Psalms 49 – 100

[00:00:15] Speaker A: 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 discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with my friend and this show's producer, Nate Pyfer What's up, Nate? That's that energetic. [00:00:35] Speaker B: I'm just stoked, baby. I'm just stoked. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Excellent. [00:00:39] Speaker B: And talk about some psalms. Psalms. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Hey, this should be right up your alley, man. This is like music. [00:00:45] Speaker B: I was. I'm preparing for a talk in sacrament meeting next week and there are. I've been digging through some old conference talks and it's always referring to the psalmist. [00:00:57] Speaker A: The psalmist. Which psalmist? [00:00:59] Speaker B: I know. I was just like, oh, man, I wish I knew the answer to that. [00:01:04] Speaker A: Well, sometimes it's David and sometimes it's not. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Who is it if it's not? [00:01:08] Speaker A: They have. They have like notes at the top of it. Usually, like, to the chief musician, a psalm for the sons of Korah. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Oh, okay. I don't know. [00:01:16] Speaker A: A Psalm of Asaph. Yeah, most of them say a Psalm of David. He's got like 76 of them. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Well, in David's Psalms, I trust. Dude, I was going to tell you this off the air, but we should just talk about it now. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Ooh, let's hear it. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Dude. How great is Fiddler on the Roof? [00:01:36] Speaker A: It's amazing. [00:01:37] Speaker B: I showed my kids today and I was like, these, these guys, my oldest being 10 and my youngest 4, and then, you know, my middle child 8, I was like, I don't know if they're going to be able to understand how truly amazing this. This film is. And they were completely into it and it was great. Cuz I got to like pause it and now actually give them a lot more cultural insight into like, little subtle things. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Oh, uhhuh. [00:02:05] Speaker B: From all of the stuff we've been talking about in the Old Testament, I'm going to throw a recommendation out. If you haven't seen Fiddler on the Roof in a while, hopefully you've been listening to our podcast. Go back and watch it again. I think it'll blow your mind. All the new little, just tiny nuances and details that you're like, oh my gosh, I don't even think I realized that before. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Oh, I'm gonna have to go watch it now. [00:02:27] Speaker B: And then. And then it was a good chance to talk to the kids about like, you know, because my kids are really distraught about this going like, oh, man, why are they getting forced out of their homes. And I'm like, yo, we have the same history. [00:02:43] Speaker A: We share that in common. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Like, that is a thing that we have in common. And my kids, this was, I guess, the first time I ever got to really talk to them at all about, like, our church history. And. And it. It kind of shook them a little bit. And I'm like, yeah, I guess I. I guess I don't even. It was. It was a good chance for me to even re. Remember how traumatic and intense and. And unjust and horrifying a lot of the things that our early pioneer, you know, forefathers had to go through as well. And I. It was easy for me. It was easier for me to kind of then, I think, understand the gravity of it. Again, watching, you know, my young kids kind of have to grapple with that and ask a lot of really tough questions. So. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Wow. [00:03:29] Speaker B: Anyways, if you've been listening to the podcast, go back and re. Watch Fiddler on the Roof, because not only is it a fantastic, freaking beautiful, just a start to finish, but you'll have even more cool little moments of like, oh, my goodness, now I understand why that's funnier. Or, oh, that's a cool little quirky thing that I don't even think I picked up on culturally. [00:03:53] Speaker A: You know what my favorite little line in that movie is? [00:03:56] Speaker B: I have so many. But what is yours? [00:03:58] Speaker A: And it's been so many years since I've seen this. You're probably gonna have to help me remember exactly how I watched it today when they're having this discussion and the one guy is saying something on one Extreme, and he's like, well, you're. [00:04:10] Speaker B: Or you have love this. [00:04:12] Speaker A: And then the other guy voices the [00:04:13] Speaker B: opposite of his no, the world's changing, and we need to know what's going on in the outside world as well. And he says, you're right too. [00:04:20] Speaker A: And then someone says, wait a second. How can they both. [00:04:24] Speaker B: They both can't be right. He goes, you're right too. Yes. There's so many. There's so many really incredible, just like, one line moments from that, too. I mean, I guess I didn't even pick up on the, you know, eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The whole world's gonna be blind and deaf or what is it? Toothless and blind. Toothless and blind, yeah. Anyways, great movie. [00:04:51] Speaker A: Thanks for the recommendation. [00:04:52] Speaker B: I just wanted to throw it in there for anybody. For anybody to go back on. I was really happy that this podcast has helped me understand that better. [00:05:00] Speaker A: So. [00:05:00] Speaker B: All right. Let's get going. [00:05:01] Speaker A: Thanks, Nate. So last week we covered Psalms 1 through 48. This week we're diving into Psalms 49, 100. It's a lot of psalms to cover, but honestly we're probably not covering most of the psalms. But there is something from Psalms 48 last week that we didn't get to talk about that I wanted to bring up today. So I'm going to give one little shout out from last week's area of coverage and then we'll kind of step into the psalms this week. And again, like last week, a lot of these psalms I feel like are very easy to understand. I love the poetry, I love how they're worded and I love the way the Hebrew poetry is written and what it conveys. And we're going to be using that poetry throughout this week's lesson, next week's lesson, and even further on as we talk about Isaiah. It'll spill into the New Testament next year. And if we're around here doing the Book of Mormon, going through some of the references in the Book of Mormon, you'll also see that poetry play a large role. That's probably what I get most out of Psalms. But, but as we're, we're not going to have time to go through every single psalm and, and trying to hash things that are just very easy to understand. We're probably just going to high level this and, and hit a few psalms that I find very. What's the word for this ground shaking revolutionary or, or just kind of challenge what the. What we think. Those are probably the ones I'll be spending most time on next week. We're going to be finishing the last section of Psalms and we're going to be seeing something that we've seen but haven't gone over and that's acrostics in the poetry. And so we'll talk about that next week. Even though we have a few acrostic psalms in this week's coverage and last week's coverage, we'll actually focus most of our time talking about acrostics next week. So let's get into Psalms 48 and not even all of Psalms 48. There's just one verse I wanted to read here and kind of highlight and it'll frame the discussion of what we're talking about this week. And this is verse two. Beautiful for situation. The joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. And there's one phrase in here that just really stands out to me on the sides of the north. What in the world are the sides of the north? As far as I know, there's east side and there's west side. And so why didn't they just say is the east or is the west? Why are they saying the sides of the north? That should not quite sit right with anyone reading this. So the Hebrew word for north, Isaphon, and Saphon, happens to be the name of a tall mountain in Syria, north of Israel, which is why it's referred to as the north. So when you're talking about Saphon, because it's north of Israel, they're saying towards Saphon, towards the north. So 90, 90% of the time, 99% of the time, translating it as north is a valid, correct way of translating it. But when you're talking about Zion, a mountain, and you're talking about the mountain of God. So verse one, great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness, we're not talking about a direction north, we're talking about a mountain. Tsaphon is famous for being the mountain of the Syrian gods. BAAL lived in Saphon. So Tsaphon is the same thing as the Near Eastern version of Mount Olympus in Greek tradition, where Zeus and the gods resided. So think about Olympus, Zaphon and Mount Zion are all parallels. They're synonymous with each other. And we're going to be seeing this a lot throughout the Psalms. When they're talking about Mount Zion being this Mount Olympus or being the Zaphon, you're going to see this also show up in Isaiah 14, and I'll save Isaiah 14 for when we get into Isaiah, we can talk about what it means there. But we are going to be seeing this when we're talking about the mountain of God and putting it in parallel with the mountain where God was famed to live in all history and the neighboring religion. And also, while we're on the topic, when you talk about the east wind, we've talked about this before. In Exodus, the east wind sows and reaps destruction, right? If the wind's coming from the east, it's going to be blasting and destroying and ruining your harvest. When they talk about a north wind, the north wind is the wind being sent from Tsaphon, the mountain of God. And so usually the north wind is going to be associated with blessings, with bounty, and it's coming from God's home into Israel. So you'll probably see that a little bit throughout the Psalms as you're reading this. All right, now as we've been talking about Zion in terms of an Olympus, throughout the Old Testament, we keep getting this idea of an assembly of the children of God. We saw it with Job the same day that Job's sons and daughters are all gathered together in one son's home, and they take turns meeting in there. The same day, the children of God, the B' Nai Elohim, would gather together, and they had this assembly, the children of God. And so who is this assembly of the children of God? It's going to show up several times throughout the Psalms. And I want to address that head on in this section, because Psalms 82 is one of my most favorite psalms. And I translate this. I. I would say different from the way most people do, but I'm going to break this down and show you why I translate it the way I do. And. And maybe. And maybe you'll agree with me, or maybe you'll think I'm crazy. So should we. Should we just jump into 82? [00:11:07] Speaker B: Nate, any chance I get to judge you for being a smart or crazy? Yes, I want to get into that as quickly as possible. [00:11:18] Speaker A: All right, Psalms 82, then. Okay. It's not a very long one. This is eight verses long. [00:11:26] Speaker B: And [00:11:29] Speaker A: if you guys want. If you want to open up your scriptures and if you even want to be. I know maybe a lot of you guys are listening to this as you're working or driving, and having a pen and paper or scriptures handy to make notes and writing is probably not a feasible request. But if you want to just take this section and hash this out again on your own when you do have time, I think it's worth an exercise of looking at what it's saying. Verse one says, God standeth in the congregation of the mighty. He judgeth among the gods. Now, I've made a few changes in how I read this. The first word is Elohim. And so Elohim, as we know, can be translated either as gods with an S or God with a capital G is the name of the divine character. I tend to take this and translate it as gods instead of God. The gods stand in the congregation of. And then here, the mighty, the Hebrew word is el. So elohim is the plural form. El is the single form. So in this case, the translators are saying it. The gods plural, they're saying, is a single stands in the congregation of the gods single. And they're making that plural. Doesn't that seem a little bit backwards? Are you guys tracking with this at home, or is this a little bit Confusing. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Let's just push through, dude. We got this. [00:12:56] Speaker A: Okay. And he judgeth among the Elohim. And see, this is where a little bit of confusion, I think, comes in. The way they have it translated, when they say he, obviously they're using third masculine singular. This is single, he judgeth among thee. And now they take the same word, Elohim, and instead of translating it as a capital G, God, they translate it as God's plural. So you're going for where Elohim in the same verse is changing from God's plural to God singular. And I don't like the lack of continuity here. I think if you're going to translate it as God, it should be God all the way through with the context of what we're seeing. So if I were to reread this verse, I translate this as the gods, plural, stand in the congregation of El, the one God. And the one God, he judgeth among the gods, plural. Okay? And so now you have this congregation of gods and one God who's judging among them. He's standing among them, judging them. And he says in verse two, how long will you judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked? And then you have that poetic word, salah, dealing with the music, the tonation, right? How long are you going to be unrighteous here and judge unjustly and accept the persons of the wicked? And I still think this is a weakness that we have today on how we deal with people. How often are we willing to try to make friends with somebody who's wealthy or powerful, or give them a pass because of their position or what we think they can do for us, or try to maybe sweep under the rug, but maybe be harsh on somebody who's out on the street and be a little bit stingent and like, I'm not giving them money. They brought this upon themselves. And this isn't an issue that God is addressing with this council of Gods. He says, verse three, defend the poor and the fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and needy, deliver the poor and needy, rid them out of the hand of the wicked. So he's telling these gods, you're not doing it right. You're giving these powerful people a pass while you're being overly harsh on these other people and not helping them out of their situation. Why are you so eager to be friendly with people of position, of wealth, of power, or try to be friendly with wicked people? And I don't mean to connect wicked with wealthy. I think you understand what I'm saying. Maybe I put that in the wrong. Anyhow, moving to the next verse. They know not, neither will they understand. They walk on in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are out. Of course, now he's continuing his speech. In verse six, I have said, ye are gods. And again we have this Elohim. And Elohim is translated as God's plural again. So in the three times Elohim has shown up, they translate it in singular and then plural and plural. I'm suggesting we do plural, plural, plural, all the way through. I have said, you are gods, all of you are children of. Of Elyon. And again, that title El, that we saw in verse one is coming into play again here. But now it's Elyon, meaning not just the God, but the Most High, Elyon, meaning the Most High God. So you are all children of the Most high God. Verse 7. So, well, let me pause. If Jews are monotheistic, why do we have a psalm of God addressing an assembly of gods and talking to them about how they're judging the earth? Right. Do you have a God over this nation and a God over that nation, and a God over this nation over here? Jehovah's God over Israel. We know that. But maybe Osiris is God over Egypt, and maybe Marduk is God over Babylon. And I'm going to pull all of the gods together and try to get them on the same page. So does that jive with what we understand about Jewish theology? [00:17:10] Speaker B: No. [00:17:10] Speaker A: No. So why. Why is it written there? Who are these gods? Why do we have a whole pantheon on Mount Zion here of gods? Who are these gods? And we get the answer here. I believe in the next verse, but you shall die like Adam and fall like one of the princes. So these gods. So obviously these gods are not perfect, which is understood in the nature of this discussion that's going on. The Most High God is chastising them and saying, you have flaws that you need to work on. So these are not perfect beings. But these gods, he also says, are going to die like Adam and fall like one of the princes. So you have a physical death and a spiritual death that these gods are going to be subjected to. And even though they're going to die spiritually and physically, in verse eight, it finishes, arise, O Elohim. So now they've taken Elohim and they've put it with a capital G again, saying, singular, arise, Elohim, judge the earth. You just gave this speech about how they're judging improperly. Now you come and judge it. I don't read it that way. Like I said, let's be consistent. If it's God's plural, then make it God's plural through the whole thing. Arise, O gods. This is a continuation of Elo, or the great Gods speaking to all of the other gods. Arise, O gods, judge the Earth, for you will inherit all nations. And what does it mean to inherit? To inherit something means to be born into something. You inherit something not because you worked hard for it, but because of the condition of being born. So if you're going to arise because you're going to inherit the nations, you're going to be born into the nations. Arise, O Elohim. You are going to be born among all the nations of the earth. When you get there, you're going to fall like a prince, like Satan, who fell spiritually. Then you're going to die like Adam, and you're going to have a tendency to want to favor the wicked and ignore the people that need your help most. Stop. I want you to care about these people. I want you to help these people. I want you to remember these people. And I want you to remember that you, all of you, are gods. Children of the most high. This is the most convincing passage of any scripture I've ever read that is telling us that we are gods. Who are the gods that they're talking about? Who's the pantheon that lives on Mount Zion? Well, the gods are sent to the Earth to live in all of the different nations of the earth and to die like men, but they're still gods. Is that. Is that making any sense? [00:20:10] Speaker B: I love it. Do you think that this is also some compelling arguments when you're dealing with even other Christians that are like, how dare you suggest we are gods or whatever, that. You know what I mean? [00:20:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. And in fact, I want to build on that because this is not the first time that this pops up in the scriptures. In fact, let's just turning real quick to build off of this to Deuteronomy, chapter 10. Sorry. As I'm flipping through my pages, [00:20:49] Speaker B: I was scrolling through Twitter today, and this. It's funny that we're talking about this, because this was definitely a massive topic of conversation in the Christian. The Christian arguing that Mormons aren't Christians and they think too crazy of things such as, you know, we're all gods and the whole thing. And then, you know, Jesus and Satan are brothers. And it was pretty amazing to watch some pretty simple, clever Twitter accounts basically argue these things as if, like, did God create all things? Yes. Oh, okay, cool. Did God create Jesus? Yes. Okay. Did God create Satan? Yes. Okay. So on some level, we can at least admit that they're like spiritual brothers. And everybody was like, bleh. [00:21:39] Speaker A: Well, here's a question I have. If we want to talk about Christianity and what we have in common, if we believe that as the Psalms convey over and over again, in fact, I found the verse, but I'm going to pause because I want to build off of what you're saying here. I'll come back to that verse and we'll put kind of a spike on it. Psalms, chapter 50 and 59. I'm sorry. And 49, they say, verse 6. They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves and the multitude of their riches, none of them by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for hire, for the redemption of their soul is precious. And it seeth forever that he should still live forever and not see corruption. For he seeth that wise men die. Likewise the fool and the brutish person perish and leaveth the wealth in others. So they're saying here, it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, if you're trusting in that wealth to save you, it's not going to save you. There's no amount of money you can accrue in this world, world that's going to save another person's soul or even save your soul, for that matter. And when you die, that's the end of it. You don't have that anyways. And then going to verse 15. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive me. So here we have in the Old Testament a psalm, and David is very famous for writing a lot of this. We know the. The path he went down with Bathsheba. And he talks about how, you will not leave my soul in hell. You're going to save me, you're going to resurrect me. And we see it in this psalm, even when it says, God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave. And even in the Old Testament, they're talking about life after death and the ability to continue living. If Christians believe the same as we believe that we will continue to live after we die, that Christ will resurrect us and save us and give us life, what's the difference between God and man? Is it not that God lives forever? And so if we believe, Christians and us alike, that we will be able to live forever, is that not believing that we become God on some level? [00:24:13] Speaker B: I would say absolutely I think that you, I think that when you try to make these arguments though, that you're up against a lot more than. I hate saying this, but like logical arguments like that, you know, because again with religion, so much of it obviously is based on faith and should be, but I think that unfortunately that's the. And by the way, like, it's not just other Christians that are guilty this, we are guilty of this a lot of times too, right? When people say, well, I want to understand this, help me follow the logic on this. And you go, well, I don't want to have to do that. It's, trust me, it's just faith based. Right? Because by the way, sometimes that is the answer. Like, I'm not even knocking that. But this is, I'm just saying, to answer your question, I can listen to that and say, yeah, that totally makes sense to me. If we can at least start from the agreement that we will be immortal. That is a godlike quality. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Isn't. Isn't that the difference between gods and men and Greek mythology is that that one dies and the other doesn't? [00:25:28] Speaker B: Yes. So you and I can go, isn't [00:25:31] Speaker A: it in video games? And you turn on God mode in video games, does it just mean you don't die anymore? [00:25:36] Speaker B: Doom too? Yeah, that makes sense to us. But it is what it is. [00:25:42] Speaker A: And if we look at this, I think from the other side, I think the problem with the statement is this idea of blasphemy, making yourself equal to God, this idea that you can't be equal to God. God is the One who created us, who gave us life, who we're always going to be in debt to. And I think we can agree to that. I don't think just by us being exalted and being saved from the grave and being granted to live forever. And coming from a race where we, by the way, we started off with him, we were this assembly that he sent down as we read here in the scriptures, and we are inheriting this gift, this earth. And I don't think we have to disagree on this point. We will always be in debt to God for the life that he gave us and for the redemption that he's offered to us. Even if ultimately we're able to live forever as well. Let me go to the verse in Deuteronomy 10:17 and see if this helps add any kind of clarity to that discussion at all. For the Lord your God. I'm going to stop right here just with that sentence. Who is God? God over. If we say for the Lord, your God. And we're talking about Israel right now. Who is he? God over Israel, Right? He is the God of Israel by very definition, in the very first start of this, your God speaking of Israel is God of gods and Lord of lords. So if he's God of Israel and God of Israel is God of gods, then if A equals B and B C, then A equals C. If he is God of gods and in the same sentence, God of Israel, then that means Israel is gods. They are the assembly of gods that's talked about in Psalms 82. You are the ones. And if he is a God of gods, and he is your God, then are you not the gods that he's referring to so often in the psalms? [00:27:54] Speaker B: Let me ask you a question. [00:27:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:56] Speaker B: What is the, what is the judgment then that he is putting on Israel to, to. To judge each other, to judge the earth? Am I, am I totally just misunderstanding that part of the psalm where it says, in the psalm it. You're reading specifically about how it's like I'm. I'm putting it on you, the gods, [00:28:17] Speaker A: to judge righteously, right? [00:28:20] Speaker B: Yeah, to judge righteously. [00:28:22] Speaker A: Look at when God appears to Abraham and what does Abraham do? You've got God with either two messengers, and it's a group of three or three messengers in God. So you have a group of four, and they're in the desert and Lehi's sitting in the shade and he sees these messengers from afar off. And these people. If you're traveling in this deserted part of the world in the hot heat of the day, you're not as well off, let's say, right? They don't have this big shade and comfort and water and whatever else. Maybe this is going to be putting them kind of in a less fortunate. They're strangers in a strange land. And how do you treat these strangers? And Abraham runs from his position to go and to greet them and to bring them in, to personally wash his feet, to have his wife prepare a meal for them, to have his servant get a calf and prepare and dress the calf and out of his way to treat somebody who's at a disadvantage. And this is what righteous judgment looks like when you see somebody at a disadvantage, go out of your way to help them instead of when you see somebody who's at an advantage. Don't pander and cater to them, because these are the people you're trying to impress, which I think we do so often. Like, what do I do to try to impress this person, to try to suck up to this person? And take care of this person while I'm neglecting the stranger that really needs my attention. Now, you take this same group of visitors and set them in Sodom and Gomorrah back to back, juxtaposing them right to the story of Abraham. And as these strangers come into town, all of the men of the city are saying, look, these guys are strangers. They don't have family, they don't have anything to help them here. They don't have backup, they don't have friends. Let's take advantage of them, let's abuse them. Let's do whatever we can to take advantage of the situation and grind the poor into the dirt. And God is saying to all of his children in the assembly of gods, and how long is this going to be your nature to try to take advantage of somebody who's in a vulnerable position? How long are you going to be trying to take advantage of vulnerable populations and still candor and. What's the word I'm looking for? [00:30:49] Speaker B: Pander. [00:30:50] Speaker A: And maybe it is cater. I don't know. To wealth and power and try to look good and increase your standing while the other people are being neglected in the corner. [00:31:02] Speaker B: Sure, sure. [00:31:04] Speaker A: Okay. I just think that's. That's human nature. [00:31:07] Speaker B: Okay. No, I appreciate that. I appreciate answering that. [00:31:11] Speaker A: Maybe. Maybe I want to just build one more thing off of this. Recognizing that the temple is the very first thing that God prepared even before he put man here on Earth. And what I mean by that is the word temple itself means sacred, set apart, consecrated, dedicated to something. And God separates the light from the darkness, the waters from above, the earth from the waters below the earth, the waters from the land. He plants seeds and he organizes and separates and creates. And then he plants a garden eastward in Eden and dedicates this space as a set apart, special space where God resides on the Earth, to where he can walk in the cool of the day with mankind before he even puts man on the Earth. He creates a home for himself here, and then he creates man in his home. And if we believe that we are God's children and we came from his presence, and if we believe the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, it is a microcosm of what happened on a large scale. Just as we were with him in the Garden of Eden in his presence, and we were sent out of his presence into the lone and dreary world, we were with him in a world before we came here, and we were sent from his presence to inhabit this earth. We are strangers and wanderers in a Strange land as we navigate this earth, which can appear often as alone in a dreary world or a hard place for us to be, that has noxious weeds and thorns and thistles, that we have to overcome and try to create that sacred space again. And when God redeems Israel and pulls them out of Egypt, before he even puts them in the promised Land, before he even gives them a kingdom, a safe place where he can live, he commands them to build a temple and the tabernacle, which embodies this very first sacred space, this idea of the menorah as a tree of life and the curtains with the cherubim. And he recreates that saying, God comes first. And you have to. I have to be a part of your life and your plan if you're going to make it. And when the Jews are let free from Babylon by Cyrus's reign and return back to Jerusalem, before they can build the walls, before they can clean themselves as a people and establish that they have to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, the temple comes first. [00:33:43] Speaker B: And. [00:33:43] Speaker A: And we look at that pattern even today with Joseph Smith and the restoration of the Gospel, when they had to walk away from two temples that they had built before they even had a safe place in a city they could call their own, God said the temple comes first. And we look at. In context of what we're reading in psalms and what we're seeing here. This earth is a gift, our inheritance, something that we are new to. It's a new world for us. But the temple is home. It's where we came from, and it's a place that helps us feel that we are the gods. We are the assembly of gods. And this is where we call home, and this is where we can receive strength as we're navigating this world. [00:34:29] Speaker B: Man, I love that. Very profound. And kind of explains a lot of the very. I don't know, like, the feelings of. I don't know, that you get when you do go to the temple. Right. There's. There's a familiarity about it and a return, a returning feeling about it that I feel at least. So that kind of helps. Describe that. Explain that a little bit better. It's awesome. [00:34:55] Speaker A: All right, thanks, Nate. Hopefully that wasn't too much of a rant. [00:34:59] Speaker B: No, I mean, there's a lot in there. There's like, this. This one's gonna. This one. This one maybe will have to be listened to a couple times by. By the listeners. I know I'll have to go back and dig back into it as well. What Else you got. [00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah, and, and, and, and that's one of the disadvantages of a podcast. If you're just trying to listen and piece this together. I mean, it. It would be great if we could all sit down in a room and just take a board and, and show you as we go through Psalms 82. But if you ever want to go to Psalms 82 and kind of try to follow along with what we said, I think it's an exercise worth repeating if you have a minute. Okay, next, let's go to Psalms 74, verse 2. Remember thy congregation. So again, congregation assembly. When you're talking about God, O God, why hast thou cast us off forever? Why doth thine ager smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy congregation. When I'm talking about the congregation of God, the assembly of God, the assembly of the Elohim. Again, in Zeus or Greek mythology, you're thinking of this pantheon of gods, this assembly of gods. But this is not what the assembly is. Which thou hast purchased of old the rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed. This Mount Zion wherein thou hast dwelt. Lift up thy feet unto thy perpetual desolation. So here we're talking about the assembly again, and the assembly being God's people who he has purchased with the atonement. Again, this idea of fallen gods, gods that have come here on this earth that he will redeem and purchase and set free and re. Establish in heaven once more. Let's move on. [00:36:46] Speaker B: Okay, [00:36:53] Speaker A: See, there's a lot of good stuff in that 74, if you want to keep reading it, but I'm going to skip. There's another psalm I wanted to read. This is Psalms 88, and I want this to maybe provide a little bit of context, I think, in Psalms with the parallels. It might help flavor some of the other stories that we've read in the Old Testament and give it new life. So this is Psalms 88, and I'm going to be reading verse three. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. Now, the Hebrew word for grave here is Sheol. Sheol is the same as the Greek Hades and the same as the Norse hell. It's the spirit world, the spirit realm. So anytime you see grave, if you just want to replace that with Sheol or the spirit world or death, I am counted with them that go down into the pit. And then pit is. Is bore. And I just want to look at the. This, this. Comparing the grave to the pit, drawth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down to the pit. I am as a man that hath no strength, free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave. So once more we have the grave, the spirit world whom thou rememberest no more. And they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit. And again we have a pit again in the darkness of the deeps. So we go, grave pit, grave pit. And it's just making this connection that a pit symbolically is the same as death. Now, with that connection being made, I want you to go back to a story of a young man who was thrown into a pit. If symbolically, his being thrown into the pit represents death, Joseph, in this case, his brothers threw him in the pit. They killed him. His own family killed him. Just as the Jews crucified Christ, his own people crucified him so that he could be raised from the pit, resurrected, and save his brothers, his people that had put him to death. So understanding some of this poetry helps breathe new life into some of these Old Testament stories that we're familiar with. When you understand, oh, that pit is very symbolic of the grave of death. Just as you dig a pit into the ground and bury someone, Joseph was going through a death and a resurrection type deal so that he could save his family and kind of an atonement image. And this is a type of Christian. [00:39:31] Speaker B: That's very cool. [00:39:32] Speaker A: Okay, that. That may be close to. Let's go. Psalms 89 real quick. I'm. I'm about ready to wrap this up though, Nate. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Okay. [00:39:46] Speaker A: Verse 5. In the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O Lord, Thy faithfulness. Also in the congregation of the holy ones. It says saints here. It's the holy ones in the Hebrew again. This congregation of the holy ones, who is this congregation of the holy ones? It keeps showing up over and over and over again in Psalms. It's very thick. For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord? So think about that question for a second. Who in heaven can be compared to the Lord? Who's in heaven? God. But if you're saying, who else in heaven can be compared to the Lord, does that mean God is the only one in heaven? [00:40:32] Speaker B: I mean, does that mean us? [00:40:34] Speaker A: So if you're saying there's a host of people in heaven, you have to be saying there's a host. If you're saying, who in heaven can be compared to God? And you're talking about an assembly of holy ones that are in heaven with him, then without Psalms 82 saying, you are the assembly of gods, you are inheriting this earth, then how else do you Describe In Psalms 89, this assembly of holy beings in heaven? Who of all the pantheon of gods is like unto Jehovah? Which God is like Jehovah is what they're saying can be compared unto the Lord. Who among the sons of Elim, the sons of God, can be likened unto the Lord? So think about that for a second. Who among the sons of God can be compared to Jehovah? Out of all the sons of God, which one is like Jehovah? Wait, I thought Jehovah was God's only begotten. But in here, in Psalms, we're saying, no God has a large host of sons, because remember, he is the Lord of hosts. And if he is the Lord of us, we are his host, the heavenly host. So which one of us is like Jehovah? None of us are like Him. No one can be compared to Him. He is the king of gods. But who are those gods? So if you read Psalms, you either look at this and say that there is a pantheon of gods and that the Jewish religion is polytheistic and you believe in this Zeus and then all of these different gods that are underneath him that reign in heaven, or you believe that we are the assembly of gods, that we have come here to inherit the earth, and that he has a plan for restoring his children back into the heavenly hosts that are above. So that's where I like this section of Psalms. I feel like it's a very. It's laid on over and over again in several of these psalms. Kind of a thick, coherent message. Dope. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Are we out of Psalms next week? [00:42:36] Speaker A: No, next week is our last section of Psalms 100 through 150. Here's next week. What do you get to look forward to? Acrostic psalms. [00:42:46] Speaker B: Okay. I don't know what that is. [00:42:47] Speaker A: I'll teach you all about acrostics, and. Because there's acrostic Psalms. So I'll just give you a little spoiler. Acrostic means, like, the first verse starts with A, the next verse starts with B, the next verse starts with C, the next one D, and so on, so forth. Right. Because it's acrostic. We have some Psalms in the Old Testament, acrostic psalms, where a verse is missing, and we know it's missing because a letter of the Alphabet is just not there in the psalm. And then we go to the Dead Sea Scrolls that have the Book of Psalms in it, and the Missing verses are there. So we can supply your scriptures with verses that fell out between the Dead Sea Scrolls to when the Bible was put together thousands of years later and kind of give you some. I don't know, it's kind of cool when you see the scriptures and how some of the things have. We have clear evidence of things that have disappeared, and we can fill in some of those holes. [00:43:45] Speaker B: Wait, but I thought there's a scripture that says you can't add or take away from the scriptures. [00:43:50] Speaker A: Yeah, well, if it was already taken away, then would you have to add it? [00:43:57] Speaker B: I'm sorry, but that's still, to this day. The funniest one that people hit us with is that you can't add or take away from the Scriptures. [00:44:03] Speaker A: And you're just like, bruv, then, bruv, [00:44:06] Speaker B: tell me that you have no idea how the Scriptures were compiled without telling me you have no idea how the Scriptures are compiled. All right. Great stuff, the Psalms, man. There's a lot of that flying right over my brain. [00:44:20] Speaker A: I'm sorry, guys. [00:44:20] Speaker B: I mean, it is what it is. Look, part of the Old Testament is making it through the Old Testament. It's like Moby Dick, Muddy those waters. Part of it is what it is, man. You just got to make it through. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Hey, I liked your Moby Dick analogy there with Ahab and chasing the well, see, but that's. [00:44:35] Speaker B: That's what I mean. It's like you just kind of. Kind of make it through. I. I showed my kids Gangsters paradise after last week's episode, and now they just request it all day, every day, and I've wondered what I've done. All right, until next week. See ya. It.