PSALM 99
This is a short and frankly forgettable psalm. It’s yet another one that is just praising
God. He’s praised for being powerful,
for being righteous, and for helping the Hebrew in the past. There, that’s the psalm.
PSALM 100
This is one of the shortest psalms in the Bible – just five
verses. It’s just a processional hymn –
its title is, in fact, “Processional Hymn” – and it’s just a psalm praising
God. Yawn.
PSALM 101
This one also praises God, but I found it a bit
confusing. The speaker is a man of
power who claims to have quite a few notable nice characteristics. He hates false pretense, is someone of integrity,
etc. I got confused if this psalm is
supposed to be from the point of view of God or not. Apparently not. It’s a
psalm attributed to David, and he did have an ego. But David talking about how great he is makes it sound like he’s
God. Oops.
That just brings an unexpected irony to the line, “Haughty
eyes and arrogant hearts I cannot endure.”
You can’t endure arrogance?
Well, hearing you talk about yourself made me wonder if you thought you
were God, so that should qualify as arrogantly haughty.
PSALM 102
This is a longer psalm, but it’s a good psalm. It’s one of the “man in distress reaches out
to God” psalms and those are generally among my favorites. It’s that yearning, human emotion that gets
me.
Here, though, what I find memorable is another part of the
psalm. It’s like the guy is bargaining
with God. He’s a man who is
distraught. A man who is desperate and
down. He’s appealing to God because
it’s the only place he has to turn to – but he thinks God has abandoned him. He doesn’t have much faith in the Lord’s
forgiveness at this point. But he turns
there anywhere, because what else is there for him.
Well, if you were turning to God and expecting to be
rebuffed, how would you handle it?
Simple – you try making an offer.
God, if you help me, just think how great that would make you look. He writes at one point: “Let this be written
for the next generation, for a people not yet born, that they may praise the
Lord: `The Lord looked down from the holy heights, viewed the earth from
heaven, to attend the groaning of the prisoners, to release those doomed to
die.’”
And when I read those words, I thought of the Albert Brooks
movie Lost in America. You know the
scene where he’s negotiating with the Las Vegas casino? His wife has just lost their life savings,
and he’s negotiating to get it back.
“Give us our money back and you’ll look like the casino who cares!” This psalm reminded me of that scene.
So that’s a unique reaction to a psalm.
PSALM 103
This is a psalm praising God. By and large, this is my least favorite type of psalm, but this
one I liked. It’s probably my favorite
“praise the Lord” type psalm so far.
Mostly, I really like the image of God presented here. He’s not praised so much of his power or his
might or his fury or his ability to kill your enemies. This isn’t an angry God at all. Instead, the words used to describe him are:
heals, pardons, redeems, brings justice to the oppressed, merciful, gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in mercy, compassion, salvation – this is a very, very
nice God. This is the image of God that
is easy to appreciate and to love. So
of course this is the sort of god you praise!
He’s nice to people because, “For he knows how we are
formed, remembers that we are dust.”
That’s a very nice line. He’s a
God who has been around – and he has – and recognizes people for what they are,
and loves them anyway, despite all their many faults. He’s a God who roots for people, so people should root for God.
These praise God poems usually leave me cold, but this one
left me warming and smiling. This is
one of the best psalms there, because it took the motif I’m least interesting
in and had me really enjoying it.
Hurrah for Psalm 103!
PSALM 104
Right now we’re in the midst of a series of unusually long
psalms. This one is 35 verses and over
a page long. It’s another psalm that
praises God, but it’s one of the better ones.
If you’re going to praise God, you may as well make it a longer psalm,
because that allows you to go into some detail. It’s the shorter praise God psalms that really do nothing.
While this one is a psalm praising God, it’s not about the
heavens above at all. It’s about the
world we live in. The psalm is called
“Praise of God the Creator” and the praise comes from creating all of the
wonders of the world we live in. By
wonders, I don’t mean those rare sights of beauty like the Grand Canyon, but
the typical wonders that are part of day-to-day life – the mountains, the
fields, the trees, the moon, the sun, the seasons, the night and day. All of these things are part of the fabric
of life and might be easy to take for granted, but all are majestic. And God created them, so this speaks really
well of him.
In praising all the various ways that the world is wonderful
(and therefore God is wonderful), the Bible contains one especially memorable
line. As part of the catalogue of all
the things God created to make life better, the psalmist states, “wine to
gladden their hearts.” Heh. It’s like
an old Benjamin Franklin line – alcohol is proof that God is benevolent and
wants us to be happy. And here it is, right in the Bible.
PSALM 105
This is another long psalm – 45 verses in all. It’s also a historical psalm. It recounts the Israeli experience with the
Lord, tracing the course of the Torah.
You get Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the plagues, the pillar of
fire, the rock that gave water, and the Promised Land.
It’s a nice poem, but I already know the story. The thrust of the poem is to praise God for
what he has done. Praise God because he
kept his word. Clearly, this wasn’t one
of the psalms from Babylon, or it would need one massive rider at the end.
PSALM 106
Every psalm from 102 to 107 is unusually long, but this is
the longest of all, weighing in at 48 verses.
Like Psalm 105, it’s a history lesson.
The Israelis and God in the Torah.
Apparently God is great but the Israelis could use some work.
The point is that God kept forgiving them and was willing to
try it all over again with them then, so he must be a good God worthy of
praise. However, this psalm is
apparently written during the Babylonian Captivity, and the writer would really
like God to go back to forgiving them.
He admits the transgressions and wrongdoing of his people in the divided
kingdom era, and acknowledges that they worshipped other gods – but could you
get on with the forgiveness already?
(Well, he isn’t that demanding in his plea, but he’d clearly like
forgiveness).
Actually, this psalm brings up an idea I hadn’t previously
thought of. If it wasn’t for all the
misbehavior and atonement in the Torah, the religion might never have survived
the Babylon era. After all, those
stories tell of the Hebrew screwing up, God getting angry, but ultimately
things working out. If that wasn’t
there, they might not have faith that God would be there for them in
Babylon. He forgave us before, so he
might forgive us again. But if he never
forgave us before, that means there’s no real hope for forgiveness now.
PSALM 107
This begins the fifth and final book of psalms. Thank God!
(No pun intended).
This is a pretty good one, all things considered. This tells a series of stories of types of
people who go wrong, and how they pray to God to help, and God answers their
prayers and they are delivered. Then
they all can thank God for his mercy.
It’s people lost in deserts while traveling, those who are darkness and
gloom for rebelling against God, those who have fallen ill, those stuck in
storms at sea. God helps them all.
They are nice stories and the wording it nice, but it all
rings a bit hollow to me. If your life
is on the outs, all you have to do is sincerely believe in God and ask for his
help and you’ll be fine. Really? This is where Christianity has the edge. You’ll be rewarded in the next world, not
this one. Because there is no guarantee
about getting the reward in this world.
It’s a nice psalm, but I am skeptical of its main thrust.
PSALM 108
For the first time in a while, it’s a short psalm – just 14
verses. It’s called “Prayer for
Victory” and it praises God for being merciful and faithful, and then talks of
military glory. There are some
memorable lines, as it says, "Moab is my washbowl; upon Edom I cast my
sandal. I will shout in triumph over
Philistia.” It’s a typical psalm
calling for triumph over enemies of the Hebrew.
PSALM 109
This is a psalm attributed to David called, “Prayer of a
Person Falsely Accused,” and that’s a subject David knows something about,
given how Saul kept trying to kill him.
This psalm begins with the speaker feeling persecuted by people who want
to destroy him because, well, just ‘cuz, I guess. Like many David psalms, this divides the world neatly up into
good guys and bad guys and there is no need to understand the motives of bad
guys. They’re just against God, that’s
all.
The heart of this psalm is a prayer for bad guys to be hurt
and hurt bad. May my accuser: 1) die
soon, 2) have his children bear no kids, 3) get caught up in debt, 4) be
treated with any mercy by anyone, 5) have anyone treat his children with any
pity, 6) have his posterity be destroyed, 7) have his guilt brought before the
Lord, and later on 8) “May cursing clothe him like a robe, may it enter his
belly like water.” This should happen
to him because: 1) he’s guilty before the Lord, 2) he didn’t show mercy to
people, 3) he hounded the wretched poor.
Boy, sounds like David is really cheesed at someone.
The last stanza turns more positive and he asks God for
help, and notes his own sorry state.
It’s a well-written psalm.
The last part is very enjoyable and the main part is very well
done. But that main party is just
nasty. I can see this as David just
venting and blowing off steam. If it’s
Saul he’s thinking of, David doesn’t really want all the descendents treated
without pity. David himself treats
Saul’s heirs as good as he can.
But ultimately, while well done, it isn’t a very pleasant
psalm.
PSALM 110
This is a God of Wrath psalm dividing up people into good
and evil. God “crushes kings on the day
of his wrath” and “judges nations, heaps up corpses, crushes heads across the
wide earth.” Jeepers. Is this the Bible or a Slayer song?
It also has the memorable line, “Sit at my right hand, while
I make your enemies your footstool.”
Yeah, that’s a sign of domination – you put your feet on someone who
used to be powerful in his own right.
Sometimes this would literally happen to defeated kings back in the
day. I think it even happened to a
Roman Emperor captured by the Parthian Empire.
All this in just seven verses!
PSALM 111
It’s another psalm praising God. And, as always, short psalms praising God are the ones that do
the least for me. It’s fairly standard
stuff, except for verse 10, which starts off with a thought that struck me
funny: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”
Really? Not the love of the Lord? Not respect for the Lord?
Not the mercy or grace of the Lord?
Yeah, it’s statements like this that cause me to leave the Old Testament
feeling a bit cold.
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