PSALM 138
It’s another psalm praising God. It’s a nice psalm, but nothing especially notable. God is praiseworthy for strengthening the
spirits of the faithful, for helping the lowly, the opposing the proud, and for
having mercy. I got to admit, those are
good reasons to praise God.
PSALM 139
This one begins, “Lord, you have probed me” and my mind
imagines God being a smash alien on a flying saucer with the psalmist tied down
to a table. I know he doesn’t mean that
kind of probing, but that’s where I went with it.
But the psalm gets going and it’s a very good one. It starts out about how God has tested the
psalmist, and knows everything about him.
He must – after all, he’s God.
He’s all-knowing and all-seeing.
He created all and there is nowhere you can go to get away from him.
And glory to him, because his creations are so numerous and
wonderful. The psalmist doesn’t talk
about mountains or rivers that God made, but instead the psalmist thanks him
for making the psalmist himself. At one point he says of God’s creations, “Were
I to count them, they would outnumber the sands.” Well, sure, God created the
sands, too. So if he just created one
other non-sand thing, he’s got the sands beat.
It turns a little violent at the end with talk of how the
psalmist hates those who hate the Lord, but otherwise it’s a heart-warming
psalm.
PSALM 140
At this point, it’s pretty damn difficult for any psalm to
say anything that original. They’re all
variations on the same themes, so they run together. And I certainly have trouble saying anything interesting about
any of them.
This one is a praise of the Lord psalm attributed to
David. I can believe it’s a David
psalm, as most of it is about how enemies tried to kill me and the evil set a trap
for me. That was true in David’s life,
but it doesn’t really resonate with me.
Show me a psalm about a person having internal doubts instead.
PSALM 141
It is another psalm attributed to David – and it’s a good
one. It’s a plea to God for help. The main theme is that David is only good
with help from the Lord. He asks, “Set
a guard, Lord, before my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let
my heart incline to evil, to perform deeds in wickedness.” That’s a refreshing bit of modesty from a
Davis psalm.
Also, I just love this line near the top of the psalm: “Let
my prayer be incense before you.” Yeah,
I just like that.
Later it gets violent, as psalms often do, as it says, “May
their leaders be cast over the cliff.”
Yeah, that’ll happen in psalms.
But the main thrust is a man pleading with God to help him be morally
upright in his life. That’s a worthy
psalm.
PSALM 142
This is another David psalm, and it’s a man desperate for
help. As it typically the case with
David, the problems are external, not internal. It’s not personal doubt or turbulence, but enemies he must
overcome. This is what – the 30th or
40th psalm like this so far?
It has a nice intro, as he begs permission of the Lord to
vent a bit but then it’s standard stuff; nothing I haven’t read a few dozen
times before.
PSALM 143
This is another David psalm, and it’s good, but they all
sound the same at this point. David
starts off tentatively, pleading to God not to be judged, because “before you
no one can be just.” His enemies are
after him, and his spirits are low. He
can only turn to the Lord, “for I entrust my life to you.”
It’s a nice psalm, and I’d probably have more to say if it
doesn’t sounds like a dozen previous psalms.
PSALM 144
This is a pretty good psalm, and it doesn’t exactly remind
me of any previous ones; an amazing achievement this deep in. Parts of it remember me of different psalms,
but the overall effect is original.
It begins a militaristic psalm as David (the attributed
psalm writer) calls for help in battle.
But then it takes an unexpected introspective turn in the second
stanza. David asks, “Lord, what is man
that you take notice of him; the son of man, that you think of him? Man is but a breath, his days are like a
passing shadow.” Aside from the
unexpected turn in this psalm, that is just beautifully written stuff.
At the end, David veers his attention to the future, asking,
“May our sons by like plants, well nurtured from their youth, our daughters
like carved columns, shapely as those of the temple.”
He’s good from getting ready for battle, to wondering about
the relationship between man and God, to remember what he’s fighting for – and
all along he’s got God in mind. Yeah,
this is a nice psalm.
PSALM 145
Here’s a milestone for myself – it’s the last psalm
attributed to David. The David psalms
go out with a decent one, but nothing great.
It’s a psalm praising God.
OK. It’s nice and stuff. But it’s rather telling at this point that
the best line – “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant
in mercy” is one I’ve heard before.
After you’ve read 140-plus psalms, they all blur together.
PSALM 146
This is a nice little psalm that praises the Lord as the
friend of the little guy. God is the
guy who looks out for orphans, sets prisoners free, loves the righteous,
protects the resident alien, and raises up those bowed down. Oh, and we’re also flatly told, “Put no
trust in princes.” This is a psalm
quite likely written by someone from the marginal social classes. It sure reads like that’s the case.
PSALM 147
At 20 verses, this is the longest remaining psalm. In fact, from here on out, each psalm is
shorter than the one before.
Though it’s 20 verses long, I don’t have much to say about
it. This is just a psalm praising God;
plenty like that before. The only part
I found memorable at all was this, “[God] takes no delight in the strength of
horses, no pleasure in the runner’s stride. Rather the Lord takes pleasure in
those who fear him.”
OK, first God-taking-pleasure-in-people-fearing-him has got
to be my least favorite type of praise-the-Lord psalm. It makes him sound like Kim Jong Il or
something.
Second, that is just a very weird intro to it. He takes no pleasure in horses? Where does that come from? How does that lead to taking pleasure in
fear? It just strikes me as odd and
random.
PSALM 148
It’s another praise-the-Lord psalm. This one is a bit weird, though. It praises God for all creation, which other
psalms have done, but this takes it a different direction. Now, instead of
praising God for making water, the water should praise him. Yeah, this psalm calls on the creations of
God to praise God. Sun, moon, angels,
heavens, waters, sea monsters, hail, clouds, wind, animals – are all told to
praise God. Oh, and “kings of the earth
and all peoples” too.
This psalm has a certain energy to it, I’ll give it
that. It’s one that reminded me of a
rock song or something. Christian rock,
obviously.
PSALM 149
It’s another praise-the-Lord psalm. We seem to be ending with a run of
them. It’s standard stuff, until it
takes a (standard) dark turn halfway through.
After all the typical talk of how wonderful God is, the
Hebrew are told to rejoice, “With the praise of God in their mouths, and a two-edged
sword in their hands.” Wait – with a
two-edged sword? Yep, as the next
verses say, “To bring retribution to nations, punishment on peoples, to bind
their kings in shackles, their nobles in chains of iron.” Oh, so praise God so we can overpower (and
kill) people.
Eh, I like the generic first half better.
PSALM 150
Here it is – the last fucking psalm! It’s a simple, six-verse praise-the-Lord
psalm. Oh good, haven’t had one of them
in a while …
This one gets the band back together. We’re going to praise God with lyre and harp
and horn and tambourines and dance and strings and pipes and crashing
cymbals. This is the most musically
inclined of the psalms, that’s for sure.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
My intent in reading the psalms as I went through the rest
of the Bible was simple. When I’d
previously tried reading the psalms straight through, it was a nightmare; the
Bataan Death March of Bible reading.
They all start to sound the same and wear on me. Then go on for another 90 psalms.
Frankly, that happened again. But at least it wasn’t as bad just reading a few a day.
I’m told that these are among the highlights of the Bible
for many. I guess they go better if you
have faith. Some were great – actually,
many were. But reading them all – they
really do start to sound like the same – and then go on for another 90 psalms.
My favorite ones were ones where an individual cried to God
for help, because there was nowhere else he could turn to. People experiencing internal torment –
that’s what religion best serves.
My least favorite psalms were the ones calling for
vengeance. Far too often, psalms pitted
the world as Good People versus Bad People, and the latter should be crushed.
Also, Good People are those who believe in God and Bad People don’t. This reminds me of many of my least favorite
aspects of the highly religious – some (NOT all or even most) are extremely
judgmental and so damn sure of themselves that they have no problem treating
others like shit for going against them.
(For example, see the entire Republican Party these days).
I didn’t get much out of the praise-the-Lord psalms for the
most part, but they just left me flat, where the crush-non-believers psalms
actively bugged me.
Well, I’ve made it though psalms. It’s the third time I’ve done that – but the first time I’ve
actually paid attention to all of them.
So I got that to be proud of.
Click here to start Proverbs.
Click here to start Proverbs.
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