Psalms 1 - 48

Speaker 1 00:00:15 Welcome to the weekly deep dive podcast on the add-on education network, the podcast where we take a look at the weekly, come follow me discussions, and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host here in the studio. I am your well, what I am your host, Jason Lloyd. Yeah, here in the studio. It doesn't matter how many times I say that. So sometimes you just gotta stumble here in the studio with my friend in the show's producer, Nate Piper, what's up. Hey, I, I know at home, you can't see me in the studio and maybe you can hear it, but I am smiling ear to ear tonight. Like Psalms ever since we started old Testament, this has been an episode I have been looking forward to all year long. When I was studying at BYU, I've gotta give credit where credit is due. Speaker 1 00:01:07 Uh, I had professor Donald Perry and he taught me Hebrew and he taught me the old Testament. I, I love Donald Perry, this guy, uh, Dr. Perry, that if you ever see anything from him, books, uh, lectures, uh, education week seminars, whatever the case may be highly recommended. There are two things that he really instilled in me throughout the year. The years that I was there, one being, uh, looking at the atonement of Jesus Christ through old Testament lenses, being able to see, or maybe even better said looking through the old Testament, through the lenses of the atonement and being able to see how the atonement is symbolized and how everything points and testifies to Christ. And, and I felt the spirit so strong as he would teach us and testify about the, the role of our savior. The other thing is he loved Hebrew poetry and he taught us how to understand Hebrew poetry and appreciate Hebrew poetry. Speaker 1 00:02:14 And, and my hope as we're teaching old Testament, going through this podcast with you guys this year is hopefully give you some, some perspective in, in understanding the atonement of Jesus Christ through these scriptures. But also particularly right now, as we're getting in Psalms understand the poetry and the art and the beauty that is Hebrew writing, these guys take wordsmith to another level. They, they have an ability to craft with their words, layers of understanding and depth and profoundness, and just paint a picture as, as beautiful as any art I have ever seen. So I'm, I'm excited to be getting into Psalms and to kind of take a, an introduction for you guys to introduce you to Hebrew poetry. If you don't know what it is, if you do then, I mean, bear with me, it, it maybe understand what I'm talking about. I mean, this is just beautiful stuff. Speaker 1 00:03:13 Can't wait, let's, let's dive. Maybe the best introduction is actually Psalms one one itself. So I love how the book of Psalms even starts as, as we get into the book of Psalms, let me, uh, let me preface preface it with this. We're gonna be talking a lot about parallels parallels as, as you guess with parallel lines, two lines that run next to each other in the same direction that essentially the same line, just a little bit off from each other, right? And in the poetry, you're gonna have all sorts of different parallels where you're gonna have a line and then you're gonna be repeating it with another line. And the two lines are coupled together, running together to convey a point. And, and you have a synonymous parallels where you have words that match each other in our synonyms. And, and this was very powerful because Hebrew for a long time was a dead language that wasn't spoken. Speaker 1 00:04:06 And they started to have a hard time understanding the Bible because nobody spoke the languages. They're trying to read it and understand it. These parallels helped give meaning to some of these words and understand what these words really meant, because you would look at it in context of what the next line is saying. And then you also have some that are building on each other and showing kind of a, a progression. So in Hebrew, you don't have exclamation points and commas and underlining it. And these font changes and making it bold and all these different things that we use to try to convey meaning in, in our text today. So they would do it with words to try to build on what they're saying and, and better than trying to describe all of this to you is to just dive in and look at examples and see what we learn. Speaker 1 00:04:53 And, and then this poetry, this is something you've probably seen already throughout this entire year when we, the, the layers of the Hebrew text, because we have one layer. That's literally what it is, what, what, what it's saying to us, right? You have the story of Elijah going to the widow and, and taking her and asking for that very last meal and having her feed him first. And, and really he's asking her to sacrifice his son, right? That's the literal meaning. But then you take, and you look at it from a, a symbolic sense of, of, of her having to sacrifice her son and, and Elijah saving her. And, and you can look at what does this mean outside of just what's literally happening? What can we see figuratively, or what is this teaching us? And you see the symbol of Elijah coming back to a Gentile. Speaker 1 00:05:49 And, and when you have on a, on a day of Passover, when you have Jews, the world over, who are waiting for him to come, but to none of the widows, did he appear? So you have all of a sudden different layers, historically speaking across time that paint all of these different, uh, pictures and, and connote all of these powerful symbols with the story. We're gonna get into that here with some of these poems, as you look at some of these verses, they're just powerful. And so, rather than just gush on and on and on about this, let's, let's dive in. Let's look at Psalms chapter one, verse one, we could probably do an entire podcast just on this one, verse eight. Here's what it says. Speaker 1 00:06:30 Bless it is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor Sith in the seat of the scornful. Now in this, you have three different lines and let's break this down a little bit. You have three different verbs and, and I hope you're noticing a pattern with these verbs. Let's look at 'em real quick. You have to start with walketh standeth Sith. So if you were to take these three walk stand sit, and you were to continue with this verse and write two more lines, what verbs would you use? Nate? Speaker 2 00:07:18 Probably use, um, lie, Speaker 1 00:07:20 Lie. Speaker 2 00:07:22 Um, let's see. Maybe run, uh, or is that, that would've been pre walk. That would, Speaker 1 00:07:26 If you, if you go pre walk, you can go run. Right? Okay. So, Speaker 2 00:07:28 And that would fit. So if I'm going walk, stand, sit, lie. And then can you Speaker 1 00:07:33 Get any less than lying? Speaker 2 00:07:34 I mean, dead, Speaker 1 00:07:35 Dead. I think dead is okay. I think dead is as far down as you can go. Right? Okay. Yeah. Now, what is, what is that? What is that imagery like? Speaker 2 00:07:44 You were well, that's, that's a, that's a human being right there, dude. That's what we do, right? Speaker 1 00:07:48 Yeah. Speaker 2 00:07:49 That's the progression of life and death, right? Speaker 1 00:07:52 It's a progression of life and death, but it's, I mean, it's, it's taking you from a state of being alive and you are falling descending. Right? You were decaying. Sure. You you're getting to, Speaker 2 00:08:03 You're getting older. Speaker 1 00:08:05 Yeah. And you can look at it as you're getting older and dying. Right. But this is, this is definitely, I look at this almost like falling down a hill. Right. You start at the top and now you're, you're kind of falling down this hill. Okay. And, and now those are the verbs associated with it. So now if we look at what's Speaker 2 00:08:20 Associa, wait, how wait, hold on though. Yep. I'm not sure. I'm just, I, I'm only just saying so that you can add some detail to this, how it is. How is like standing or sitting, falling down a hill. Are you just saying the motion of the motion Speaker 1 00:08:32 Body? Okay. And, and maybe not even the human body, I just, I'm almost visioning like a digression. Okay. Speaker 2 00:08:39 Right. That's why I'm, that's the only reason why I'm saying this to me, looks like a child growing up, then getting older. And then, you know what I mean? And then slowing down. That's the only reason I brought it up is cuz like, it looks very much human walking, standing then sitting whatever. But okay. I understand Speaker 1 00:08:54 Saying that. And even if the human though, I still look at it like in a human, you start laying and then you sit up and then you walk human. So you could even you're talking human, you would be going from, I understand now at the bottom to the top and then from the top back to the bottom, to the bottom. Yes. But this one is starting halfway in cycle. Right. That makes sense now. Okay. And, and it seems like a dissent. You're a decline because at first you're able to move now you're stopping and now you can't even stand on your own two feet. Like yes. When you're taking a stand for something now you're not even standing up for anything you're sitting down. Right. It's lack of ability, lack of power, lack of motion, lack of life. I like that. You said even dead. Speaker 1 00:09:31 Right? If you were to take it to lie and then one more, even further maybe death, this is a path towards death and lack of power. Lack of ability. Okay. Now let's look at these verbs and association with what they're describing. Bless it is the man. So it sounds like it's gonna be positive, right? Bless it is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly. So you have this negation here. So he's blessed if he does not walk in the council of the ungodly nor stands in the way of sinners. So let's, let's go to our what's it's it's not, is it now it's gotta be a noun, right? Where, where they're doing the action. Yeah. That's a place their place. Okay. One is council of the sinners, excuse me, council of the ungodly, the way of sinners, the seat of the scornful right now, if we were to take that and, and, and descend that two more steps, right? Speaker 1 00:10:30 Because first we're talking about in an assembly, a council, a group of people that are, that are actively doing something participating, right? And now you have a way of sinner. So instead of coming together, it's on a path towards it right now, Sith, it's it just instead of going it's it's down into a chair, the next place would probably be like the bed of, and then if we're talking about, um, ungodly, sinners, scornful the bed of, um, horrors, maybe because you're talking about lying in bed and you're talking about people that are participating in unrighteous activity, unfaithful is some sense. Or, and if you were to take this down, even one step for further is like you said, death, then maybe the coffin or the grave of the Satan of Satan, Satan, I'll take it. I'll take it. So this, this imagery it's it's, I mean, you can take it at a surface level and just say, Hey, you're blessed if you don't walk in the council of the ungodly. Speaker 1 00:11:36 I mean, yeah, obviously that, that, that sounds like good advice, but you're painting a picture here. If you choose to do those things, the path that you are taking leads towards death, you're stopping your progression, you're stopping your momentum, you're stopping your ability to become closer and to be more like God, and, and this introduces us into a different type of Hebrew poetry called a chiasmus. If you could take these lines. So if you were to say walketh is line a standeth is line B, um, CTH as C and then if we were to keep going down or layeth and D and then dith and, and E or whatever, right. Then a chiasmus is gonna take all of those and going to reverse them and reflect them, but, but do it in reverse order so that your, your E matches with your E and your D matches with your D and your C and, and so forth. Speaker 1 00:12:40 So if we were to go the other way, you would say and curse it, right. Maybe if you're saying, bless it on one side and maybe curse, it is the man that does not. And then, and then reverse course on this and walk back the way through it. But this is not a full chiasmus. It's only a half chiasmus. So sometimes in poetry, it's not always about what you are saying or what you're seeing, but sometimes it's just as much about what you do not say, and the piece that's missing, what goes UN mentioned. So blessed is the man that doesn't do these things because he is doing what, and, and that's the other side of the thing, figuring out what, what needs to be done. And it's kind of interesting because we look at this dissent, if you will. And, and I, and I wanna call it kind of a dissent into chaos versus a rise into order, because what takes more work, right? Speaker 1 00:13:42 You look at the creation and God trying to separate the light from the darkness. And he is taking energy and putting it into entropy to create law and order. And he asks us to do the same thing. He gives us commandments and laws that these are the measuring sticks. As we take these things, it takes effort for us to try to discipline ourselves, to be studying the word of God, to be trying to, to make the right choices, to be actively engaged in what he's doing. Anxiously engaged in a good work that takes energy to impose order on the chaos and, and in our lives in particular. So instead of going from a state of death, now, we're going to be rising into a state of laying, to sitting, to standing, to walking to really, to rising, right? So as one path leads to death, on the other hand, the other path leads to life to resurrection, even though we're all going to die. If we, if we, and, and that's why we're blessed, if we don't do those things, because we will not die, we will have life kind, kind of interesting, all that conveyed in one single verse. Am I, am I reading too much into this, Nate? Speaker 2 00:15:00 No, but where's the, uh, rest of the chiasmus. Speaker 1 00:15:03 It's, it's only half I it's only half written, Speaker 2 00:15:06 But here's the thing is it's like, if you read through the rest of the Psalm though, there's definitely a lot of, kind of the flip side of that. I know that it's not necessarily presented, but it is interesting. Cuz look at the, um, you know, the tree that's planted as like, what is, what is, what does the tree do other than rise, right. You're right. It talks about a lot of the, um, his delight in the law of the Lord. Right? So it's, it's interesting that they use the word council, the council of the ungodly, but he delights instead in the law of the Lord, it's like a council or a group of people. There is kind of almost, you know, maybe not a courtroom setting, but like a, you know, like a, a room full of people counseling. I, I just, I guess I'm saying, it's like, if you, if you look through the rest of the Psalm, there's a lot of really amazing language that even still does kind of relate and, and, and kind of does really juxtapose itself against, you know, the, that first verse, the end of it, you know, the Lord know the way, the way of the righteous. Speaker 2 00:16:08 So instead of the, the way of the sinners, it talks about the way of the righteous Speaker 1 00:16:13 Dear. You're absolutely right. Uh, the first verse kind of frames the discussion for the rest of the, the, the section, right? Uh, verse two. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. Yes. And in his law, does he meditate day and night. And, and so when we were talking about parallels, you have one word, that's going to parallel another word over here. And so going back to that first one, um, walk is somewhat parallel to the stand because this is talking about your state, your motion, or what you're doing, just as much as, um, scornful is going to be parallel with sinners. But look in verse two, his delight, what is his delight parallel to the law? Um, he's delighting in the law of the Lord and in his law. So in his law, in the first goes within his law in the second, is it meditate? Speaker 1 00:17:04 That's it? He meditate day and night. So what does it mean to delight in the law of the Lord? Well, see, that's, you can learn just by looking at this verse when he says delight in the scriptures. Well, how do you delight them? You just you'd look at 'em and put a little pretty bow on it, take a snapshot picture and, and send it to the world. Like this is awesome. No delight. According to verse two is parallel to meditate day and night. So if you're meditating day and night, that means that you are delighting in the law of the Lord, uh, verse three, and he shall be like a tree. So this is going to, with what you're saying, when you talk about what does a tree do? It's it's the tree is not, uh, walking or, or, or sitting, but it's, it's standing right. Talking about how and Speaker 2 00:17:50 Growing, like it's doing the opposite of what's happening in that first. Right. If it's planted by rivers of water, but yeah. Oh, Speaker 1 00:17:57 Excellent. Excellent. Instead of, instead of decaying and falling and dying here, you have something that is growing and prospering, cuz you're saying you're right. It's not just like a tree planted in a desert or tree planted in a wilderness. He shall be like a tree planted by the river of water that bringeth forth, his fruit in his season, his leaf shall also not wither. And so what whatsoever he do with shall prosper. Hmm. Speaker 2 00:18:23 It's like the exact opposite of the first one. You know what I mean? It's like, it's the, it's the being, being in the way of good things, right. By the rivers of water. It's like, instead of, instead of standing in the way of sinners or in the council of the ungodly, it's, it's by flowing R you know, like life, right. I mean, it's just, it's amazing. And then, you know, obviously the fruit means a lot to us as we've been kind of learning about it, but I guess I wonder. And, and is that just like the miracle of it that the leaf doesn't wither, you know what I mean? It's like, how does, how does that happen other than, you know, by some, some godlike miracle Speaker 1 00:19:02 And, and, and something to be said about life versus death and, and is, is the idea that the fruit can, excuse me, the tree can produce fruit, which is its posterity that can live that there's a continuation and ability to propagate. Mm. And, and there's this idea that heaven is going to be not just an eternity, but Eter, plural, right? This idea eternal lives, not just an eternal life, but this idea that you will be able to have children and your children will be able to have children. So your seed will continue that there is no end that you won't be cut off that there is a continuation of life springing from you. This fountain that does not end, as opposed to you cared only about yourself and not producing something greater than you. And that led to death. There was no seed. There was nothing that prospered outside of you. Speaker 2 00:19:54 Killer Speaker 1 00:19:54 Verse four, the ungodly are not so, but are like CHF, which the wind drive it away. So here you gain, like you said, now you got this juxtaposition. You're putting one comparison back to the, with this other one, verse five. Therefore the unle ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous mm-hmm <affirmative>. This verse is also powerful because look at the parallels here, the ungodly is paralleled with sinners, right? Therefore the ungodly in the first line, nor sinners in the second line, look at what's paralleled in the next part. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. So what does it mean to stand in judgment? Speaker 2 00:20:42 I know I was gonna say, what is the, well, I, I, I guess my question would be, is it just saying that they're, it's not that they're avoiding the judgment. It's just that they're not standing when they're, when they're in judgment. Speaker 1 00:20:58 So, and, and I think you can even take this two different ways if you're standing in judgment. I think often it's because you're administering the judgment. So the, the, the wicked shall be judged by the righteous or the idea that, that the righteous shall judge the earth. You can look at it that way. You could also look at it. You can't stand in the judgment because you're too ashamed. You're wanting to, Speaker 2 00:21:21 That's kinda what I was wondering. Speaker 1 00:21:23 You're wanting to hide. Right. So however, you're going to take it. The standing in judgment is parallel to nor the center in the congregation of the righteous. So the idea that the, the congregation of the righteous is the same as those that stand in judgment. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> Speaker 2 00:21:42 Also to verse one, it's the opposite of the council of the ungodly, right? Speaker 1 00:21:46 Yes, yes. Another juxtaposition. And you've, you've seen the assembly of the, you saw it in job, the bene Elohim, the children of God, this assembly of the children of God. You'll see it play throughout the Bible. We'll see it a lot in Psalms. So it's interesting. The verse one leads with the assembly of the ungodly kind of this counter position to the, the assembly of the righteous, the children of God, the, the righteous people that stand in assembly for the Lord, know what the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. So this, this almost goes back to new Testament. The idea that any branch attached to the living branch is going to be giving life where a branch that's not is, is going to Paris. And, and look at that in context of verse four, the chaff, which is gonna dry up and go away versus verse three, which is this tree planted next to a river, which is continually producing fruit. So it beautiful Psalm, uh, a very powerful one, but also a great introduction into parallels and this imagery and, and trying to give you a sense, conveying so much more than just what's literally written there, but helping kinda stoke the imagination and, and reach our senses and help us see a lot more depth into happening. Speaker 2 00:23:09 Let's keep going. Speaker 1 00:23:10 Let's do. Um, so I wanna take Psalms too. I'm not gonna go through every Psalm. Obviously we can't do that. We've got Psalms one through like 48. <laugh>, it's a, it's a huge undertaking. Speaker 2 00:23:22 We should just do this bar and burner episode. Yeah. You just like a two hour thing, guys. Just be ready for the long haul. <laugh> the thing is, is what's. I, I do actually really appreciate about, about our listeners, especially the ones that reach out and talk to us is that there's actually a part of me that thinks a fair number of our listeners would be like, let's go boys. <laugh> Speaker 1 00:23:42 Like, Speaker 2 00:23:43 Let's Speaker 1 00:23:44 Do it. I think you're right. I don't think I'm ready for that. I Don Speaker 2 00:23:46 Don't think I'm ready for it either. But I'm saying to, to the, to the, um, to the credit of our listeners, thank you for being willing to, if one of these days we decide to just Speaker 1 00:23:56 For support to us going through the trenches with us, Speaker 2 00:23:58 Them just Leroy Jenkins, this thing, and just go, just go wall to wall <laugh> you guys are, we're not doing it today though for the day. Speaker 1 00:24:08 Okay. So we, yeah, we're not going through all the Psalms, like we did Psalms one, uh, but I did want to, uh, I, I did wanna get your take Nate on Psalms two. Okay. And, and I, I, didn't kind, I kind of ambushed you with this a little bit and, and didn't give Speaker 2 00:24:23 A lot of totally, he totally ambushed me with this. Speaker 1 00:24:25 <laugh>, didn't give you a lot of pretext context or, or anything, or even much time if we're gonna be honest, but I just wanted to kinda see your take on this and then see if I could take this and look at it and, and, and maybe offer a little different perspective and see what we can twist out of it or figure out of it because, well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go, I'll speak after you go. Okay. Give us, give us your thoughts. Speaker 2 00:24:48 Um, it seems to me that this Psalm is about, um, about the idea that, um, that worldly leaders Kings, um, and, and their followers that are gonna be referred to as hens are going to do what they can to, you know, persecute the Lord's anointed. And, um, but that at a certain point, God, he gave us the only true king, uh, and obviously that's Jesus. And as long as we follow Jesus, I do like in verse nine, where it says that thou shall break them with an iron rod dash them into pieces like a Potter's vessel. I did kind of like the, uh, the imagery of the word of G the iron rod being the word of God, basically that God or Jesus, the only true king, you know, on this earth will, and his followers will use his words to basically still, um, you know, defend themselves against worldly leaders, you know, persecuting them. And then in the end, when it's all said and done, um, you know, the earthly earthly leaders will need to worship Jesus as well, more or less. I don't know. Okay. What it looks like to me, I, Speaker 1 00:26:23 I like it. I like it. And, and as you, you look at the, the heading that you have in the king James version, and, and this is gonna be the, the church of Jesus Christ king James version. It says, uh, a mess, a messianic Psalm that he then shall rage against the Lord's anointed. The Lord speaks of his son, whom he has begotten. And, and so setting the stage is this is a messianic, and it's gonna be talking about the savior, I think kind of colors our perspective a little bit. And as we read this and try to understand it with that perspective, my, my impression as I first read it is, is it's almost a little bit disjointed or hard to understand all of it as we're coming through this, but there are moments of brightness where you look at it and say, well, that's reassuring, or that's good. Speaker 1 00:27:10 And, and I think we can take some of these verses outta context and find comfort in them and strengthen them where we don't always understand what's what's going on. But I also wanna break this down and change the perspective a little bit and see if it makes more sense. But, um, speaking to what you're saying, Nate, as we're talking about this as a messianic Psalm, um, verse six, when I first read this really spoke to me yet, have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion? And, and I'm thinking, well, messianic, this is talking about Christ, right? And I'm setting him upon this holy hill. Well, what holy hill did he set him on aside from go Gotha, right? Yeah. And, and he, here he is sitting on the cross with this plaque that says king of the Jews. And, and yet he sets my king on my holy hill is a very different interpretation than what we would see as setting his king on a, on a hill that you're going to be worshiping. Speaker 1 00:28:02 Um, and then going on, I will declare the decree. The Lord half said unto me, thou art, my son this day, have I begotten the, and, and again, it sounds like he's talking God talking about the savior, but as you're looking at these other verses, why do the, he then rage? And the people imagine a vain thing, the Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed and, and his anointed. So, you know, um, in Hebrew is, uh, mess, which in Greek is Christ. So when they're taking counsel against the Lord and his Christ saying, let us break their bands a under and cast away their cords from us. So trying to understand this from that perspective, what does it mean? Let us break their cords of under wouldn't that mean to free them? Yeah. They're so the, the nations are raging saying we want to free ourselves from the Lord and his Christ. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:29:05 And so as I start to read this with this, with this messianic idea and trying to understand this through lens of Christ, I'm thinking maybe his commandments, they, we don't wanna be bound by his laws, by his rules. We, we want to be free in, in their minds. They see freedom as is not being bound by those chords. Is that, is that what you're seeing? Or I, you know, sure. Man, I don't know. I don't know any of this <laugh> I, I, I don't know. It just, it just gets a little bit hard. Um, he, that citizen heaven shall laugh and the Lord shall have them in derision. Um, he shall speak unto them in his wrath, VE them in store displeasure yet. Have I set my king upon the holy hill? And you're like, well, wait a second. So if you're gonna mock the, the, the nations, then why are you crucifying your son? Speaker 1 00:29:49 It, just to me trying to understand it, that way was kind of a hard flow. There was, there was high points and stuff I liked, but it was kind of hard to understand. So it it's, I wanna to look at this again and let me try to break this down for us and see if we can't understand this a little bit differently. Something important for us to know is that David wrote most of the Psalms that we're reading. And so look at this from the perspective of David, why do the, and then he then here and Hebrew is the Goem and Goem is the word translated as Gentiles or nations? So it doesn't have to necessarily be he then I don't, I don't know why we throw hen in here in the translation. Why do the nations rage and the people, and in Hebrew, this, this is communities, the group gatherings of people imagine a fame thing. Speaker 1 00:30:41 So look at verse one rage is compared to imagining a VA thing. And he then is compared with nations is compared with communities. So nations and communities make sense, gatherings of people that's synonymous. We get that rage and imagining a vein thing that a thing that's, that's a disconnect for me. I don't usually think of raging as imagining silliness. So I looked up rage in Hebrew and, and the word is ragga and it means to conspire or plot. So this isn't, this isn't raging. He's saying, why do the nation's conspire? And the people's, um, imagine a vein thing or plot against me. Okay. The Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers. So Kings of the earth parallel with rulers, they're setting themselves, they're taking council together. So they're establishing this assembly. They're conspiring, uh, just like I said, in verse one against the Lord and against his anointed, who is the anointed one? Speaker 1 00:31:48 Think about David and Saul. Why wouldn't David lay a finger on Saul? Because Saul was the Lord's anointed. So who is the anointed one in this verse? In this, in this Psalm? The Lord. No, no, no, the Lord and the Lord's anointed. So who did the Lord anointed? So you're not saying the parallel, you're just saying in this. Oh, right, right, right. Sorry. I can see where you got Lord. Yeah. Um, the Lord is gonna be, um, in parallel with the Lord's anointed, who is David saying that the Lord's anointed is Saul and, and that would've been Saul, but now Saul's dead and David's king. So he's writing the Psalm. David's talking about himself, cuz now he's the Lord's anointed one. He's the king of Israel. So the nations are conspiring the, the different gatherings of people, communities, nations. Really it's just another way of saying nations are conspiring against the Lord and against the Lord's king, the Lord's anointed against David saying, let us break their bands as under and let us cast their cords from us. Speaker 1 00:32:57 So when Saul was king, he had conquered a lot of these different kingdoms and now they had to pay tribute to them. Now that David has taken over. And remember when David took over, it was a time that was a little bit sketchy because Judah supported him, Benjamin supported him, but Israel supported someone else and he had to kind of win them over. You had Saul's son and, and, and all the kind of, uh, intrigue that was going on until you finally get a United Israel. So Israel's going through a period of weakness. And if your nation that's ruling over, you looks weak. Then what do all the nations that are underneath Israel start to do conspire to throw off the bounds of that vast kingdom relationship. Israel has abused us. They've subjected us, but now Israel's weak. We can band together and throw off those bounds. Speaker 1 00:33:54 That's what David is writing about. Then, um, let's see here that CTH in. The heavens shall laugh. And the Lord, so who sits in the heavens? The Lord is parallel with that shall have them in derision. And derision is kind of like mock making fun of them. He's he's going to like, he's they, they think they're gonna have it, but the Lord's gonna mock them. Then shall he speak into them in his wrath and vex them in? So displeasure, I have set my king upon the holy hill of Zion. Who's his king. This isn't talking about Christ. This is talking about David yet. I have set my king, but where did he set David upon my holy hill of Zion. This is something important for you guys to understand Zion in Hebrew history is Mount Olympus of Greek history. What is David just said, he's a God, he's a God. <laugh> David has just said, I am the Lord's anointed. And he has established me on Mount Olympus with all of the other gods. If you will now look at the next verse, I will declare the decree. The Lord half said unto me. So who's the Lord talking to David thou art, my son this day. Have I begotten the what's David saying, I am the son of God on Mount Olympus. I am Zeus. Speaker 1 00:35:33 How is, how is this different from, from Alexander? The great, when he goes and gets deified in Egypt, or how is this different from, from any other Kings that kind of take it and say, I am God's son and he's established my reign and I rule from Mount Olympus or from whatever I, I am part of, not just mortal men's now I, I I'm raining from God's mountain. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty arrogant. It changes the tone a little bit. Doesn't it? Speaker 4 00:36:07 I mean, especially when we keep reading on, in Speaker 1 00:36:08 The verse. Yeah. Um, ask of me and I shall give the, the nations. No. So, so he, then anytime you see, he then in this it's, Goem it's nations for th inheritance and the ends of the earth, the other most parts of the earth for th possession. So I, I, I, because I am the son of God and I am ruling from Olympus. The earth is mine. There is no limit to my kingdom. Thou shout, break them with the rod of iron that'll shout dash them in pieces with like a Potter's vessel. So David as king can, can have whatever nation he wants to all of these little nations that are complaining about subjection and bondage. Hey, look, you you're, you're a small fries. I'm I'm going to dash into pieces, greater nations than you. And add to my kingdom from all over the place B wise is now therefore O Kings be instructed. Speaker 1 00:37:02 He judges of the earth. So again, look at the, the, the cool parallels, the, the poetry B wise be instructed. They're synonymous Kings judges of the earth synonymous. So why is he writing the Psalm? He's writing it as a word of warning to all of the other Kings that don't belong to Israel, be wise, be instructed, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. And, and so I love the fear and trembling. You, you get this passage in the new Testament and you can see those as synonymous. What I think is very, uh, enlightening is that serve the Lord is put synonymous with rejoice. When you serve the Lord, it causes you to rejoice. I think that's a, a pretty powerful little insight, but, but syno. So if you're gonna talk about serving the Lord, great, but now you have to talk about his, his ruler, right? Speaker 1 00:37:59 So verse 12, how does this end kiss the son? Who is he talking about? This is not the son of God Christ. Is he talking about himself? He's talking about himself, serve God and kiss me, kiss up to me, join yourself with me. So kiss is to join, to join lightly. You know, you're kissing is kind of joining the lips, like unify yourself with me, make peace with me less. I destroy you less. He be angry. And you perish from the way when his wrath is kinded, but a little blessed her all day who put their trust in him. See this, this whole Psalm makes a lot more sense in context of David boasting about who he is and his position and trying to unify the kingdom, but it's, but it doesn't always have to be what it is. Literally. I think there's some value in taking this and looking at it at different layers because Christ is a son of David, right. Speaker 1 00:38:56 And, and he takes some of that David imagery and Messiah imagery, and uses it to, can explain his role because David is a type of Christ. And, and so the, you do have this double meaning, but hopefully the Psalm makes a little bit more sense to you when you understand the context of who's writing it and why he's writing it and kind of yeah. Helps it come to live. And just, I give credit where credits due for what, what it's actually saying. Uh, Nate, you and I were having this conversation before the podcast even began. I think we like to look at a lot of these Psalms and twist them a little bit out of context and, and applying to Christianity and applying to Jesus and, and what it's prophesying of. And, and I think a lot of Jews look at this and say, in the Hebrew, this, you guys are taking this out of context and there's a disconnect between, between how they see it and how we see it. Speaker 1 00:39:53 Right. And if we are able to, to kind of check our biases at the door and be honest about the text and look at it and understand it for what it is, and, and from their perspective on these ones that you can look at and kind of come to an in agreeance with and show that good faith that you're willing to interpret that I think the old Testament has plenty of references where you can't explain it outside of the idea of a coming of a Messiah. If we can be honest about some of these other sections and Psalms and, and parts of the old Testament and what they mean, then maybe it opens the way for an honest dialogue about some of these other sections that clearly have reference to Jesus Christ. Agreed. Let's keep going. All right. Um, maybe we should just skip forward to one that talks about Jesus Christ. Speaker 1 00:40:46 Okay. Um, Psalms 22, this is, this is the most potentially the most debated scripture of the entire old Testament. Oh, wow. It's a, it's a huge statement. There it is. All right. Let's get in it. And, and this is verse 16 for dogs, um, for dogs have compassed me and assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and feet. And, and so you have this interesting parallel dogs have compassed me, assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. So they're, they're calling the assembly of the wicked in this case dogs, it's pretty derogatory. And, and, um, and then it says they pierced my hands and my feet. So this, this idea of piercing the hands and the feet, the word for pierced, and the word for lions is almost the exact same word. One starts with a evolve and the other starts with a yard. Speaker 1 00:41:54 And, and if you wanna know how close these off or close these are to looking like each other at home, go, go look up a V and a yard. And the difference is a couple centimeters of ink is the only difference. One, one is a short, like a right angle, if you will. And then the other one is, is a right angle with a longer tail. That, and, and one means lions. And then the other one means pierced. And the, the Christians early on the translators have taken that word. And they said, Nope, this is the word pierced. Where, where Jewish translators have looked at it and said, no, this is lions. And the Jewish translators look at it as lions, based on the, the, the, the potential parallel with dogs. If you're talking about dogs have compass me, and then they're, they're, they're like lions. Speaker 1 00:42:46 That make sense. So they're saying this makes more sense. And it's lions what the Christians are doing. Here's trying to take this verse and apply it to Christ who was pierced his hands and his feet were pierced on the cross. And, and the Christians have argued and said, no, this was, this was definitely from, from the word pierced, not, not from lions. Well, new light has been shed on the debate. So I think we've talked a little bit about the Tugen and about the Hebrew Bible and about the dead sea scrolls. Have, have we, have we provided that context date, or do I need to do a quick recap? Maybe let's do a quick recap. Okay. The, the oldest complete manuscript of the Bible that we had for a very long time was the EPPO codex and the Lenn grad codex, the Lepo codex was about nine 20 ad. Speaker 1 00:43:41 The Lenn grad codex was shortly after a thousand ad. These were Hebrew manuscripts of the entire old Testament. We had some manuscripts, isolated manuscripts, like, uh, an, an Isaiah text or Daniel text, or whatever, text, different isolated parts, but not an entire Bible that dated earlier than this date. The step two agent, when the Greeks conquered the world with Alexander, the great and 3 23 BC, and they spread colonization throughout the entire world. And Greek became the international language and their influence grew and spread until about 200 BC. It was an extremely important, and they had the library in Alexandria, Egypt, and they were taking in the library and collecting the greatest and most important books in the world. And so, so they took, uh, scholars in, in the SEP two agent Sept means seven, the SEP, and then it comes from 70. And this idea, and, and I, I'm not sure the exact details if it's 70 scholars, 70 days, or whatever the case, they translated this Hebrew text into the Greek text. Speaker 1 00:44:49 And the SEP two agent predated the Bible a couple hundred years, even though they did it in 200 BC, they didn't have a copy of the SEP two agent that old, the, the oldest copy we had of the SEP two agent was still a couple hundred years ad, but it predated the Hebrew manuscript by, by a few hundred years. So, so they'd look at the Greek and they'd look at the Hebrew. And these are the two important texts for understanding the old Testament and, and, and the text you had this disagreement in, in this word, and, and one text would have it as lions and the other text would have it as pierced. And, and the Christian translators are taking it one way. The Jewish translators are taking it another way, and it became so divisive. Any, any Jewish person before buying a Bible would open it up to Psalms chapter 22 verse 16, and just look at how this word was translated. Speaker 1 00:45:45 If it was lions, it was safe to buy because they trusted it. If it was pierced, then it had too much Christian bias and they weren't even gonna, they weren't interested. They, they didn't want that Bible. And it is just a, it was just a huge issue. But then we have a story of some goat herders who were throwing rocks in a cave. And, and he heard some shattering when he threw a rock in there. And he's like, well, caves usually don't shatter. So he climbed into the cave to see what was going on. And he found all these pots, this pottery that had, um, rolls scripts, manuscripts that were rolled up into the pots. And, and they thought, well, this is amazing. They, they, they pulled out these scrolls, these rolls, and, and then they would take it to the market and try to sell them. Speaker 1 00:46:27 And then they realized that they could get more money if they were to sell a fragment of the role, because then they could sell like 50 versions of just one. If they just cut it up into 50 small pieces and, and get more money for 50 individual pieces than one whole scroll. So they started cutting 'em up and destroying them and selling them in little fragments here and there, which is devastating. So somebody raised enough money went through and just bought the whole collection to try to preserve it and maintain it. This is the birth of the dead sea scrolls. The dead sea scrolls had the entire old Testament with the exception. I believe of two books in it, but in the old Testament, uh, and the dead sea scrolls, it predates the SEP two agent that we had and the, the maade and the, the EPPO and the Lenn grad codex of the Bible, the dead sea scrolls dated back to 200 to 300 BC. So you're talking over a thousand years earlier than the manuscripts we had. So obviously one point of interest in the dead sea scrolls was what did the original Hebrew say? So we turned to Psalms 2215 and cool enough. It said pierced, not lions. So it seems like the original Hebrew. So now let's just read this verse. Speaker 2 00:47:39 Also, it's important to note that lions is used in this Psalm on other multiple occasions. And you would think that if it was the same word in all of the other instances that they wouldn't have used lion versus pierced Speaker 1 00:47:54 Good point, Speaker 2 00:47:55 Like if it was the same word over and over and over, it seems like they would just keep using that word if it was written the same way. Speaker 1 00:48:01 Yeah. And, and this is a, this is an interesting verse. As we start reading some of this context, uh, verse 14, I am poured out like water and all the bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws. And, and you think of being dried up and the tongue cleaving to the jaws, uh, think, think of Christ thirsting on the, on the cross when they, when they take the sponge with the, the vial. And, and now has brought me into the dust of earth for dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked having enclothed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vest. Speaker 1 00:48:52 And you think about the soldiers that cast lots for his clothes as he hung on the cross, but thou, um, uh, but be not thou far from me. Oh Lord. Oh, my strength hasty to help me deliver my soul from the stored my darling from the power of the dog. This, this perspective of suffering is very interesting in terms of Christ and Christ uses this passage of scripture as he, as, as he goes through the atonement. When you look at verse one, LOE, L OE LA, Masani my God, my God. Why has thou forsaken me? Which is the very line that Christ repeats in Aramaic as before, or as he's, as he's going through this process for him, that this passage was very real and, and really kind of unique insight into what he suffered through the atonement. So kind of a cool little Psalm. Okay. Not that it all fits, but it's interesting to see that perspective and put it in that lens and, and to be able to see, I don't know that that word even hold through in, in, in ancient times, which wouldn't make sense, like, what are you talking about? Piercing your hands and your feet, but that's what, uh, that's what Christ went through. Speaker 2 00:50:13 Okay. Speaker 1 00:50:15 You wanna talk about Psalms 23? Speaker 2 00:50:18 Um, yeah, we're, we're, we're kind of getting close to the end here, so let's make sure we, or highlight the, the big stuff. The, the highlights. Speaker 1 00:50:29 Okay. Nate, Psalms 23 has inspired so much music. Uh, oh, songs, poems, uh, art, the good shepherd. Speaker 2 00:50:41 Okay. Speaker 1 00:50:42 And, and I don't know if you're gonna get much more descriptive language, uh, or powerful language. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, he mayeth me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Speaker 2 00:51:08 Death. I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left. Speaker 1 00:51:12 Not quite Speaker 2 00:51:13 <laugh> no, Speaker 1 00:51:15 Not quite, not Speaker 2 00:51:16 Quite that man, that so long that even my mama thinks that my mind is gone really? Is that not what the next line is? Not quite what about like, but I never met a man who didn't deserve it, be treated like a punk, you know, that's unheard of, Speaker 1 00:51:33 Thank you, Speaker 2 00:51:33 Nate. Maybe like best wear watcher walking and who you're talking or you and your homies will be lined in chalk. Very that the next verse, Speaker 1 00:51:42 Very, very much inspired by Psalms 23. <laugh> Speaker 2 00:51:46 Just wondering if those are the next verses Speaker 1 00:51:48 And, and, and you know what, I, I honestly, I think it's a great usage of this verse, cuz I can't think of much other lifestyles that take you through such a, a depressing situation and, and a fearful, terrifying presence. And yet, you know, try to instill that faith and confidence in, and maybe they don't have the same faith and confidence of being delivered. But I do like I do like the song. I'm not gonna lie. Speaker 2 00:52:16 I love the song. Are you kidding me? Just, I'm just dropping bars right now. Dude. Spitting fire. Speaker 1 00:52:23 Thank Speaker 2 00:52:23 You. Me and Julio spit Speaker 1 00:52:25 That fire man Speaker 2 00:52:27 Been Speaker 1 00:52:28 Span and Speaker 2 00:52:29 Most laugh. All right. Well then what is the next verse? If it's not those awesome lyrics that if it's not those sick bars, Speaker 1 00:52:36 Can we, can we just pause and appreciate though? I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, like Speaker 2 00:52:43 It's so great. Speaker 1 00:52:44 Has, has there ever been a greater line muttered than Speaker 2 00:52:48 No, it's it's awesome. Speaker 1 00:52:50 That's that's powerful. Speaker 2 00:52:51 Let's see, I'm pulling it up. The, I have the verse pulled up. I will fear no evil for thou art with me, that rod and I staff. They cover man. Those are, I mean, those are nicer for sure. Speaker 1 00:53:01 There's your rod and your staff that you were talking about Speaker 2 00:53:03 Now. No, I love it. I love it. Yeah. This is a great Psalm dude. Psalm 23. Speaker 1 00:53:08 They'll prepares the table before me in the presence of my enemies that anointed my head with oil, my cup runni oil run with oil run over. Speaker 2 00:53:17 Yep. Speaker 1 00:53:18 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of Lord forever. Speaker 2 00:53:23 Beautiful. Speaker 1 00:53:25 And, and we do walk. I, I, I take it. We all walk in the valley of the shadow of death. I mean death looms over every single person that has ever been born. And for David, David was a shepherd and not only was he a shepherd, but he was a shepherd that fought a bear and a lion to protect his sheep. Right. And you see in Psalms a very different David, as you start off, you see a Psalm of a very confident, a very arrogant David who's stating I am a son of God who belongs on Mount Olympus and you better kiss me if you want to survive to my enemies encompass me about, and, and what you're seeing is a pre Baba David and a post Baba David. So David it's cool that regardless of what happened in David's life, he never turned from the Lord. Speaker 1 00:54:22 He, uh, he always trusted that the Lord would deliver him and some of these Psalms get a little bit dark and they talk about him falling from grace and, and no longer is he the king that's on the hill. He's chased out. So you see some of these Psalms when Abson is ruling over the kingdom, his son, after the coup and David's on the outs and he's talking about all of his enemies are wanting to destroy me and all of this is happening to me yet. I will fear no evil and I will trust the Lord. And I know that somehow he's going to deliver me and you're gonna talk, David's gonna be talking about going into the pit. And he takes the pit and puts it in parallel with gray, um, shale, the spirit world Hades. So shale Hades, and, and you wanna know where we get the word hell from hell is the north version of Hades. Speaker 1 00:55:18 And Hades is the Greek version of shale and shale is the spirit world, the, the, the world of the dead. So even though I go to the world of dead or to the pit, the Lord will deliver me and pull me out. And, and so I, I love the Psalms. I love that you get this. I, I think some of the best poets are the poets that are filled with emotion. And you see that emotion of David in the beginning of his reign, as he's building confidence and, and he's trusting in the Lord and he's consolidating the kingdom and he's doing his deal versus the com that, that the David that is shaken after be Sheba, that, that has now questioning, what's going to happen. Who's going to come face to face with hell because of what he's done. And you see that reflected in these Psalms. And I think it speaks to a lot of us as we go through various stages of sin or darkness or trials, maybe whether it's because we brought 'em on ourselves or because others around us are afflicting and, and trying us as well. Speaker 2 00:56:24 Sweet. Speaker 1 00:56:26 Anything you wanted to add on that, Nate? Speaker 2 00:56:29 No. I'm just busy looking up. Uh, gangster's paradise on iTunes. Speaker 1 00:56:33 I do like gangster's paradise so we can, I hope that makes it somewhere in here. Speaker 2 00:56:37 Oh, you know, it's, you know, it's, it, it will have already played by this point. Speaker 1 00:56:41 Woo. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, I know we're about outta time. We're outta, I'm gonna highlight a few, a few parts in, in Speaker 2 00:56:48 This. Okay. We'll do the rapid rapid speed round, rapid, Speaker 1 00:56:50 Rapid fire guys. We're not going through any Psalms detailed by detail anymore. Um, if you want to look at temple recommend Psalms read Psalms 15 and Psalms 24, uh, those two are great, powerful Psalms, as far as going into the mountain of the Lord, the hill of the Lord and the mountain of the Lord is, is this temple. And this idea of this temple recommend interview. So those are two cool Psalms for that. Okay. Um, Psalms eight, there's some very interesting theological point in verse four, uh, at five, actually. So I'm gonna read this, uh, what is man that thwart mindful of him and the son of man that thou visits him. So man is parallel with son of man. So son of man is mankind. And that thwart mindful of him being mindful of him means that he's visiting him. Cuz that's there, there you have that parallel, right? Speaker 1 00:57:41 Um, or you can even look at this as a progression digression type deal man progresses into the son of man being mindful, progresses into this visitation, which pretty cool verse five for thou has made him a little lower than the angels. And thou has crowned him with glory and honor stop in here where it says the angels. I give you permission to cross that out in Hebrew. Interesting enough, the Hebrew tech says lower than theoh he in no, in no other place in the old Testament is Elohim translated as angels it's translated as God or gods, but somebody had a problem with, with the theology here. How can you make man lower than the gods? Just a little lower than the gods. What about all of these angelic beings? Let's take Elohim and translate it as angels in this sense and translate it as gods everywhere else. Speaker 1 00:58:43 That's hilarious to me. And, and so the, the, you look at the theology and they're saying, well, what about Michael and the arc angels and the Cher, him and the Serafim and all of the heavenly host, like surely God did not put man ahead of all of them. So you couldn't make him a little lower than the ahe. You had to make him little lower than the angels too. And, and they intentionally changed the translation or translated that to angels instead of Elohim. So I think that's kind of a important, cool little snippet to point out. Okay. Moving on in Psalms chapter 11, verse four a again, this is something really cool to me. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. So what's parallel. The Lord is parallel with the Lord's throne because the Lord sits on his throne, right? And, and the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. So just like the presence of the Lord is, is associated with this throne. Heaven is associated with the holy temple. Think about that. Next time you go to the temple, the temple is equivalent to heaven. And as you walk into the doors of the temple, imagine walking into heaven itself as, as this Psalm mentions. Speaker 1 01:00:04 All right. Um, I know, I know I'm out of time, uh, Psalms 15, who shall abide in the tabernacle, who shall dwell in the holy mountain of Zion, uh, mountain Zion. We have this again, looking at that with revelation three 12, this idea that you shall be established in the house of God, but, but we're just gonna keep moving. Moving on, moving on. Uh, Psalms 19 is beautiful as well. I there's there there's a lot of really good things. And I don't know if I can, I don't know if I can point them all out. Um, maybe Psalms 24, verse six, when you're talking about those who are able to go to the temple, they say, this is the generation, the, the Hebrew word for generation also can be translated the circle in this case, this is the circle of them that seek him. And by seeking him that seek th face. Oh God of Jacob. Interesting. Yeah. And, and when you receive these Salah, there's a few words in here. These Psalms were written to music and you've got these, these notes like Salah, and there's another couple words in there that they use. They're not, they're not translatable. They don't have a meaning. They're, they're used in context with the, the, the music and the rhythm and how things go. So it's not, don't worry about those. Okay. I, I think that's about it that I can remember, like Speaker 2 01:01:28 In four years we get to do this again and we'll go through some different, some different Psalms. Speaker 1 01:01:33 Yeah. The Psalms are rich guys, and hopefully I'll leave you with this. We're not done with the book of Psalms. We have two more lessons on them and we get to learn about acrostic poems. We get to find missing verses that have been found and discovered with the dead sea scrolls and will add some scriptures to you, to what was originally in the Hebrew that got lost somewhere along the line that aren't in your scriptures now. And, and we'll get to see some really cool things still with Psalms to come. What I hope you get out of this lesson is, is understanding how these parallels work and a little bit about this imagery and the poetry apply that with your, with these Psalms, as you're reading 'em and kind of find these cool connections and how they define words and help you understand their meaning and kind of paint a, a broader picture than, than maybe how we understood this. Just on a quick read to begin with, what are we talking about next week? Psalms 49 to, I don't know, a hundred ish. Oh, sweet. Can't wait. Yeah, I think it's about a hundred ish. All right. Until next week, see ya.