WEEK 38 |
psalms this week |
"If you give me a thousand dollars and ask me to pray for you, I am no more bound than I was before. I could not pray more for you if you gave me all the world. If I see a need, I pray. I can't help praying when God's Spirit is in me." |
Psalms 112, 113, and 114
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introduction to the Series
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Most of what we learn how to do, we learn from other people. Sometimes it is the learning that comes from specific and deliberate instruction. At other times it is the learning that comes by way of example and imitation. During 2023, our endeavor is to learn how to pray from the Psalmist.*
The Book of Psalms is the longest book in the Bible, and it is mostly a book of prayers. We will spend the year going through the book, beginning to end, and letting the Psalmist teach us by example how to pray. |
In this endeavor, we cannot benefit from his deliberate instruction, of course. What we can do, however, is take full advantage of his example. We will observe how he prays, and we will learn to imitate him.
Our approach will be week by week. The recommended practices and exercises are not daily, but rather suggestions for an individual to implement throughout the whole week. |
Exercises for this week
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Psalm 112
Read Psalm 112. Except for possibly the very first line, this Psalm is not a prayer in the sense of being addressed to God. Indeed, the majority of the Psalm is devoted to describing certain types of human beings and their experiences. And those types of human beings are dealt with unevenly, as verses 1-9 are about one type, while only verse 10 makes reference to the other type.
Number a piece of paper from 1 to 9, with each number representing the corresponding verse of Psalm 112.
Focusing on verses 1-9, make a comprehensive, bulleted list of what the Psalmist tells us about this type of human being. Review the list just made, and evaluate it in terms of attributes versus actions. That is to say, what are the things that this type of person is and what are the things that this person does? Consider the list of attributes. Talk to the Lord about the extent to which that list of attributes describes you. Consider the list of actions. Talk to the Lord about the extent to which that list of actions describes you. Now go back to the original list and evaluate it in terms of cause and effect. That is to say, what things that the Psalmist says about this type of person do you understand to be causes and what things seem to be effects. (For example, if the Psalmist said that this man exercises daily and is the picture of health, we would say that the former is "cause" and the latter is "effect.") Talk to the Lord about the cause and effect of godly living. Talk to the Lord about your own experience of the cause-and-effect implied in Psalm 112. As noted above, while the majority of the Psalm is about the godly person, the final verse makes observations about the wicked person.
While Psalm 112 is not addressed to God, still one senses that the Lord is still central to the Psalm. Read the Psalm again, this time focusing especially on the Lord. What does the Psalm tell you, whether directly of indirectly, about Him? Talk to the Lord about what Psalm 112 reveals about Him. Psalm 112 begins with an expression of praising the Lord, yet the remainder of the Psalm does not read like a Psalm of praise. What do you understand to be the relationship between praising the Lord and the rest of the Psalm? |
Psalm 113
Read Psalm 113. This Psalm is a Psalm of praise. Accordingly, as with previous Psalms of praise, begin by identifying the "reasons why" -- i.e., the expressed rationale for praising the Lord. Make a list of the explicit and implicit reasons why the author of Psalm 113 praises the Lord.
Review the list just made.
Review the list again.
Read verse 3 in a variety of translations. Your review of various translations of verse 3 probably yielded two primary options. Either the Psalmist is saying a spatial thing (from the east to the west) or a temporal thing (from sunrise to sunset). Which is your sense of what the Psalmist is saying? In truth, it would be appropriate to speak of praising the Lord both spatially and temporally -- that is, to praise Him at all times and to praise Him in all places.
Make a list of the first 10 nations that come to your mind. In verse 4, the Psalmist declares that "the Lord is high above all nations" (ESV). Now read that verse aloud, but instead of saying "all nations," insert the list of nations that you made, reading them thoughtfully as part of that verse. Read verses 4-6. What mental pictures are brought to mind by those verses. Jot down a description of the Lord as those verses prompt you to envision Him. Read verses 7-9. What mental pictures are brought to mind by those verses. Jot down a description of the Lord as those verses prompt you to envision Him. Talk to the Lord about the Psalmist's juxtaposition of verses 4-6 with verses 7-9, and what, taken together, they reveal about Him. In verses 7-9, the Psalmist attributes to the Lord dramatic reversals of fortune.
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Psalm 114
Read Psalm 114. This brief Psalm extols the Lord in recalling an episode from Israel's history. As you read it, how would you characterize:
Clearly the recalling of the exodus event by the Psalmist is a poetic one. He is not trying to take a photograph of the event so much as paint a portrait of it. Consider the language and imagery used, and reflect on what the Psalmist is trying to convey. Having reflected on the Psalmist's poetic and picturesque language, make two side-by-side lists. The first might be titled "Facts About the Event" and the second might be titled "Truths About the Lord." Complete both lists based on Psalm 114. Hebrew poetry, with its characteristic parallelism, often features two lines that are saying the same thing but in different ways, or repeating an idea with an added nuance. Read verse 3 in several translations. Do you perceive the verse to be referring to same event in two different ways, or does the Psalmist have two different events in view? Consider the parallelism of verse 1. The first part of the verse refers to both Israel and Egypt, while the second half of the verse features different ways of referring to both places/people. Why do you suppose the Psalmist chose what he did as the alternative reference to Egypt? What is the effect of that poetic device? Consider the parallelism of verse 2. In two different parts of the verse, there are two different ways of referring to God's people and two different ways of referring to what they became. The idea with such parallelism is that the two words in such balancing, synonymous phrases are meant to be interchangeable. Talk to the Lord about the two words the Psalmist uses to describe what God's people became, and the implications of using those two words as synonyms (or at least as interchangeable words). Verses 3 and 4 poetically report certain actions or responses by nature, while verses 5 and 6 follow by asking questions of nature about its actions or responses.
Read 1 Peter 2:9-10 in a variety of translations. Reflect on the first two verses of Psalm 114 in light of the 1 Peter passage. What resonance do you detect between the two passages? Talk to the Lord about how the first two verses of Psalm 114 and 1 Peter 2:9-10 are related to you.
As noted above, the recalling of the exodus event is a poetic one. Follow the Psalmist's lead, and write your own Psalm that poetically recalls the Lord acting in history to set His people free. In your case, however, make it a Psalm that recalls Good Friday and Easter Sunday. |
* We will refer to the author as “the Psalmist,” though of course not all of the Psalms were written by the same person. A significant number are attributed to David. Others are associated with Asaph, the sons of Korah, and an assortment of other individuals. Also, several dozen Psalms have no name attached to them. For the sake of ease and uniformity, we will simply refer to “the Psalmist.”