An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 117: Lords and The Lord and Gates of Bronze (Psalms 106-110)

Psalms 106-110
Lords and The Lord and Gates of Bronze.

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 106

“Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.”

I remember last time the previous psalm recapped the patriarchs from Abraham through t Moses, and I mentioned that it was odd that the Red Sea wasn’t discussed. And now here it is, and this psalm continues the recap vein, so I can only assume that the last three were all part of the same writing process.

Here, the psalmist continues to illustrate God’s greatness with examples from earlier biblical stories, and in this case lists all the times during the Exodus that the Israelites went astray – the golden calf, Abiram who disobeyed Moses and Aaron, plagues given for doubting, and of how Moses managed to dissuade God from destroying the Israelites. I think, largely, I can refer the reader to my comments on these events when they were first mentioned in Exodus and/or Deuteronomy, although I thought it interesting that this psalm is more explicit that some people turned to sacrificing their children. I mentioned before how the suggestions of child sacrifice were strong in those earlier books, implying that it was a relatively common cultural practice. Possibly the psalm, as a psalm, is being poetically overblown, but once again there’s that evidential smoke strongly hinting at a fire somewhere.

Psalms 107

“Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”

This psalm is something of a tour de force of “good things that God does”. The quoted phrase above keeps recurring as a chorus, highlighting each section of the psalm wherein the psalmist lists the various mighty deeds of God. These include helping sailors at sea (who “reel like drunken men” in a storm), and of bringing forth bounty from the ground so that people and animals can eat and drink. There are also some other deeds that could have more metaphorical overtones. These are bringing the people out of the wilderness, breaking the “gates of bronze” and setting the poor on high. These can be read as referring to physical things; the formation of Israel and the freeing of the Israelites (either from the old Egyptian bondage or the later Assyrian is not clear), but it could easily be read in a more spiritual fashion as well, of people lost in the “wilderness” of their soul without knowing God. Quite a multi-purpose psalm, this one, and the use of language is good in it as well.

Psalms 108

“God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth.”

This psalm is attributed to David, again. It starts with a short exhortation of praise, along by now familiar lines of offering a joyous noise with trumpet and harp etc., then goes into a more political theme. David, granted the divine mandate of kingship, claims rulership over the Israelite lands of Manasseh and Gilead, and also vows to bring non-Israelite lands such as Moab and Edom under his heel. And finishes with the homily that it is in vain to expect help from mankind; only God can offer true help. Well. It’s a trifle triumphalist is all I can say of that one.

Psalms 109

“Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.”

I think we could class this one as a “difficult” psalm. It’s attributed to David again, and this time he’s back bemoaning his fate and how his enemies beset him with lies. At the same time as calling God to curse not only his enemies but their families, wishing poverty and misery on their children, the psalmist then goes on to pour out how sad and pitiful he himself is and begs God to take mercy on him.

This is not a new theme in the psalms, and an especially common one in those attributed to David, usually placed at the time before he became king when he was running from Saul. But of all of them, this one feels the most hypocritical and small-minded. I think this is not only due to the sharp juxtaposition of how the psalmist complains of his poor straits and yet wishes these on others, but also of how misfortune is wished upon the descendants of the wrong-doers when they are surely blameless.

 I guess this indicates a society where a man’s family and “legacy” are seen as an important thing to him, so by erasing descendants from success you are attacking the father directly. Even so, it seems to be somewhat against Leviticus, let alone common decency,  to be wishing suffering on widows and orphans.

Psalms 110

“Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.”

This is a short little psalm, and it’s quite strange in some ways, almost as if it is a work in progress. The first verse shows how some translation conventions can lead to awkward phrasing: “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool”. So you’ve got God, (the LORD) speaking to, perhaps, a king (the Lord), which I think might be easier to parse in the original Hebraic.

It’s mainly in the vein of a triumphalist psalm, speaking of the violent overthrow of enemies with the help of God – as with a lot of psalms it seems to be speaking of actual physical domination of Zion over enemy nations like Philistia, but could be read (and probably is by Matthew Henry) as being about Christ being victorious over sin. In the last line, after wounding heads and piling up dead bodies, someone (the Lord rather than the LORD, I think), drinks in a brook.

Oh, and again the Lord, not the LORD, is told that he is a priest after the “order of Melchizedek”. I had to look this name up; he crops up in Genesis as a king of Salem, and it looks like a lot of mysticism and speculation has been attached to the name, implying that to be a priest of the order of Melchizedek is to be a Messiah. A strange little nugget, this one.