Pslams 25 to 33

Picking up where we left with psalms, here are #25-33:

PSALM 25

This is called “Confident Prayer of Forgiveness and Guidance.”  One thing I find striking in these psalms is the prevalence of themes of sin, redemption, and forgiveness – themes I associate more with Christianity.   Admittedly, I’m not too familiar with the prophets part of the Old Testament (I read it twice, but more or less read over it both times, retaining little).  I guess these themes help explain why this book is so popular with Christians.

This one asks for help from God, and how wonderful God is.  I can see how this would appeal to those of faith.  I can see how this can help give a person peace of mind to bear their burdens and pull through their problems.

PSALM 26

This is a “Prayer of Innocence” and it’s a bit of an angrier psalm.  “Judge me, LORD!” it starts off and you get the sense this is a man who knows he’s innocent but feels accused anyway.  Dammit, I’m a good person – and I want my named cleared!  No better way of doing that then by going to the big man himself.

PSALM 27

This one is a terrific psalm that has a famous start: “The LORD is my light and my salvation.”  It then takes off from there, with more praising of the LORD as a refuge from burdens, and a place to take refuge when enemies and foes are around.  In many ways it’s a typical psalm, but an extremely well done one. 

The psalmist takes peace and calm from the knowledge that the Lord is out there and that he’s faithful to Him.  In return, he wants to be able “To dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life.”  That’s a very near Christian attitude toward heaven, except it says “the days of my life” instead of afterlife. 

There’s been a shift in psalms here in the 20s.  A lot of early ones had some calls for vengeance against the psalmist’s foes, and that I found off-putting.  These psalms are more inward looking and reflective, about what the Lord means to the writer and how that helps him.  These psalms are better because they are less concerned with outsiders.  Yes, there is still talk of foes and enemies, but now that talk is more marginal.  What matters is that the Lord helps the author and that the faith of the writer can pull him through.  It isn’t vital that others suffer. Good. 

PSALM 28

This is like two psalms in one.  Sure, many psalms have multiple parts, but the two parts here sound like two different psalms.  Well, that’s a bit much.  Let me put it this way, there are some psalms about pleading with the Lord for help, and there are other psalms about thanking the Lord for giving help.  This one does both.  In that since, it’s a nice two part job as you see the before and after, the concern and the happy ending.  When I say it reads like two different psalms, that’s not an insult.  It’s just noting an interesting – and effective stylistic choose.

The psalmist really does sound desperate in the first half – “Heard the sound of my pleading when I cry to you for help” and “Do not drag me off with the wicked” among other lines.  But the second part begins, “Blessed be the LORD, who has heard the sound of my pleading.”  He then calls the LORD “my strength and shield,” which is a nice line.  It sounds familiar to me, too, so I guess it caught on. 

PSALM 29

The title of this psalm is “The Lord of Majesty Acclaimed as King of the World” but it should be titled “Damn, Lord – You are Such a Badass!” 

There’s a refrain in the psalm  - “the voice of the Lord” – and the voice of the Lord is a badass.  It is over the waters, is power, is splendor, cracks cedars, makes Lebanon “leap like a calf”, strikes with fiery flame, shakes the desert, and makes the deer dance.  It “strips the forest bare.  All in his Temple say, `Glory!’”  Such a badass.  No wonder he reigns as king forever.

PSALM 30

This says it’s a song for the dedication of the temple of David.  (Wait – I thought it was Solomon’s temple?  Ah, I’ll get there).

This has a nice structure.  It starts off with the typical praising of God.  This always leaves me a bit flat.  The human parts of the Bible I find compelling.  So good for me that this shifts gears.  It goes from talking of God to humanity.  There’s some serious emotion in the middle as the psalmist recounts the moments he felt cut off from God and how he’d lost his way.  He cried out for help – and God answered.  So you go from the bottom of the valley to the top of the mountain and “You changed my mourning into dancing.”  It goes back to praising the glory of God, only now we can see it’s more about the emotions the psalmist feels more than anything else.  The psalm takes the standard/generic praising of God and infuses it with some serious emotion by relating it to why the person praises God.

PSALM 31

This is one of the more emotional psalms.  It’s full of yearning and burning desire for help.  He needs God to deliver him, because my of my is his life really going to hell.  He says he’s in distress, his eyes, throats, insides, and eyes are all giving out.  His bones are wearing down “To all my foes I am a thing of scorn, and especially to my neighbors a horror to my friends.”  Man, that sounds bad.  It actually sounds a bit overblown, but don’t all our emotions feel overblown will things are going so badly against it. 

There is some standard palm talk about enemies being out to get the writer and how he wants the Lord to hurt them – “reduce them to silence in Sheol.  Strike dumb their lying lips.”  However, in this psalm that talk has the advantage of being a minor side note. 

It has a happy ending, as god hears his cry and will make alright.

This has a lot of the elements of psalms I like, but it seemed to be a little less than the sum of its parts.  In parts, it’s the call for hurting the enemies.  It’s also the flaccid moral at the end, “The Lord protects the loyal but repays the arrogant in full.”  Yeah, well, life isn’t a morality play. Instant karma doesn’t always get you. I know the Christian approach is to think of heaven and hell, but these psalms weren’t written from that perspective.  The Hebrew believed in Sheol, not heaven/hell.  From the perspective of the psalmist, talk of everyone being repaid as they deserve means this world, which I don’t buy.

PSALM 32

This is a psalm about how good it feels to come clean.  I don’t think there’s been a psalm quite like this one yet.  Early on, the psalmist feels like he’s wasting away, groaning all the time, with the heavy hand upon him for hiding his guilt.  Then he declares his sin, and it all goes away just like that.  This psalm, which felt so very bad early on, is now ecstatic.

I can see the appeal of this psalm, because it speaks to a very human emotion – the desire to come clean with what you’ve done wrong.  I can also see this being a great psalm for the Catholic Church, given their tradition of confession.

PSALM 33

This is a pretty generic psalm.  It’s about how great God is. Really, it’s hard to say that much distinctive about each psalm.  Though reading 2-3 a day is surely easier to get through than all 150 at once, it is still a bit wearying. 

One notable element here is the notion that God has a plan.  “The LORD foils the plan of nations, frustrates the designs of peoples.  But the plan of the LORD stands forever.”   Well, if the last psalm was a nice Catholic one, this is a good Calvinist psalm.  The Lord has a mast plan, so there you go.  You’re already halfway to the theology of predestination.  

EDITED to add: click here for the next batch of psalms