40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Psalm 7 (Episode 389)

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Chad and Daniel discuss Psalm 7. Have a listen! Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Free 2023 Advent Resources 2024(May 3-4) NWA Tickets are Now Available! Join the 1517 Academy All Charges Dropped, Vol. 2 More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to the Psalm Companion to 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. This is Psalm number 7. That's what we're dealing with today. got 17 verses here chad uh we were just talking before we hit record here got a couple of things in this sort of uh preface that we don't know about so we got a something of david what is this word i don't know what this word is that we got it's some kind of song uh some kind of liturgical something right uh of david which he's saying to the lord concerning the words of kush of benjamite and don't know who that is we decided though that that uh a blank of david shigion is uh we're going to translate that slam poetry slam poetry it's a slam poem which davis

david sang to the lord concerning the words of this unknown guy uh kush benjamite some dude uh from the tribe of benjamin whose name was kush whom obviously david uh has some pretty serious issues with so um yeah it starts out oh lord my god i in you do i take refuge save me from all my pursuers and deliver me lest like a lion they tear my soul apart rending it in pieces with none to deliver it sounds like things are not looking up right away he's in a bad spot well one of the things that's interesting on this uh seemingly insignificant preface thing is that i mean we don't know what's going on with david's life here so sometimes it's like oh he's fleeing from saul he's writing this thing or whatever whatever it is but he is writing this concerning the words

of somebody and so uh and then he goes right into this and you're like man you sound like sounds like you got more than words to deal with i mean it sounds what are you talking about here man your pursuers are gonna tear your soul apart uh rend it in pieces and there's gonna be no one to deliver you and you might be like well what kind of words were these i mean were these the words of like an assassination plot like what what kind of words are these words and the the answer that could be maybe but also maybe they are just slander maybe they are just maybe he is just saying things about him that are not true and uh like luther has this this thing where he says like you know slander is like the worst kind of murder because it leaves its victim alive

right yeah yeah and so anyone who's been the victim of slander knows that uh this is it might seem a little bit overwrought this lion tearing you in pieces but i don't know it's pretty accurate yeah the way it feels a lot of times yeah so so we don't have a lot of claw marks on your soul when slander's all done yeah man so so we don't know but i just think it's interesting and i don't think it's you have to think it's not just words because of the language david uses i think this is what that sort of stuff can't words are uh are dangerous things yeah so david is going to go on and talk about uh whatever this kush dude has against him davis i listen i he's like joe black in this way i'm innocent with regard to this

so oh lord and he's talking to god here in this prayer oh lord my god he's got three ifs so if I've done this, whatever the this is, whatever is prompting this slander, if I've done this, if there's wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, if I've done any of that, I'll tell you what, I'll level with you. Then, verse 5, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it. Let him trample my life down to the ground and lay my glory in the dust so he's declaring quite forcefully his complete innocence with regard to whatever has you know led to this these words these slanderous uh violent words that are coming from kush the benjaminite yeah it definitely seems like he's being accused of something by this guy who also

maybe was his friend at one time we don't know if he i mean this uh if i've repaid my friend with evil i don't know if he's talking about kush or he's talking about the accusation is that he repaid some other friend with evil but either way yeah he's he's saying uh yeah tell you what uh if that's true then uh you just strike me down if that's true but um that would and him saying that would lead you to believe that he's fairly certain that that's not true yeah he's pretty pretty boldly declaring his innocence uh then he's going to turn and basically ask god to step in and be the judge here. Arise, O Lord, in your anger. Lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies. Awake for me. You have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you, and over

it return on high. I'll go on down to verse 11. The Lord judges the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, according to the integrity that is in me. Let the evil of the wicked come to an end but may you establish the righteous you who test the minds and hearts it's literally the heart and kidneys but we don't speak that way so translations will usually not translate it as kidneys but they'll talk about the mind and the heart so you who test the minds and hearts oh righteous god my shield is with god who saves the upright in heart god is a righteous judge and a god who uh is indignant esv has feels indignations not there's no feels in the hebrew there but a god who is indignant or is angry every every day so it seems to me like he's he's saying

listen god you're righteous uh you you uh you will not put up with evil doing and so step in you You're the judge. You judge all the people, so stepping here and judge and act accordingly, according to what is in accord with your justice. Yeah, I kind of like the way this plays out, because it almost reads like he is doing this kind of thing, where he's like, All right, here's how it works. Here's what I would like to propose, God. And if this is true about me, then judge me. But if it's not, then judge the people who said it. But either way, I am sort of invoking, and this is why he uses that language of awake for me. I'm like waking you up and saying, hey, I want you to be judged here for a second.

This guy over here is saying this. if that's true, then judge me. If it's not true, then judge him. And so he is crying out for God to be judged, which is a dangerous thing to do, of course, if you're not real certain you're in the right, which David seems very certain that he is. And this is why he does this sort of, hey, you're a God, you have anger, you're indignant all day, every day. In other words, there's plenty of sin. Every time God cast his eyes down to earth, there's plenty for him to be upset about. And so, yeah, it's kind of interesting that David is—that there's a confidence in the righteousness of his cause here, where he would say, and I'm sure he would say it right to this

guy's face, like, well, let's let God judge. How sure are you that you're right? Because this is how sure i am that i'm right right yeah i don't know if i've ever been this confident in my entire life right but but david is i mean i've maybe i've never been in quite the situation that david was in but he is so utterly confident i mean he even knows that he can call out to the god who who tests you know the inward parts these uh the heart and the kidneys you know the mind and the heart you know i mean you don't see this the surface you don't just judge according to appearances you peer into the very depths of our being so you know me you know my accuser my adversary so wake up and put on your put on your judge robe and make a verdict yeah i mean i mean

david's over here uh yeah you judge the hearts and the minds uh god you know i didn't do this you know i didn't even think about doing this which is why i say i've i've never been this confident in my entire life so that that's that takes us through verse 11 now uh verse 12 and following is is fascinating for a lot of different reasons but one is because this is a this is a great example of how translation is already interpretation the reason i say that is because as we encounter quite frequently especially in the old testament there's a bunch of pronouns here where you have to decide who the pronoun is referring to because it can go a couple of different ways so there's in other words there's a lot of he and him here he did this to him or

whatever it might be okay so who's the he are we talking about god are we talking about a wicked man uh there's some ambiguity here so i'll read the esv if a man literally he but if a man does not repent god again that's he will wet his sword sharpen his sword he's bent his he has bent and readied his bow he is prepared for himself deadly weapons making his arrows fiery fiery shafts So, the way the ESV has translated that is if a man doesn't repent, then God is going to get his, you know, whetstone out, he's going to sharpen that blade, and he's going to take his bow, he's going to string it, he's going to get it ready. In other words, God's going to attack this guy. You could also translate this, if a guy, this man, if he doesn't repent, then he, the guy, then if it doesn't change his ways from this path he's going down, then it's going to make matters even worse,

because he's going to sharpen his sword, he's going to get his bow, he's going to get ready to attack David, presumably in this case. so this is one of these cases where depending on how you translate that you can take it one or two ways and actually you can interpret both of these in a way that it's a conformity with the rest of the psalm we'll go but we'll go with the esv here so if a man doesn't repent then god is going to get his weapons out he's got these deadly weapons he's got his arrows he's making them he's like like lighting the ends on fire he's he's ready to ready to go i think i I think in a lot of ways, I think in a lot of ways, this is the same thing. So, all right.

If you don't repent, let's just say, if this guy doesn't repent, if he doesn't turn around, this is going to result in bloodshed. This is basically what David's saying. And whether it's going to result in bloodshed because God will wet his sword and get all ready to go to war with this guy, or because this guy will wet his sword and get all ready to go to war with David, these are sort of two things that are the same. Yeah, they're not mutually exclusive. No. So if God is going to fight for David, then this guy going to war with David is a really horrible idea.

And this is what—we've said this before, Chad. Like, sometimes, what is it when you don't repent? Like, God will just let you just go headlong into whatever it is that you're doing, you know? Just let you have the fruits of your labor. And that's what the—because this sounds like the way the ESV has it translated, like, okay, the judgment of God is coming. But sometimes that judgment of God is just not stopping you from doing something really stupid and is having the consequences of that thing. and if this guy is going to not repent and god just lets him go down this path but then the lord fights for david this is the same as god just coming down to smiting you yeah in fact uh that's

exactly what is going to uh going to happen in a couple more verses so because in verse 14 behold the wicked man can see we have this strange uh you have this elsewhere this uh this idea of a man conceiving something becoming pregnant with something and it's always it's always bad behold the the wicked man conceives evil he's pregnant with mischief and he gives birth to lies i thought that's one of the most graphic images in the entire song he's like he's uh he's flirting with that which is going to impregnate him with a monster that he's going to give birth to it's going to have evil mischief going to give birth to lies and but the next verses are exactly in line with what you're talking about he makes a pit he digs it out

and then he falls into the hole that he made yeah it's like i'll make one of those traps you know that you see the stakes in the bottom of it he's going to get somebody and then he falls into it or his mischief returns upon his own head and on his own skull his violence descends you know he uh the arrow ricochets right back and strikes him or the the arrow turns around mid-flight and comes back and it pierces him so he has created the situation which is going to be his own destruction yep so that's that's kind of the way that david kind of wraps up that entire section he's got one more verse that's similar to the way he begins he says i'm going to get i will give thanks i will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will praise the name of the

Lord the Most High. In other words, I'm going to praise and give thanks to the God who I have awakened, asked to judge, and I know is going to, in one way or another, vindicate me and bring those who are planning this mischief against me into that very mischief itself. Yeah, and one of the things that's nice about this, too, is that all that can be avoided if you just do a little repenting. It is right there in the text. If a man does not repent, now here's the rest of it. Of course, you could just repent, and then presumably none of this has to happen. Yeah, it's a two-letter word, but it's a pretty big deal. None of this has to happen. That's right. You don't have to fall into the pit. You don't have to be pierced by your own arrow. None

this has to happen. All we need is a turning around, a repentance, and then God will be like, that's exactly what I wanted. Yes. That way I can do what I love to do and forgive and cleanse, and then the forgiven one can join David in proclaiming that same praise and thanksgiving. That's it. All right, man. Well, that is Psalm number seven. We'll be back next week with another psalm. Chad, I'll see you then. See you then.