Psalm 119

The sheer length of this psalm has created a sort of air of daunting in my mind. But it was actually not too terribly bad.

Here a link to BibleGateway for psalm 119.  I'll point out that this is the NRSV, this is what I have used for all of my readings. As you'll see below I did a bit of a word study, so knowing the specific version of the psalm is ever more important to understand my stuff today.

I know I have been noting my study bible footnotes a lot these past few weeks and I kinda feel like I should apologize; but then again, not really because those notes have helped with a number of insights as well.  Anyhow, those notes have driven my reading of psalm 119 today as well.

In Hebrew (which is what all of our "Old Testament" scriptures were originally written in) psalm 119 is an "alphabetic acrostic psalm."  There are 22, eight line stanzas.  Following the Hebrew alphabet, each line of a stanza begins with the same Hebrew letter.  In other words, all 8 lines in stanza 1 begin with the first Hebrew letter; all 8 lines in stanza 2 begin with the second Hebrew letter; and so on.  Obviously this artistic construction is completely lost when translated into another language, like our English.  (Another reason to scratch your head when someone claims that God "wrote" the Bible as they swing around a King James...)

Another important note is that there are 8 different words used for "Law" in this psalm.  They are:
Commandment, Statutes, Ordinances, Degrees, Words, Precepts, Promise, and Law.  "Most of them are used in each stanza, all of them are used in 4 stanza."  Like I said above, I did a sort of brief word study to look into how these different words were used in each stanza to see for myself how often they were used and that sort of thing. This is what that looked like:

Each word had it's own color, I highlighted each instance and was able to look back over them. Except for promise and ordinances the other 6 words were used between 20-26 times each.  This also let me look at each verse. There were 4 verses that had 2 different words in them. And only 12 of the 176 verses did not have one of these words in them.  This also made me wonder if some of those 12 did have the Hebrew word in them, but the translators chose something different.  For example I think a couple of those may have been "ordinances" but I don't know any Hebrew to double check... Part of this is because I only see 2 stanza in the NRSV that have all 8 words, but a few that would have all eight if "ordinances" was substituted for "judgements" or something similar.


Any way, back to the psalm itself:

For clarity and consistency sake, I broke the psalm into 4 parts:

1) vs 1-48 or stanza 1-6
     Give me understanding, that I may keep your law - not asking for some miracle, but help me to understand your ways in some small part.

2) vs 49-88 or stanza 7-11
     You have made and fashioned me with your hands - I am wonderfully make by God!

3) vs 89-128 or stanza 12-16
     Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path -  having light to see your way in darkness is incredible! not being able to see into the shadows is absolutely horrifying!

4) vs 129-176 or stanza 17-22
     Again, so many instances asking for understanding! About 11 throughout the entire psalm.

The word study was fun and something different to try. What did you think reading this psalm?

Psalm 117, 118, 120, 121

Remember, today we are skipping psalm 119. Tomorrow we will read it in it's entirety. 

Here's the link on BibleGateway.com.

117) Great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD! Amen. What more is there to say?

118) Wow there is a lot going on here.
     vs 5-18 This level of confidence and faith in God can be considered... (moronic, silly, insane... I'm not sure what word I'm looking for...) at times. Look at verse 8 specifically: take refuge in the LORD over mortals. People take this literally even today and apply it doctors and medical decisions or rescue workers (during natural disasters). Most would say this is the wrong choice in those situations.
     vs 22- Jesus is said to have quoted this in the Synoptic Gospels.
     vs 26- part of what is sung during Jesus entry into Jerusalem; today we celebrate this at Palm Sunday.

120) Study Bible footnote insight: psalms 120-134 are inscribed as "A Song of Ascents" possibly describing the ascent of pilgrims into Jerusalem for holy days. These psalms are apparently shorter and deal with more "common" problems like family or agricultural life. With that in mind:
     Apparently the psalmist is lamenting their home location among the warring people.

121) A traveling pilgrim's psalm asking protection from God on the journey. Taking refuge in that God's protection is steadfast.

What word from the LORD did you hear reading these passages?

**NOTE** tomorrow will be psalm 119.

Psalm 113-116

Hello, Hello!

Please make sure you read to the end for special instructions regarding a change in the next 2 days readings.

Here's a link for psalm 113-116 on BibleGateway.com.

My thoughts:

113) This is the God we like to think about.  Of course we also like to think about ourselves as the lowly that God lifts up. True or not.

114) Imagine: if the seas, and rivers, and mountains look and flee, turn back, and skip like rams; what then should our response to the LORD be?

115) My God is better than your god!  We're still doing this today.  But instead of statues we fight about the different words and images the other uses to describe our same God.

116) Lets all finish the first sentence of this psalm:  I love the LORD because: ... ?
     my family showed me what unconditional love is!
Also a great testimony structure: 1- what inflicted the psalmist and how the LORD helped. 2- some more general statements about the nature of the LORD. 3- ending with the psalmist response in the light of the first 2.

What are your thoughts?

**NOTE** Because psalm 119 is so long we will be reading it in one day. Therefore for tomorrow our psalms will be psalm 117, 118, 120 and 121. Then the following day we will only read psalm 119.

Psalm 109-112

A bit shorter today.

Psalm 109-112 at BibleGateway.com

109) Wow this guy needs new friends
     vs 28- let them curse, but you will bless.  Worry about God, not what other people have to say about you.

110) yea for the king I guess.  I think I would like to do some research on Melchizedek sometime.

111) A lot of great praise for God.
     vs 1- I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.  Is the LORD praised less or not at all outside the congregation? or in the company of those who are not upright?

112) Righteous dealings in business and life lead to a fulfilled and healthy life.  Is this the case when those with more power are unrighteous? Who endures longer?

Psalm 105-108

Here is a link to today's psalms from BibleGateway.com

Today's thoughts are a result of reading the footnotes in the study bible for today's psalms.  Pretty interesting stuff.  Let the scholars who have spent years studying these passages give you something else to think about.

105 and 106 are a complimentary pair. 105 is a retelling of God's wonderful deeds in the history of Israel while 106 is a retelling of the history of the people's sin.  However both praise God.

105) I like the Genesis - Exodus recap of vs 12-45.
     But vs 7 grabbed my attention: He is LORD our God; his judgements are in all the Earth.

106) vs 43 - many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.  "How many times do I have to clean this place up?"

Some of the same miracles noted in 105 are described in 106 but with the peoples negative sin attached to them.  For example: the quails

107) Almost like a sermon, with 4 inspirational stories about people in need, how God saved them when they called out to God, and finally a call to praise the LORD accordingly.

108) vs 1-5 are the same as psalm 57:7-11
     Through God we shall have victory over our enemies; whatever those enemies are.

What are your thoughts?

Psalm 101-104

I am very sorry about the delay in posting this today. Time and purpose got away from me today. Got a few little extras to try and make up for it...

I hope everyone is having a great day. Here is the link to the psalms at BibleGateway.com.

And here are my thoughts:

101) vs 5 - A haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not tolerate. Nobody like Kentucky or Duke... Shoot most of March Madness could go under this.  **NOTE** It is easy to express this as a Gator fan this basketball season. I will be singing a new song come football season!
     But on a serious note, a lot of us probably take sports to seriously...

102) A lot going on in this psalm. vs 6 - Like an owl in the lonely places. Even owls wil call back and forth to one another.
     Do we still take solace in God's eternal nature vs our finite lives? or do we bemoan our fragility?

103) This is a common or well known psalm. Trying to comprehend how far the east is from the west makes my head hurt.  If you start off going east, you will always be going east, never west...

104) "Bless the LORD oh my soul."
     The footnote in my study bible says "this psalm has similarities with both the Egyptian Hymn of Aten and Genesis 1. Genesis 1 (the story of creation) I am familiar with enough to pick up some of these similarities; but I had to look up the Egyptian hymn and it's history. Here is a link to a fairly brief overview comparing these two works. It is easy to forget that our scriptures and faith did not develop in a vacuum, but were influenced by others.
     All of creation has a place and a job on purpose. God has created everything for it's place and purpose. We are the ones that tend to mess everything up and get the balance off tilt.

What are some of your thoughts reading these psalms today?

Psalm 97-100

Two thirds of the way through the book of psalms.

Link to Psalm 97-100 over at BibleGateway.com

97) It's like the people are there, they have arrived. They are not praising God in the hope that they will be delivered from some evil. This is praise from the top.
     vs 6 - The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory. That is a lot of
               righteousness and glory that is being proclaimed and beheld!


98) Like I said for 97) this is sung from the top, after victory. Completely different from the song with the enemy breathing down their necks.
     vs 7-8 let the seas roar and the floods clap. Even the chaotic elements that supposed oppose God
                are singing out

99) Learn from the past: the greats were only great because they called upon the LORD who was forgiving of them! Hopefully we can do the same and be great like them as well.

100) It's like the first "contemporary praise song." Short verses with easy lyrics. Someone strumming along on a guitar and another person banging on a drum set. Easy to sing and gets the message across to everyone.
     It is God who has made us and we belong to God. Now let's act accordingly