest rather than Debrecen, our destination. This was because the van from our hosts would have been there the morning before to pick up my team, and wouldn’t be back to get me.

    The travel agent apparently had no idea where anything was in Budapest, and got me a hotel room to the north and west of the airport, well away from my route to Debrecen–east. The rental car agent uttered those fateful words, “It’s not problem! I’ll give you directions! You can’t miss it!” Off I went.

    Now note that while I have studied a number of languages, at least to the point of getting directions on the road, Hungarian is not one of them. I knew about a dozen words to the level of skill that results from reading a bit from a word book. About 20 minutes later I was looking out at the Danube River from a bridge I was crossing east to west. I knew I had a problem. Two hours and about half a dozen stops for directions I arrived at the hotel.

    In the first instance, I had a ready means of considering my ways. In the second, I was subject to others, and was unable to comprehend the instructions well enough to successfully consider my ways.

    I was able to use that story throughout the trip. In a church in a Roma community in western Ukraine I was asked to give the children’s moment. I was also to give the sermon for the adults. I spent many hours preparing the message for the adults from 1 Peter. It was a complete flop. But I told the story of being lost in Budapest to the children, who received it was gales of laughter. I used the text “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). At each point, I told them, I headed out on a way that seemed right to me, but in each case it turned out that it was no such thing.

    I found the hotel because all of a sudden I saw it as a drove by on the far side of the road. It only took another ten minutes or so to get around the block and find the hotel entrance.

    At the end of the service, nobody said anything about my sermon. It was a flop. But the head elder of the church was copying the rough maze I had drawn on the chalk board as an illustration and taking notes on my text.

    There is a sermon that seems right to the preacher or Bible teacher, but the end of it may be a dead end. It may not reach the folks who need a message.

    The last minute, unplanned children’s message may be precisely the word that the congregation needs to hear. Young or old!

    “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it” (Psalm 127:1). Might I paraphrase it as: “Except the Lord give the message, he labors in vain that presents it”?

    What “way” do you need to consider today?

    (Featured image is a picture of Budapest, Hungary, a beautiful city, from Adobe Stock By Horváth Botond. Licensed. Not public domain.)

  • Psalm 119:58 – Favor

    Psalm 119:58 – Favor

    I seek your face with all my heart.
    Show me favor according to your word.

    A friend commenting on Facebook mentioned ancient translations, so I thought I’d mention a few of these over the next few days just to give a flavor. If you’re not that interested in this kind of detail, skip the section between the divider lines.

    I looked at the Septuagint (LXX), the Vulgate, and the Peshitta (Syriac). In the LXX, the Psalms were likely translated in the 1st century BCE, while the Peshitta for the OT is 2nd century CE, and the Vulgate 5th century CE. All these dates should be regarded as tentative and approximate. How’s that for a line … tentative approximations.

    In this passage, the differences seem to me to be in the emotional sense. The Hebrew text suggests wearying oneself to illness through seeking God’s face, with the request for God’s favor. The relationship between the two lines is not marked in the text. This is common in poetry. It is not necessary to assume, as some do, that the implication is that God should give favor because of the extreme nature of seeking.

    As I read the LXX, while seeking is still “with the whole heart,” I don’t see quite the same emphasis as in Hebrew. “Give me mercy,” or “have mercy on me” has a semantic range close to that of “show me favor” as in Hebrew. The Syriac uses a word that emphasizes to me the force of the search, rather than a result, while asking for pity in the second half. (I would note that my Syriac reading is slow and rusty, and I don’t trust my own sense; this seems to be in accord with the lexical aids I’m using.) The Latin follows the Greek of the LXX here closely.

    While there are different nuances, these are not serious difficulties. What should be noted, in my view, is the similarity. We’ll observe if that continues in the next few verses.

    Alden Thompson, one of my undergraduate professors, from whom I took 2nd and 3rd year biblical Hebrew, titled a chapter in his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? “What kind of prayers would you publish if you were God?”

    Answering that question can help us understand how to read the Psalms. In addition, we might ask what kind of hymns, laments, and so forth. The Psalms have people talking to God in various ways.

    I spent a good deal of time today thinking about just how the two lines of this verse relate. How vigorously do I have to pray to God in order for God to keep a promise God has already given?

    If I pray more, will God do more? It seems to me that many of us operate on this basis. The more people are praying and the more time they are spending in prayer, the more likely it is that God will act. In this model of prayer, God is reluctant to be faithful, but if we are adequately persuasive, action will result.

    So am I advocating less time spent in prayer by less people?

    As Paul might say, “Let it not be!”

    What I am saying is that I think we need to detach our prayer performance from God’s promise keeping. It’s not our diligence in anything that makes God gracious. Unfortunately, we tend to go to the corollary, which we assume to be that if our performance isn’t going to make God do things, we needn’t bother with it at all.

    This brings me to the purpose of prayer. It’s a conversation. It’s two way. There’s a need to hear from God and to open oneself to the favor God bestows. I frequently see the saying on signs: “Prayer changes things.” We should first improve it to “God changes things.” But even more importantly, “Prayer changes me/us.”

    I don’t deny that the Bible indicates that God has chosen to respond to prayer. God has also chosen to use human agents to accomplish much of God’s work on earth. I don’t know what the relationship between the two things actually is. I’ve simply observed that prayer is a time when God works on me.

    What do you need God to change in you?

  • Psalm 119:57 – Still Mine!

    Psalm 119:57 – Still Mine!

    You are my portion Lord.
    I have said that I will keep your word.

    It’s interesting to look at multiple translations of this. Many of these translations reflect ways in which my meditation was going even before I read them. Some are straightforward, such as the NRSV: “The LORD is my portion; / I promise to keep your words.”

    Note that in Hebrew we don’t have a verb or anything to indicate person. The NRSV uses “The LORD is …” 3rd person singular, while I place the first part as addressed to God, matching the second line. As literally as possible, that first line reads “My portion YHWH.”

    The Message reads:

    Because you have satisfied me, God, I promise
    to do everything you say.

    Psalm 119:57 (TM)

    Notice that Peterson also reads the first part of the verse as addressed to God. Further, notice how “I promise” is on the first line of the couplet. That is the division in my printed Hebrew text. I think it’s best to read the “I have said” or “I promise” with the second line.

    Now this all gets a bit technical, though I’m skipping over a great deal. This is part of my process for meditation, hearing the words in different renderings. I’m first interested in what the Psalmist himself thought, but I see scripture as living, and as an element of God’s presence in the community of faith, I’m interested in how other readers have taken a particular text.

    This was reemphasized to me in studying Leviticus from the commentary by Jacob Milgrom. (I’ll put display of some of is books at the end of this post as well.) Milgrom is a Jewish scholar, yet his study of a passage runs from the earliest prehistory of the text all the way through Christian interpreters over time. I had an inkling of this before reading Milgrom, but his thoroughness provided an example that led me much further than I might otherwise have gone.

    As a spiritual activity, Bible study is a community activity. This is not to deny individual study. I have been individually studying even while I reference various translators and commentators. What I write here is molded by what I experience in the church and in the broader faith community. An isolated interpretation may be technically correct, but it is almost certainly dead.

    When the Psalmist says God is his “portion” that evokes a couple of things. First, a portion of an inheritance or another division of possessions. Second, it evokes the contrasting statement of Deuteronomy 32:9, “For the LORD’s portion is his people.” In Christian thought I’d relate this to “Christ in me” and me “being in Christ.”

    I call God my God. That doesn’t mean God is in my possession, but rather that there is a singular relationship there that God has created through a covenant and through that covenant God has made promises. It is one thing to try to control God, as we often do in prayer. We treat prayer as a sort of magic where if we say the right words, God is required to take a particular set of actions.

    This differs, however, from simply expecting our God to be our God and to fulfill all those promises. I, in my community, relate to God through covenant.

    And it is “in Christ” as someone deeply and permanently connected with God through covenant that I make any promise. “I will keep your word,” will be a boast if I am trying to do it on my own power to gain God’s favor. But when I say that in covenant, it connects with all God’s promises.

    What promise might you have forgotten that you need to connect with today?

  • Psalm 119:56 – Mine!

    Psalm 119:56 – Mine!

    This has become mine,
    for I have kept your precepts.

    There’s an interesting translation of this verse in The Message, which may very well go back to a suggestion by Mitchell Dahood, though I don’t know that Eugene Peterson got it from that source.

    Still, I walk through a rain of derision
    because I live by your Word and counsel.

    There’s a single word that makes the difference between my translation (and most others) and Peterson’s, the Hebrew word zo’th which I have translated in the traditional way, “this.” There is a suggestion, expounded by Dahood, that this same word can mean “derision.” I don’t see that here, but again, I like us to think about the effort that goes into translation, and the reasons there are differences.

    When translated “this,” we have to ask to what “this” refers. I’m simple minded on this one. “This” here is feminine, and there’s a rather important feminine noun which is the very last word of the previous verse: “Torah.”

    This, God’s instruction, God’s self-revelation as I have been saying, belongs to the Psalmist. It also belongs to me and to you.

    I was listening to Isaiah 15 on the treadmill a few minutes ago. Isaiah 15 begins with “An oracle against Moab.” What could possibly be less edifying? What do I need with an oracle against the Moabites, a group of people no longer existing. And the chapter is pretty much a downer. But what’s most interesting to me is that God actually has an interest in this, and that this interest is expressed by including this chapter in the collection of oracles in Isaiah, and then that collection in scripture. God’s interest in lands beyond Israel will become even clearer in what is called 2nd Isaiah, starting in chapter 40.

    [H]e says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

    Isaiah 42:6 (NRSV)

    So even though God’s Torah was not addressed directly to me, it was intended as a light to me and to everyone.

    I’m pretty sure “this” that the Psalmist is claiming is the Torah. It is his, because he observes it. Now we have this continual reference to obedience providing the claim. But remember that the Psalmist regularly calls on God to help him, to make this possible.

    As a Christian, I cite Philippians 2:12-13:

    With fear and trembling work out your own salvation, for it is God who works in you both to desire and to accomplish his good will.

    If God’s self-revelation is yours, it is yours as God’s gift, but it will also be a cause of action, because God isn’t passive about God’s children.

    Is it yours?