An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 125: The Last Psalm, plus Rare Winter Imagery (Psalms 146-150)

Psalms 146-150
The Last Psalm, plus Rare Winter Imagery.

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

Psalms 146

“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.”

This psalm is not attributed to anyone. It encourages the listener to put his faith in God, and lists the various reasons why someone should do so; these are mostly benevolent ones, which makes a nice change – as well as the general creation of the cosmos, God frees the prisoner, gives sight to the blind, feeds the hungry, protects widows and orphans and so on. There’s little smiting to be had, although He does turn the ways of the wicked “upside down”. Nothing astonishingly original by this point, but it makes a change from the moaning and vengefulness of the last batch.

One thing I did find interesting with this psalm is the reference to the “son of man”, a title often given to Christ. Here, however, the meaning is plain to mean any mortal person, as compared to God; I guess it needs to be capitalised to mean Christ. It’s almost as if this psalm could be used to deny the divinity of Christ, which makes it a complicated inclusion in the Christian canon.

Psalms 147

“He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.”

God takes on a very wintry aspect in this psalm, I think the first time I recall reference to snows and ice in great detail. But that’s not all; this is one of those psalms that lists the various natural forces that god is apparently responsible for, and therefore worthy of worship, such as stars and rain.

One line that sat oddly for me was “He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.” I suppose this is meant to mean that such matters are trivial to a cosmic God, but I’d like to think that if you believe in a God that has deliberately created a horse, that He’d take some measure of pleasure in watching them run – surely a better God would not only be powerful enough to create the universe but also attend to all the details and take joy in the little things as well?

Psalms 148

“Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:”

This psalm reminded me of a choral work called Benedicite, by Andrew Carter. Comprising a number of movements, each one dedicated to calling upon a different natural phenomenon or animal kingdom to praise the Lord. This psalm does the same, in a shorter space of time, calling upon anything from the sun and moon to the “fruitful trees” and “flying fowl” to “Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children”. Short, but quite dramatic. I don’t know what the reference to dragons means though.

Psalms 149

“For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.”

Well, two psalms ago it was said that God took no pleasure in the abilities of men, so which is it? This aside, the psalm is a strangely contradictory one within itself, starting with joy and dancing and singing “Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp” and then practically calling on a populist uprising “To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron”, it conjures up a slightly disturbing (to me) image of happy, dancing religious zealots singing and dancing their way off to war. One could take this to mean a metaphorical war against sin or injustice or something like that (as with the Salvation Army). Placed as it is amongst the various nationalist-sounding psalms exalting Zion, it’s easy to take the original meaning to be more direct, with one eye on the likes of our old pal King Og of Bashan.

Psalms 150

“Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.”

A fitting psalm to end the book on, one which simply repeats its message of praising the Lord in a multitude of different ways, with voice, with dance, with trumpet. I do rather like this idea of music and dance , a sense of almost unrestrained joy, being a form of worship. As a religious tool it brings to mind Pentecostal churches in a Christian context, but it also hearkens back to very shamanic forms of worship, dancing into a trance like state. There’s probably very little physiological difference between the state of mind of an ecstatic Pentecostalist being “visited by the Holy Spirit” and that of an all-night raver at an acid house party. And why not? Apart from being noisy neighbours, at the end of the day both of them have had a good time. Provided that they stay hydrated.

I can’t believe that suddenly I’ve reached the end of the book of Psalms. One hundred and fifty psalms; I wasn’t sure I could manage that or find anything to comment on. Sometimes it was a stretch, particularly towards the end, but each one managed to provoke some kind of thought. What I liked most about the book was that here is a very personal view of religion; not a grand over-arching history but a direct expression of the faith of the various psalmists; someone’s thoughts and hopes and fears and struggles to make sense of their world preserved from some three thousand years ago. I may disagree with the cosmology, and find some of the arguments disturbingly violent, but all the same it’s been a fascinating and sometimes moving experience to read them.

But also, I’m ready to move on!