Today’s Word
Back to the Beginning
“With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him; surely every man is a mere breath.” Selah. Psalm 39:11 NASB Precious– By now we should have noticed that David’s vocabulary pushes us back into the history of Israel. From allusions to Moses, we returned to Egypt. From Egypt we made our…
David and the Midrash
“With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him; surely every man is a mere breath.” Selah. Psalm 39:11 NASB Reproofs– The apostolic letters don’t stray far from roots in the Tanakh. We should not be surprised. The letters are commentary on the Bible of the apostles, the Tanakh. So…
Contagious
“Remove Your plague from me; because of the opposition of Your hand I am perishing.” Psalm 39:10 NASB Am perishing– There’s a lot of important vocabulary here. There are also a lot of “connect-the-dots” clues. Let’s start with “remove.” The verb is sur, here in the imperative, ha-ser. In other words, David doesn’t ask. He demands. “YHVH,…
Back to Square One
“I have become mute, I do not open my mouth, because it is You who have done it.” Psalm 39:9 NASB Become mute– Where have we heard this before? Oh, yes, verse 2. The same verb, the same tense. Bound. Tied up. But between verse 2 and verse 9, David has really said quite a bit. He has revealed…
The Topography of Blame
“Deliver me from all my transgressions; make me not the reproach of the foolish.” Psalm 39:8 NASB Reproach – David’s song reaches a crescendo. It starts with silence, then proceeds to murmur, explodes in what appears to be judgment, but swiftly turns into an indictment of humanity and a personal disclosure. The audience is kept off guard, reeling…
The Turning Point
“And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.” Psalm 39:7 NASB For what – Remember the punctuation. Hebrew doesn’t have any. So the phrase, ma(h)-q-qiwwiti, could be a question or it could be a statement, like, “I wait for.” Or it could be, “Now, Lord, what. I wait.” The verb is qāwâ,…
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