An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 113: A Messianic Instruction Manual. Plus the Birth of YOLO (Psalms 86-90)

Psalms 86-90
A Messianic Instruction Manual. Plus the Birth of YOLO.

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 86

“Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.”

And so we continue. I originally called this the “Month of Psalms”, on the basis that 150 chapters, at 5 chapters per day would take 30 days. But I don’t write every day, and I’ve been very slow on these, not so much because the subject is quite repetitive but because of real-life effects. It’s probably better, to be honest, to space the psalms out a bit lest to dilute their effects a bit.

So this one is billed as being by David again, and it’s a fairly typical one for him – praising God’s greatness and calling for help in times of need. In this one though, the sentiment is more that the psalmist knows that he can trust God to be there when he needs him (in contradiction to the psalms that ask God why He has abandoned the psalmist…). This one emphasises the merciful aspects of God rather than the mighty creator and vengeful enemy aspects, feeling more like Psalm 23 in that respect. It also mentions that “thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell”, one of the very few mentions of hell of any kind that we’ve had so far, and interestingly it implies different levels of hell in the style of Dante.

Psalms 87

“The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.”

A short, odd, little psalm that praises Jerusalem/Zion as being a favoured city of God, over Babylon, Philistia and others. Despite that, it’s not particularly jingoistic although it notes that it will matter to God whether someone is born in Zion or not, which seems a bit unfair as it’s not under their control. I wondered what Matthew Henry made of it, and he, of course, has taken it as a metaphor for the Christian church.

Psalms 88

“Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.”

This one is attributed to Heman the Ezrahite, not a psalmist we have encountered before, I think. It’s one of those where the psalmist calls out to God not to abandon him in his misery, with lots of imagery of pits, and darkness, and death. It dwells quite a lot on death and the dead, wondering if the dead know God’s blessing and asking “shall the dead arise and praise thee?”. Not, it has to be said, the cheeriest of psalms but also noticeably different to David’s ones with a similar theme.

Psalms 89

“I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant,”

A psalm of Ethan the Ezrahite, and a very long one. Also an important one for messianic belief, I think. In it, the psalmist puts words into God’s mouth, telling how He has risen up David as an anointed king who will establish a line that will rule justly forever. But the language used could so easily be taken to mean some messianic figure, a son of God in an actual as well as a metaphorical sense “Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth”. I do wonder; it’s been clear before that Jesus took a lot of inspiration from the psalms, including teachings about the meek inheriting the earth, and calling out lines from psalm 22 as He was dying a painful death. How much, I wonder, did He borrow from the psalms that praised David as God’s son and deputy on earth? Or if not Him, how much did His followers apply lines like this to His life and teachings? This is one to revisit when we get to the new testament. “What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah” – there’s even a line that can not only be used for the resurrection of Christ, but for the theory that Christian redemption grants “eternal life” to the worshippers.

Now, cynic that I am, I think that the psalm was written with David in mind, without any prophetic component. And also we who have read Kings and Chronicles know that David’s line do not rule wisely and compassionately for evermore, but barely make it to three generations before turning to Baal worship and civil wars. But still, a very interesting psalm nonetheless.

Psalms 90

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

This psalm is attributed to Moses, but not, I think, that Moses. It seems a bit gloomy at first, dwelling on man’s mortality and short life span due, according to the psalmist, to God’s continued anger at mankind’s sinfulness. This thought, I suppose, plays on the centuries-long lifespans of the antediluvians compared to the “threescore years and ten” of contemporary humanity. (And so that’s where that phrase comes from…).

However, as the psalm continues the psalmist asks God mankind the wisdom to use his short time wisely and be glad with the time that they have (and also use it to worship God). It’s kind of the original call to carpe diem or, if you must, YOLO.