An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 98: Good People, Bad People, Fools and Words of Silver (Psalms 11-15)

Psalms 11-15
Good People, Bad People, Fools and Words of Silver.

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 11
“For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.”

I don’t think that I’ve mentioned so far whilst reviewing the psalms that the language used is often very lush and poetic. As with Job, you kind of need to read the whole thing to really appreciate it, and my one verse quotes don’t necessarily do them justice. I’ve not noticed any kind of rhyme or meter to the psalms, which if they are pieces to be sung or chanted to music you might expect. Hard to tell if the translators just didn’t bother with trying to replicate this (which is very difficult to do and keep the sense of the poetry as well) or if they were never written like that anyway.

As for content, a short psalm that says that God will punish the wicked, and if righteous men are beset by the wicked they should put their faith in God to judge between them. It feels like it ought to be that this psalm says that God will protect the righteous, but it doesn’t say that outright; only that He likes the righteous and hates the wicked.

Psalms 12
“The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:”

As with psalm 11, this is again about how bad people will be punished, in this case specifically the vain and flatterers; those who use words for their own service, I guess. By contrast, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.” Very similar to psalm 11 in content.

Psalms 13
“Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;”

I think this is the shortest psalm yet, only six verses, and it’s quite a tragic one, where the singer pleads with God not to overlook him whilst he is beset by troubles, lest the enemies that are troubling him think that they have got the better of him. “How long wilt thou forget me Lord?” the singer asks. Very reminiscent of Job again, and a good demonstration of how hard it must be to keep faith in a benevolent protector when the world seems set against you.

Psalms 14
“They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”

A very misanthropic psalm, this one. People are all horrible, but they’ll regret it one day. Previous generations feared God, now people don’t. “The fool hath said in his heart: there is no God”. Oops, that’s me! Obviously I take issue with being called a fool, but also I think that the writer is using “fool” to specifically mean someone who denies God, in that to a religious person to do so is akin to denying yourself medicine that will make you well. The singer looks to salvation to come from Zion, and for, I’m not sure of the meaning of this bit “when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people.” As this psalm is claimed to be written by David, it predates by a long way the Babylonian captivity, so it can’t mean a restoration of the captives. Does it mean a return to captivity? If so, why would the singer want this? “Captivity” in a metaphorical sense, as in within the fold of God? But surely this is a covenant, entered freely and mutually, and not captivity?

Psalms 15
“(A Psalm of David.) LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?”

This psalm is even shorter – five verses. It describes the kind of person who will “abide in the tabernacle” as asked in the first line. The one that does no evil to his neighbour, who reviles bad people and loves the righteous, and doesn’t lend money for interest. That last is much more concrete and specific than the other criteria, which are a bit more vague. Surely most people think that they “worketh righteousness”, even when they are doing selfish or hurtful things. But otherwise it’s a harmless enough exhortation to live a decent life, and to be fair there are books of the bible with more specific rules on what this means and it’s not the place of the psalm to give them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dr Simon Reads... Appendix N. Part One: Poul Anderson

Image
Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N: Introduction This is a new series that will feature sporadically, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. You will either know what I mean by “Appendix N”, or you will have no clue. In the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax provided a large number of appendices, from random smells to reputed magical properties of herbs and gemstones. Appendix N was a bibliography of works that inspired him. Back in 1982 when I first got hold of this book, there were only a couple of items on there that I’d read, and only a few other authors that I’d even heard of. Many years later, after, much reading, I returned to Appendix N expecting to have added greatly to the works on there that I’d read; but actually, there were still very few. Many of the authors were obscure or out of print authors of, for want of a better expression, golden age pulp; the kind that feature in Amazing Stories and the like. Now, ...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 121: Closing Thoughts

It took half as many posts to tackle the Qur'an as it did the Bible, 120 compared to 248, but it felt like longer sometimes. Perhaps because the Qur'an is written by a single man and deals with pretty much the same topic over and over, whereas the Bible is a compilation of multiple works, some of which are historical, some apocalyptic, some laws or building instruction, some philosophical, some poetic, some a bit of each. From that point of view, I'd have to say that the Bible was the more interesting work to read. Have I learned any great wisdom from the Qur'an? I'd have to say … no, not really. Granted, I probably didn't approach it with a particularly deep understanding of the material in the first place, but that (as with the Bible readthrough) was always my intent. Picking through line by line is still something of a deep dive, and in both books I tried to be alert for symbol and metaphor. Doing it that way, however, it's easy to miss thematic callb...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 140: The Fall and Rise of (Slightly Tarty) Cities (Isaiah 21-25)

Isaiah 21-25 The Fall and Rise of (Slightly Tarty) Cities 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: Isaiah 21 “And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:” Isaiah has a vision that causes him pain like the pain of childbirth, apparently. From out of the desert comes a chariot bearing news that Babylon has fallen, but I don’t know to whom. This chapter says to “ watch in the watchtower ”, from which I guess the Jehovah’s Witnesses get the name of their little newsletter. Also Isaiah, or the people to whom he speaks, are told to “ go set a watchman ”; another line ...
Read more