Bible in 90 Days - Day 44 (Psalms 109-134)

A prayer from Psalm 119:

¹²     Praise be to you, O Lord;

teach me your decrees.

¹³     With my lips I recount

all the laws that come from your mouth.

¹⁴     I rejoice in following your statutes

as one rejoices in great riches.

¹⁵     I meditate on your precepts

and consider your ways.

¹⁶     I delight in your decrees;

I will not neglect your word.

Since there are actually 88 days of reading, today we are at the halfway point of our journey! Congratulations!

Satan hardly gets mentioned by name in the Old Testament. Outside of the first chapters of Job, Satan is only mentioned in 1 Chronicles 21:1 and Zechariah 3:1-2 (we see the serpent in the Garden as Satan, but Genesis only calls him the serpent). Psalm 109:6 is also a reference to Satan in the King James Version. By the context it is difficult to know if this is impersonal (an adversary) or personal (Satan), since “Satan” means “adversary.” I mention this to note that the enemy in the OT usually is flesh and blood, while the NT enemy more often is spiritual.

Is the idea of covenant becoming clearer during this 90 day project? Do you read a psalm like Psalm 111 in a different light than you used to? When I read covenant in the Psalms now, I say, “That’s me!”

Psalm 113 is divided into three sections. The first is praise to the LORD. What do you see in the second section? I see an appropriate boast and maybe even a taunt. The Psalmist says to every other nation, worldview, and religion: “You’ve got nothing on our God! Our God is way over anything you have!” And then there is testimony of how great God is in the third section. There’s no one like our God!

I mentioned a few days ago that Psalms was not among my favorite Bible books for a long time. I don’t think they were concrete enough. (of course all that has changed!) It shouldn’t surprise anyone that even when I wasn’t fond of Psalms as a “young man,” Psalm 119 stood out as my favorite. Here is something I could sink my teeth into. Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem. EVERY LINE in the first verse starts with aleph, every line in the second verse starts with beth, and on it goes through the whole Hebrew alphabet. Verses 73-80 read like a theological vocabulary list. So much is packed in that little section!

We often see the whole Church in references to Jerusalem. Read through Psalm 122 with this consideration.

Psalm 129:8 is an interesting curse.

Before I knew much about children Gail told me how not to hold a baby. She told me that when I hold a nursing baby in a nursing position, the baby will become active (thinking she will be eating). A non-weaned child with its mother is often not at rest. Psalm 131 describes a child who is at rest, not whining in some wilderness for more food. Vivid picture!