An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 109: Fermat’s Last Commentary (Psalms 66-70)

Psalms 66-70
Fermat’s Last Commentary.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Psalms 66
“Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.”

This psalm is one of praise, calling upon people to “make a joyful noise”. Various examples of the power of God, thus making Him worthy of praise, are given but the psalm seems to focus particularly on the exodus from Egypt, with the parting of the Red Sea and the eventual arrival of the Israelites in Canaan after much wandering. And because of all this the psalmist (not named in this one) will offer up burnt offerings to God. There’s not a lot else to say in commentary on this one.

Psalms 67
“O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah.”

A short psalm (just the seven verses) and a simple one; the theme is “everyone praise God because He is really great”, and there’s not much that can be said on this. What I did notice, however, is that this psalm considers God’s rule to accommodate many nations, rather than being specific and special to the Israelites, which is a noted move from “we’re special because we’ve got the best (or only) God” to “our God is so great everyone should worship Him”.

Psalms 68
“Why leap ye, ye high hills? this is the hill which God desireth to dwell in; yea, the LORD will dwell in it for ever.”

This psalm is attributed to David again, and it’s a tour de force of triumphalism. It has that Davidian touch of calling vengeance upon enemies (with dogs lapping up their blood), but doesn’t dwell on this for a change. It swoops all over the place, from the Exodus to the construction of the temple (referenced in the quoted line – other hills may be taller than the hill of Bashan but they are lesser because they do not carry the temple of God). Also unusually are the lack of the usual metaphors, instead we get God likened to a dove of silver and gold, with an army of thousands of angels in chariots protecting the weak and punishing the wicked. We get enemies melting like wax, but we also get the freeing of the bound, and the solitary placed in families (both of which could be read metaphorically for people coming into the church, I guess). There are the tribes of Israel, singing and dancing; it’s all going on. A bit too much, in my opinion – there’s so much going on here the psalm ends up a bit cluttered. The better ones are those with a bit more singularity and clarity of theme.

Psalms 69
“I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.”

We are on familiar ground for a David psalm here, where he bemoans his fate and how everyone hates him and offers him vinegar to drink when he is thirsty, but how he fully deserves it because he is sunk in a mire of iniquity, and he pleads for God’s forgiveness but also to smite the enemies that beset him. Pretty typical stuff, and there’s some water metaphors for good measure. As usual I’ve been fairly flippant with the summary, but there is some good use of language that is impossible to fully convey in a summary. That the psalmist has sunk so low that he has become “ a song for drunkards” I like; a figure of bawdy fun with no respect. And I think also of note is the end, where the psalmist says that he has nothing to offer God but his prayers (which does highlight that offering animals must be an expensive business, thus making “salvation” a thing of the rich), but that he knows that God will find this agreeable as any oxen or bullock. Which to me looks like another idea that Jesus must have drawn from the psalms – the egalitarianism of prayer as an offering to God compared to material items and livestock.

Psalms 70
“But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying.”

And a short and sharp psalm to finish this batch with, a mere five lines after a couple of much longer psalms. The theme of this one is the same as the last, and many others. “I am needy, deliver me God and punish my enemies”. The brevity works in its favour, and this one feels very much like it ought to be set to music as a slave spiritual (and, thinking about it, many of those probably were derived from psalms or at least the messages of the psalms with the same theme as this one, so it’s no surprise).

Funny that on the back of five simple lines I originally wrote a massive tangent touching on Nietzsche and Islamic State, and how pity and compassion are necessary and not weakness, but I think I’ll save it for another time – there will be more relevant passage to which to attach it, I think.

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