An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 110: Messianic Prophecies and Dodgy Obstetrics (Psalms 71-75)

Psalms 71-75
Messianic Prophecies and Dodgy Obstetrics

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 71

“By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.”

As I start this batch of psalms, we are back on familiar territory. This psalm has no accreditation, nor any musical instruction, but the theme is a typical Davidian one – the psalmist praises God for being his protector (and we get a rock metaphor), hopes that he may always praise God and also mentions the usual doubters and oppressors, although the thirst for vengeance is slightly less. What makes this psalm unusual (so far) is that the psalmist says that God has been with him since birth (as per the quote above), and that now he is “old and gray-headed” he asks that god stay with him – the first cradle to the grave kind of reference that I can recall.

Psalms 72

“He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.”

Now here’s an interesting one. It’s a prayer from David to bless his son Solomon and his future reign, predicting that Solomon will spare the poor and needy and shall dominion “from sea to sea” for “as long as the sun and moon endure”. Now, this is quite directly flagged as a “psalm for Solomon” in the first verse, and the last says that it is the “prayers of David son of Jesse”. However, there is a great deal that I could see being applied by commentators as pertaining to Christ – a lot of the metaphor works well, and I bet that Matthew Henry has interpreted it thus (quick check: Yep. “David begins with a prayer for Solomon. (1) He passes into a prophecy of the glories of his reign, and of Christ's kingdom. (2-17) Praise to God. (18-20)”). I beg to differ here, but then I’ve made my aversion to prophecy plain before. I guess it comes down to my opinion, that David was not consciously prophesying Christ, but directly talking about his son, but that some of the metaphors can coincidentally be applied to the Christian religion, versus a believers point of view that God has ordained all things according to a plan and that David’s words do indeed point to Christ, even if David didn’t realise when he wrote them.

Psalms 73

“For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”

This psalm is attributed to Asaph, and it has a slightly different feel with fairly terse lines that give it a strong immediate rhythm, compared to some of the more flowing lyrical forms. It’s got quite an interesting theme as well, which I think can be summed up as the psalmist having doubts about why he should live a virtuous life when the wicked seem to prosper. The answer comes when he visits the temple and has a realisation that God will punish the wicked eventually, that their success is just a trap for them. It’s quite good in that it addresses that doubt about doing the right thing when everyone else seems to be cheating their way to success, even if I don’t think, sadly, that there will necessarily be any kind of punishment or retribution for the unjust. Better, in my opinion, to do what you think is right for your own sake and forget about people that you think are “getting away with it”, as that way of thinking can only lead to resentment.

Psalms 74

“They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.”

This psalm is billed as a “michtal” of Asaph – I looked up michtal and found that it means a psalm that teaches, but there is nothing specifically didactic that I could find in this one. It is a lamentation; the temple has been defiled, it’s carved wooden pillars hacked and burned (we don’t know by whom). The psalmist is entreating God to help, reminding Him that He “divided the waters” and broke the heads of dragons and leviathan, set out day and night, summer and winter, and exhorting to Him not to forsake his people. All quite tragic, really. I think this is the first time the word “synagogue” has been used, and I wonder if it was a contemporary term or merely one that the translator used to imply a Jewish temple? I can’t help but think of 1930s Europe from that quoted line, which is quite chilling.

Psalms 75

“The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.”

To finish this batch, and reach halfway through the book of Psalms we have a short psalm in the al-taschith mode. This one has God dealing with good and bad people according to their desserts, with the good getting fine wine from God and the bad getting the dregs. I’m not sure what the reference to horns means – musical ones or ones on the head in some kind of metaphorical sense, as in V10 “All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.” Perhaps it is something akin to “blowing your own trumpet”, as one of the messages of this psalm is that all success comes from God, not from you, so don’t be too proud about it.

And with that, we move on to the second half of Psalms; it’s a downhill run from here! Possibly, and I’ve predicted this wrongly before, we will be finding psalms written by other psalmists and not David, which might make for a new mix of styles and ideas, we shall see.