Pairing Of Psalms

“And David said to Michal, ‘It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will celebrate before the Lord.” – 2 Samuel 6:21

“Your procession is seen, O God… Awesome is God from his sanctuary, the God of Israel—he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.” – Psalm 68:24, 35

Have you ever wished you could know what was in someone’s mind, particularly during a moment of crisis or celebration? The Psalms give us a glimpse into David’s inner life: when he fought Goliath, he wrote: “you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” When Saul tried to kill him: “O my strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress.” When he ate the holy bread while on the run from Saul: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” When he was so afraid of the king of Gash that he pretended to be insane: “when I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” When eighty-five priests were cut down because of him: “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.” When spies revealed his location to Saul: “the Lord is the upholder of my life.” Pairing the Psalms with the passages they explicitly or implicitly refer to brings out deeper meanings for both texts. Here is a list of generally-accepted pairings:

1 Sam 17 – Psalm 9

1 Sam 19 – Psalms 11, 59

1 Sam 21 – Psalms 34, 56 

1 Sam 22 – Psalms 17, 35, 52, 64, 140, 142

1 Sam 23 – Psalms 31, 54 

1 Sam 24 – Psalms 57, 58, 63

1 Sam 27 – Psalm 16, 141

2 Sam 6 – Psalm 68

2 Sam 10 – Psalms 20, 21

2 Sam 12 – Psalms 32, 33, 51, 103

2 Sam 15 – Psalm 3

2 Sam 16 – Psalm 7

2 Sam 17 – Psalms 4, 42, 43, 55, 62, 70, 71, 143, 144

2 Sam 22 – Psalms 18, 109

Emptying

“Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” – John 12:3

Every time we see Mary, she’s at the feet of Jesus: learning (Luke 10:39), grieving (John 11:32), and here, worshipping. Mark tells us that the ointment of nard came in an alabaster flask, which Mary broke (Mark 14:3). Nard was exported from the Himalayans, and this amount would have been worth 300 days’ wages; it was likely their financial security. But the nature of the jar was all-or-nothing: she could not have given just part of it, even if she’d wanted to; she had to break it apart and give it all. 

One chapter later, we once again see someone tending to the feet of those gathered for a meal, under the shadow of Judas. This time, it’s Jesus, enacting Philippians 2 by taking off his robe (“did not consider equality with God a thing to be held on to”), tying a towel on (“taking on the form of a servant”), washing feet (“humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death”), putting his robe on and returning to his place (“God has highly exalted him”). This downward-shaped parabolic movement is often called the “kenosis,” from the Greek word for “emptied” found in Philippians 2:7. Emptied. Like the alabaster jar.

I read somewhere, “Judas is following Jesus because of what it gets him. Mary is following Jesus despite what it costs her.” I’ve always been struck by the radical beauty of Mary’s act, but really, it points to the beauty of what Jesus is about to do for her. He emptied himself, at great cost. Sometimes we forget that Jesus existed before he came into our world. While he was fully God on earth, there were things he gave up to take on human form. And every step on earth was a step towards the cross, where he emptied himself of life and poured out his blood for my sake. I think of the smell that must have filled the room when Mary broke open the jar, and I think of how Paul put it: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). 

Speaking The Glory

“Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” – John 12:41-43

What is God’s glory? We bandy the phrase about as if it’s common knowledge, yet when you look it up, you get enigmatic phrases like “the infinite excellency of the Divine essence.” Herman Bavinck says: “The ‘glory of the Lord’ is the splendor and brilliance that is inseparably associated with all of God’s attributes and his self-revelation in nature and grace, the glorious form in which he everywhere appears to his creatures.” God’s glory is the infinite, indescribable perfection and glory of all of his attributes. He is not only loving, but glorious in his loving; not only just, but glorious in his justice. 

Just before this passage, John quotes Isaiah chapter 6, in which we read: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his—” holiness, surely? But no—“glory!” God’s glory is his inherently great and beautiful holiness, but it is also the going-public of his holiness, the way he makes it manifest, the way he puts it on display for us to comprehend. There is an interior-exterior dynamic at play, which Bavinck’s definition also gets at. And that interplay exists too in our true response to God’s glory: it is not enough to see it and believe it. We must confess and display it. As Jonathan Edwards wrote, “Sometimes [glory] is used to signify what is internal, inherent, or in the possession of the person: and sometimes for emanation, exhibition, or communication of this internal glory.”

John makes a contrast here. Both Isaiah and “many even of the authorities” saw God’s glory: Isaiah saw God on his throne, the seraphim, the smoke, the shaking (Isaiah 6). The “many” saw Jesus (“we have seen his glory,” John 1:14), who is literally “the glory that comes from God.” Yet while Isaiah “said” and “spoke,” the “many” did not confess. Why? The word for “glory,” doxa, means on the simplest level “opinion, view.” They cared more about the opinion of others than they did about the opinion of God. They cared more about how others viewed them than they did about Jesus himself.

The Pharisees were the largest, most important group of Jews at that time, who controlled the synagogue and the perceived way to God. How often do we silently believe in our hearts, but fail to confess, to live it outwardly in some way, because we don’t want to lose a certain kind of community or credibility? We may hesitate to admit a sin addiction to another person, or let people at work know what we believe, or live counter-culturally if we’re the only ones doing it. Confession, especially around here, can come at a cost. Love for the glory of man runs deep in us. It takes a heart-experience of the glory of God to transform us. It takes being touched with the burning coal, with Jesus who truly takes away our sins. May we be people who not only want to shine out the being of God but experience His delight in us when we do so. 

Ponders Or Pours

“The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.” – Proverbs 15:28

Why is it easy to speak to nearly everyone else in our lives with more kindness than to our spouse? We can reserve for our spouses not necessarily open disrespect, but a careless, curt, or snappy manner of speech that we would not use to address anyone else. It’s the kind of speech that leaks out in everyday, private moments, when we’re already drained from work, the kids fighting, or any number of other stressors.

The truth is, speaking with care and affection takes a certain level of emotional reserve and intentionality, which I habitually apply to my children, my patients, my friends and ministry partners, more than I do to my husband. I’m grateful he’s a steadfast and safe listener, but there’s a difference between honestly sharing my struggles with him, and displacing my frustrations upon him, and it’s alarmingly easy to forget that he is just as (if not more) deserving and in need of my affection as anyone else. Particularly if you are, like me, not a terribly sensitive person, these things can escape awareness, but they inevitably accrue to affect the atmosphere of the marriage in a way that has effects.

There are two words at play in this proverb, both evoking sounds. “Ponders” is Hebrew hagah and means literally “to murmur, to mutter, to growl”: it is used of the growl of a lion over his prey (discussed in the first post on this blog), of low thunder, of the muttering of an enchanter, of the sound of a harp when struck, of the cooing of doves. These are sounds that create atmosphere, that linger or herald. When we ponder our words, we pause and mull them over. We try them out first in our minds. We consider the tone and pitch they set; we consider how they will go down for the listener; what they portend. 

“Pours” is Hebrew naba and means “to gush out”: the sound of the word itself is meant to mimic that of boiling or bubbling water. When we pour out our words in this sense, we are not in real control; we are letting our words run the path of least resistance. We are deluging the listener. We are venting rather than sharing. We are not being thoughtful.

For some reason, when we pour out our words, they are more likely to be harmful, even evil. Pondering our words gives us the ability to be more intentional about the atmosphere we are creating in our marriage. It is the bent of a heart that cares about righteousness, ultimately not about pleasing our spouse, but being right with God. Our spouse, after all, is His son or daughter, entrusted to us while they are on this earth, as much as He has entrusted to us our children or ministries. God, help me understand the effect of my words on my husband, and to treat him with the care and genuine affection that he needs, that reflects his true worth to me and my true care for him.

The Medium Of Endor

“Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do.” – 1 Samuel 28:15

This is certainly a strange passage. Saul, afraid of the Philistines, reaches a new low: unable to hear from God by other means, he consults a medium, breaking a law that he himself had set (28:3) and which directly violated the law of God (Deuteronomy 18:9-11). He goes to the trouble of disguising himself and traveling past the Philistine camp to reach Endor, and stranger yet, Samuel appears from the dead. Most commentators believe this truly is Samuel; it is unclear whether he is summoned by God or by necromancy or how much the medium knows. 

But what is most striking to me about this episode is how clearly it fulfills words Samuel spoke to Saul the last day Saul saw him alive: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king” (1 Samuel 15:22-23). Divination is abhorrent to God because it is idolatry, a rejection of God’s word in seeking supernatural guidance elsewhere. The fact that Saul resorts to such means shows us something: he is desperate to know the future. He is desperate to know what will happen. He wants to be told what he should do, but he doesn’t really have a heart of obedience. He disobeys in the worst ways just to ask.

How many of us have said, “I just want to know God’s will! I just want to know what God wants me to do. If he would just tell me, that’s all it would take.” We ask because we want a God we can “summon” for information. We are not asking for wisdom, really: we are asking for knowledge, a specific kind of knowledge about the future. We want outward data, but God cares more about inward direction. We listen for future answers, but God desires the kind of listening that is lived out in present obedience. It is that kind of obedience that changes who we are, and God ultimately cares more about who we are than just what we do. What good is it knowing which job to pick if you’re still idolizing it? Which person to marry if you’re still selfish? If God told us what he wanted, would we really do it? Has not God already told us what his will is for us, all throughout the Bible, implicitly and in many places, explicitly? 

The irony is that Saul goes to desperate, criminal measures only to hear from Samuel the same thing he’s heard in the past. There’s little new information offered, and what is new is bad. “Sheol” means “the asking place,” and “Saul” means “the asked for one”: in a grim play on words, we learn the asking place will now receive the asked-for one. Knowledge without obedience has only led Saul to death. Chronologically, this story is out of order: it is sandwiched prematurely into the story of David as he lives with the Philistines (27:1-28:2 on one side, 28:3-25 on the other), which brings out interesting comparisons. Both David and Saul are outside of the Israelite camp, but while the medium at Endor asks Saul, “why have you deceived me?” the prince of Gath tells David, “I know that you are as blameless in my sight as an angel of God” (29:9). We see from these stories that true future life and victory comes when we are willing to search out any rebellion or presumption in our hearts, and to live out a listening obedience in the present. 

Puritan Prayer

From a puritan book of prayers:

Help me.

I am so slow to learn,

   so prone to forget,

   so weak to climb;

I am in the foothills when I should be

   on the heights;

I am pained by my graceless heart,

   my prayerless days,

   my poverty of love,

   my sloth in the heavenly race,

   my sullied conscience,

   my wasted hours,

   my unspent opportunities.

I am blind while light shines around me:

   take the scales from my eyes,

   grind to dust the evil heart of unbelief.

Make it my chiefest joy to study thee,

   meditate on thee,

   gaze on thee,

   sit like Mary at thy feet,

   lean like John on thy breast,

   appeal like Peter to thy love,

   count like Paul all things dung.

Give me increase and progress in grace so that there may be

   more decision in my character,

   more vigour in my purposes,

   more elevation in my life,

   more fervor in my devotion,

   more constancy in my zeal.

As I have a position in the world,

   keep me from making the world my position;

May I never seek in the creature

   what can be found only in the Creator;

Let not faith cease from seeking thee

   until it vanishes into sight.

Ride forth in me, thou King of kings and Lord of lords,

   that I may live victoriously,

   and in victory attain my end.

Ambulation

“A man of understanding walks straight ahead.” – Proverbs 15:21

“For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” – Psalm 116:8-9

The first time I saw a labyrinth, I didn’t see the point. It seemed like a lot of moving without going anywhere. But the point is the movement, which I felt again today when I had the chance to walk one. When you walk a labyrinth, you know where you will end up (the center, or back at the entrance point). You know where to place your next step on the path. But there is just enough complexity that you can’t completely trace all the points in between. And what you realize as you walk through it is that you don’t need to. Once you begin to let go of that, and just put one foot in front of the other, you become newly aware of things. Exterior things, like the breeze and the trees, the chirping of birds nearby, the expanse of sky above and the feel of the path below. Interior things, like longings and fears and questions. The steps become a metaphor for the spiritual journey, a way to physically walk out an intention or prayer.

It’s a bit disarming how faraway-clear the goals of my life were in early adulthood. I knew at the age of 14 where I would be when I was 18, and 22, and 26. In medicine, you start preparing for applications four years in advance, study for tests half a year in advance, all the little goals coalescing into bigger goals, never a question really of what you will be doing. Even after training is finished, the tendency is to keep living life from station to station: career advancement, home acquisition, family establishment. 

But this year has brought me to a place unexpectedly out of that mold. I feel like I did in the labyrinth: I know our values and mission and the ultimate end of things that matter, and the next few exploratory steps are concrete enough, but the middle is unclear. There’s no distinct timeline or goal. There’s no knowing what factors will come into play. There’s only one foot in front of the other. 

The kind of understanding that I tend to want is to see all the steps to the end, but sometimes understanding is simply to walk the next step ahead. Not run or skip, not sit or dawdle, but walk: a regular, rhythmic, intentional movement forward one step at a time. When we move like this, we are more able to be present to ourselves and those around us. We are more able to test our hopes and exercise our faith. We are more able to address the questions God really cares about: not, what specific outcome am I going to get? but, what direction is my heart and mind growing towards? “For we are his workmanship,” Paul tells us in Ephesians 2: “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Not work in them, but walk in them. He has delivered us and prepared us for this good purpose.

David And Jonathan

“And as soon as the boy had gone, David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times. And they kissed one another and wept with one another, David weeping the most. Then Jonathan said to David, ‘Go in peace, because we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord.’” – 1 Samuel 20:41-42

It's hard not be struck by the physical and emotional expression in David and Jonathan’s friendship. Sarah Sumner writes, “No, they weren’t gay. It is not gay for a man to love another man.” We are so conditioned to think about sex that we have a hard time conceiving of genuine affection. She taught her third grade students, “Hardly, hardly ever is love meant to be romantic. Nearly, nearly always love is meant to be for family and friends.” It wasn’t sexual when John the apostle reclined his head on Jesus’ breast (John 13:23), when the Ephesian elders “wept aloud” and “embraced” and “repeatedly kissed” Paul as they saw him for the last time (Acts 20:37). It wasn’t sexual when David and Jonathan kissed and cried as they said goodbye.

Some of this can be cultural: when I first moved to the Bay Area, I was struck by how much less people hugged here compared with in southern Virginia. I missed the long, close hugs of my old girl friends. But culture aside, I wonder if there really is such a thing as “the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8): a pure, deep fondness felt for a spiritual friend, expressed in touch and tears, in a way that is not only healthy but reflects the affection that Jesus has for us. Children understand this best, I think. Children are always touching us. They cry because they miss us. They use the word love all the time.

We’ve lost something of this in our current-day conception of male friendship. Traditional ideas of masculinity do not tend to include being deeply relational or emotionally expressive. Yet when Lazarus died, Jesus cried so hard for him that his love for Lazarus was evident (“See how he loved him!” John 11:36). We see the weeping of David in Jesus himself. They were men who cried for their friends, loved their friends, changed plans for their friends, sacrificed for their friends. 

It can be hard to find friendships like this, man or woman. The older I get, the more I realize how much intentionality, commitment, and sacrifice it takes to be a true friend. But this story reminds me that it’s worth it. It encourages me to see and be thankful for the friends I have. It challenges me to keep praying for and being open to new and deepening friendships. It exhorts me to be willing to give things up for my friends. And in this story I see Jesus, who like David is my King, yet calls me his friend. He feels affection: he not only loves me, but likes me. He lay down his life for me, for the very reason that I am his friend (John 15).

Firm And Steady Hearts

“He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid.” – Psalm 112:7-8

The condition of the righteous man’s heart is described here with two similar words. The word translated “firm” is Hebrew kuwn, used over 200 times in the Old Testament, meaning literally “to stand upright,” establish, set up. The word translated “steady” is Hebrew camak, a rarer word, meaning “to place or lay upon something, so that it may rest upon or be supported by it.” If you trace the 49 times it occurs in the Bible, for a long time you read about the laying of hands, by a priest on an animal, by a leader to his successor. You read about Samson, leaning with all his weight onto pillars on either side. Finally, you read about how the psalmists lean on God, who sustains (3:5) and upholds (37:17, 51:12, 54:4, 145:14). And this gem in Isaiah 26:3: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed [camak] on you, because he trusts in you.”

It’s almost as if the second word is an elaboration of the first. This man’s heart is established, not by his own doing or strength, but because he is leaning on God. There is an implication here that we live in a world teeming with the threat of bad news, and the natural thing is to let fear seep in, to be unstable in the interior world of our thoughts, feelings, being. The fear of bad news is often at the root of our anxiety, our inability to wait, our withdrawal, our confusion. What would your life look like if you were never afraid of bad news?

That would be more than mere imperturbability: it would be a perfect peace. But look carefully: it is God who keeps us in perfect peace: our part is to keep our mind stayed on him. When you lean on something, you put all your hopes on it. It is the priest putting all his hopes on the animal sacrifice to atone for the sins of his people. It is Moses committing his hopes for his people onto Joshua. It is Samson placing one last hope at the end of his life onto two pillars. It is the living out of trust. What we lean on is what we actually trust.

Psalm 112 is an acrostic poem, each line beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. There is a kind of liturgy the author follows, in tracing through the familiar, unchanging pattern of the alphabet the truths he knows about God and how the man who fears him is blessed. I’ve been sorting through a lot of news lately, some of it bad. I feel the inner landscape of my thoughts and feelings shifting all the time. But into the change shines these verses, like an anchor of light dawning in the darkness (verse 4). There are a lot of things we can’t lean on, not really, in this world: our jobs, children, health, parents, possessions, minds, talent. But we can lean on God. And He can keep us in perfect peace.

From Thirst To Rivers

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” – John 7:37-39

During the Festival of Booths (Deuteronomy 16:13, Numbers 29:12), there was a ceremony of water-pouring that, though never recorded in the Bible, is well-documented historically: at dawn on the first seven days of the festival, a priest would lead a procession down to the pool of Siloam, where a golden pitcher was filled with water. The procession returned to the temple as the morning sacrifice was being offered, and the water was poured out at the altar as the temple choir began to sing the Great Hallel (Psalms 113-118). The ceremony was not enacted on the eighth day. It is among a crowded throng of thirsty pilgrims, after enactment of God’s past provision and their continued need, that Jesus makes this proclamation, the same one he made to a solitary Gentile woman by a well (4:14).

Jesus gives us the living water of eternal life. But he doesn’t go on to say, “into” our hearts will flow living water. That would be the logical conclusion. The movement is in the opposite direction: “out of” our hearts flow rivers. No one knows for sure what Jesus is quoting here, but one possible reference is Ezekiel 47, where we see water flowing from the temple, first ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then waist-deep, then becoming a river that one cannot pass through. A river deep enough to swim in, that gives life wherever it goes, on whose banks are trees with leaves that do not wither and fruit for healing. We see similar imagery in Revelation 22, where the “river of the water of life, bright as crystal” flows from the throne of God through the city with the tree of life on its banks. 

And so, this is not just water-talk, but temple-talk. Jesus is God tabernacling on earth; the Spirit flows like the river, received after Jesus was “glorified.” “Throughout John’s gospel,” writes N.T. Wright, “there is a build-up towards the ‘glorification,’ the ‘lifting up,’ of Jesus—which turns out to be, with heavy paradox, the crucifixion of Jesus seen as the moment when his glory is fully and finally revealed, when the love of God which was always at work in him shines out most fully.” We are filled with the Spirit not for our own sake, but for the sake of spreading God’s glory and life into the wider world. This is a feast not only of celebration, but of vocation. After all, that was the ceremony: the filling in, the pouring out. We drink not to become lakes, but rivers, until “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Prudent In Speech

“Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” – 1 Samuel 16:18

David will go on to become the most frequently mentioned man in the Bible aside from Jesus, but it’s interesting that here, the first time we really hear about him from someone, we learn that he is “prudent” in speech—Hebrew biyn, meaning discerning, eloquent. Perhaps the speaker was providing assurance that David was sufficiently politically correct for a royal court, but regardless, the statement is made. It stands in striking contrast to a story just two chapters earlier, in which Saul makes a rash vow that results not only in the fatigue and sin of his people, but in the near-death of his own son: “Cursed by the man who eats food until it is evening and I am avenged on my enemies” (14:24). Saul speaks in the heat of the hard-pressed day. His words are a curse. He is motivated by self-concern. We do not hear a word from David at all yet: but apparently he speaks with such prudence that he has acquired a reputation for it.

Our language matters: it is highlighted in both the downward trajectory of Saul, and David’s first rise to notice. What does it mean to be prudent in our speech? Prudence implies a kind of sagacity and judgment. To speak with prudence is to speak out of a right view of things. Jesus says in Matthew 5, “Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.” We understand how to speak when we understand God’s place in this universe, and when we understand ours. We understand how to speak when we understand that our words carry weight: they refer to real things with real spiritual realities. They reflect the ordering of our hearts and minds. They shape the realities of the people and world around us.

Eugene Peterson writes, “Every time we open our mouths, whether in conversation with one another or in prayer to our Lord, Christian truth and community are on the line. And so, high on the agenda of the Christian community in every generation is that we diligently develop a voice that speaks in consonance with the God who speaks, that we speak in such a way that truth is told and community is formed.” Our language matters. May we cultivate through our speech a consonance with the God who is always speaking. May we be known for our prudence.