Psalms 59 to 72

Here is the previous installment of psalms.  Now onto the next batch:

PSALM 59

For a psalm called “Complaint Against Bloodthirsty Enemies” it sure is a bloodthirsty psalm.  It’s the standard people-that-oppose-me-are-pure-evil psalm that I have no use for whatsoever.  The psalmist is in a bad situation and calls on God, “Awake!  Punish all the nations. Have no mercy on these worthless traitors.”  Yeah, that’s the adjective that comes to mind when I think of devout religion – merciless. 

And he’s not talking figuratively, either.  He later specifically states, “May God go before me, and show me my fallen foes.”  He wants them dead – and then he wants to see them dead.

I have a hunch the bloodthirsty enemy of the title has a poem of his own titled. “Complaint Against Bloodthirsty Psalmists.”  Lord knows someone ought to have a poem called that. 

PSALM 60

It’s another psalm of warfare.  This time, they’ve just lost a battle and are praying to God for help and guidance.  The notable thing is that no one is turning away from God – despite just having lost a battle.  The psalmist figures that God is angry with them, so the way to win his support again is to redouble their support.

Reading some of these psalms reminds me a bit of Nietzsche on the Jewish religion. He said it didn’t begin as a religion of the downtrodden but of a warrior people.  They just reinterpreted it after losing and having the Babylonian Captivity.  (And, being Nietzsche, he thought it was horrible, as it perverted true morality for slave morality, but that’s his view). 

But you definitely get a sense of the Lord being someone who supports men of war more than men of peace.  True, few of these psalms are about warfare itself, but shot through the psalms is this us-them, good-evil morality that sounds like something conducive to a warrior race.

PSALM 61

I’m really on a losing streak with these psalms lately, aren’t I?  So I don’t feel like cutting it much slack when I see the title: “Prayer of the King in Time of Danger.”  Yeah, that doesn’t sound like something I can relate to very well.  Aren’t psalms supposed to speak to your emotions?

Look, it’s a nice psalm for what it is.  You do get a sense of desperation, as he asks the Lord to dwell in his tent forever.  It’s a little weird in the second half as the king seems to be referring to himself in the third person.  I’ve heard of the royal “we” before but a royal “he”?  That’s what you get here.

PSALM 62

Well, whadaya know – I psalm I actually like!  I was beginning to forget what that’s even like.  OK, so it’s got some standard elements, like saying those who oppose God will be destroyed.  But I really like the imagery used when doing so: “You shall all be destroyed, like a sagging wall or a tumbled down fence!”  That’s original and not very blood.  All, near the beginning is the line, “God alone is my rock and salvation.”  I think I’ve heard that phrase in a previous psalm, but the Lord as a rock is a nice line – no wonder it caught on. 

In fact, he repeats the rock/salvation line in the second stanza.  It’s clear that he recognizes life has problems, and the Lord is what guides you through. 

Oh, as for humanity?  “Mortals are a mere breath, the sons of man but an illusion.”  Again, that’s some nice wording going on there.  Also, it strikes me as darn near Buddhist in its belief.  This reality is nothingness; you must look beyond it to see what is real.

So yeah, the psalm reaches me like a breath of fresh air after a series of stale ones.

PSALM 63

The title here is “Ardent Yearning for God” and that gets my attention for sounding at least a little bit sexual.  I doubt it’s meant that way, but hey – it’s called ardent yearning. 

Oh, and early on the psalm contains the line, “For you, my body yearns.”  Well now!  I’m reminded of some medieval poetry by the female mystic Hadewich of Brabandt. Her love of Christ was expressed in such passionate and intimate terms as to become sexual and thus scandalous. 

That said, the rest of this psalm doesn’t quite come off like that.  Oh, there is still some deep-seated yearning towards God – “For your love is better than life” – but it’s not expressed like a Hadewich of Brabandt poem.  Well, maybe it does.  After all, the second stanza ends with the line: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”  Huh-huh Beavis, psalm said upholds! 

But the third stanza is back to the all-enemies-will-die stuff.  Yeah, that sounds like junior high (again) to me. 

PSALM 64

Whoop-de-do.  Another good versus evil psalm.  People are out to get the psalmist.  They suck.  Oh God, won’t you please take care of them. 

There is some nice imagery in it.  They, “bend their bows of poison words.  They shoot at the innocent from ambush.”  However, some of the imagery is recycled.  Just before that bow/arrow section, a psalm notes how “they sharpen their tongues like swords” and I just know there is a previous psalm with a similar image.  (Maybe even the exact same image, actually).

PSALM 65

OK, this is a different one.  This is a very earthy one.  I mean that literally – God is praised for the bounty of the earth.  He is praised for the mountains and the seas and the waves.  Mostly, he seems praised for the cycle of growing and the rain and the bounty of a new harvest.  This is more God as earth god, and all religions have some of that.   After all, people gotta eat, right? 

PSALM 66

This is another God-is-awesome psalm.  Yeah, I can’t argue that it’s an inappropriate theme, but it doesn’t do much for me.  My goodness – I still have 84 more psalms to go!  No wonder why this was the Bataan Death March of Bible reading when I did it all at once.  It’s frankly a pain in the ass now, and I’m only trying to do 2-3 a day on the side. 

Bleach.

Actually, there is one thing I can say about this.  Reading it, this one felt like a psalm celebrating the end of the Babylonian Captivity.  All this talk of “You tested us, O God, tried us as silver tried by fire, You led us into a snare” and then a bit later, “then you led us out to freedom.” 

So yeah, it’s a psalm praising how wonderful God is, because they survived Babylon.

PSALM 67

This is another psalm in praise of the Lord.  There isn’t much to say about it because it’s an extremely short psalm, clocking in at just eight verses.  The only distinctive thing I can add about the praise is that it makes him a bit of an earth god when it thanks him for the bountiful harvests.

PSALM 68

According to the footnotes, the Hebrew text of this psalm is very poorly preserved and its uncertain what ceremony it describes.  So this is the psalm nearly destroyed by time and mold, I guess.

It starts off with some praise of God, normal stuff.  There’s a memorable image early on: “as wax is melted by fire, so may the wicked perish before God.”  That’s the second time a psalm has reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  This is one is pretty much the same thing – that guy did melt like wax at the end. 

But even more memorable imagery comes later.  As the psalm keeps going on, God’s greatness is described in terms of power, and then in how he can vanquish his enemies.  Boy, does that lead to some violent imagery.  To white: “You will wash your feet in your enemy’s blood; the tongues of your dogs will lap it up.”  Wow.  That sounds like something from a Tarantino movie.  There’s also a line about “hairy scalp.” 

This is one of the more memorable blood’n’guts psalms.

PSALM 69

This is called “A Cry of Anguish in Great Distress” and it lives up to the title.  It starts off as my favorite sort of psalm – the heartfelt plea of someone at the end of his rope crying out to the Lord because thee is nowhere else to cry to: “Save me God, for the waters have reached my neck” it begins.  That’s a nice way of putting it.  (Though a little later water-up-to-neck guy mixes his metaphors by discussing how parched he is.  Oh well.

Even better, not only is her desperate, but he admits he’s no saint.  He’s made folly, he’s in disgrace.  He is – human.  He is a human in horrible shape. 

And then you get to a line I actually remember from my maternal Grandma’s Catholic Bible, a big thing with some illustrations throughout, with some Biblical verses beneath the illustrations.  One of them read: “Those who sit in the gate gossip about me; drunkards make me the butt of songs.”  Haven’t we all been there?  Haven’t we all felt humiliated and alone?  It’s the relatable emotion that makes psalms work (when they work).  No wonder this cry is crying to God.  Where else can he turn?  So he again asks God to save him from the mire, and admitting his shame and disgrace. 

20 verses in, this is one of my favorite psalms of all, no doubt about it.  It has emotions, imagery, relatablity.  It has just the right sense of why someone turns to God.

Damn shame it keeps going on another 17 verses.

Oh, it’s not terrible or anything.  But it goes in a direction that frankly bores me.  He calls on God for vengeance.  He calls on God to hurt his enemies: “Pour your wrath upon them; let the fury of you anger overtake them.  Make desolate their camp.”  I like psalms that ask for help from God, not psalms that ask God to hurt others.  The God-as-Holy-Hitman theme really strikes me foully. 

I’ll say this for it, though – at least I can figure out why this psalm is as it is.  It ends asking God to rescue Zion and rebuild the cities of Judea.  Oh, it’s a psalm from the Babylonian Captivity.  OK, now I get where it’s coming from at least.  I still don’t like the turn it takes in the second half, but I get it at least.

Quick random note: there is a Ministry album called Psalm 69.  It’s the one with Jesus Built My Hotrod. Huh.

PSALM 70

After back-to-back 30-plus verse psalms, here is one clocking in at a simple six verses.  There isn’t much to it, just a prayer for help for someone feeling miserable and poor whose enemies (of course there are enemies – it is a psalm after all) are putting him to shame.

It has one memorable moment, when it says: “Let those who say `Aha!’ turn back in their shame.”  I just get a kick out of reading “Let those who say `Aha!’”  It even has the exclamation point!  It just makes me giggle for some reason.  Aha!  Doesn’t sound like the most Biblical of words to me, but there it is.  Heh. 

PSALM 71

OK, this one has a nice start, full of the things I like (plea for help, emotional depth, etc), but I’ve heard it all before by now.  He calls for the Lord to deliver him, to save him, to be his rock and refuge, to be his fortress.  Nice, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it all before.  Every last damn one. Psalms might be too damn long for its own good.  It’s certainly too damn long for my own good.

The psalm then goes on about evildoers and all that before veering back to a pray of help from God. 

It isn’t bad, but it’s getting so very, very stale.  And I still got 79 more to go!  There should be a psalm of desperation from someone stuck reading too many psalms in a row!

PSALM 72

Just as I’m complaining about how all the psalms sound the same – wham, you get one that really is distinctive. 

This is a psalm for Solomon, son of King David.  It’s a psalm praising his potential and asking God to send benefits upon him.  The main themes are that king brings prosperity, be powerful to other nations, and look after the weak and destitute.  The first two of those themes are very common for leaders, but the last one shows you the influence of the religion and psalms.  We are all God’s people here, so we all count.  The belief in God confers a dignity upon all. That’s nice.

Also, the very end of the psalm says, “Amen and amen.  The end of the psalms of David, son of Jesse.”  This is actually the end of the second book of psalms, and apparently these first two books are attributed to David.  They aren’t all – some sound more like they’re from the Babylonian Captivity (yeah, I’m looking at you, Psalm 69) – but so far the large majority have been attributed to David.

Hopefully the rest will read differently.  I can only hope so.  The psalms can use a breath of fresh air.

Click here for the next chunk of psalms.