“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;2 my rock and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues the peoples under me. O Lord, what are human beings that you regard them, or mortals that you think of them? They are like a breath; their days are like a passing shadow. Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains so that they smoke. Make the lightning flash and scatter them; send out your arrows and rout them. Stretch out your hand from on high; set me free and rescue me from the mighty waters, from the hand of aliens, whose mouths speak lies, and whose right hands are false. I will sing a new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you, the one who gives victory to kings, who rescues his servant David. Rescue me from the cruel sword, and deliver me from the hand of aliens, whose mouths speak lies, and whose right hands are false. May our sons in their youth be like plants full grown, our daughters like corner pillars, cut for the building of a palace. May our barns be filled, with produce of every kind; may our sheep increase by thousands, by tens of thousands in our fields, and may our cattle be heavy with young. May there be no breach in the walls, no exile, and no cry of distress in our streets. Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall; happy are the people whose God is the Lord.” Psalm 144

Notice the shift in language in Psalm 144 from the first 11 verses and the use of the singulars “I” and “me” to verses 12 through 15 to the use of plurals “our” and “people”. It is shifts like this in the language of ancient manuscripts that make biblical scholars search for logical explanations. One of the interpretations of this Psalm that I have read concludes that Psalm 144 is a re-reading of Psalm 18 that has been re-applied, re-written to meet the needs of the people in a different situation. What it suggests is that, like our switch from the “Red” SBH hymnal to the “Green” LBW met with complaints that our familiar hymns and liturgies had been re-written, here we see that this practice was in place thousands of years before us. If we are looking for someone to blame, we have our culprit.

In the Jewish tradition, the Talmud is the body of teaching that is comprised of discussions regarding the Mishnah or Jewish laws divided into six categories including Sabbath and festivals, marital relations, etc. The Talmud (of which there are two, the Babylonian and the Jerusalem) was most important in shaping Judaism. Within the Talmud, it is stated about Psalm 145, “Every one who repeats the Tehillah (Psalm 145) thrice a day may be sure that he is a child of the world to come.” The repetition of Psalms has a long and wonderful history.

Pastor Dave

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” Psalm 139:1-12, 17

The Psalmist writes these words in Psalm 139, “How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them – they are more than the sand; I come to the end – I am still with you.” Have you ever wondered what the thoughts of G-d must be like? I know that it is dangerous to put anthropomorphic images to G-d, like G-d actually has a right hand or long white beard, but it is truly weighty to consider the thoughts of G-d – if G-d thinks like us. Although G-d has said, “My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts” yet, if we had a chance to look into the mind of G-d, if we were to be given just a glimpse of the thoughts of G-d, what would we hear? A saying I have seen attributed to Albert Einstein is, “I only want to know the mind of God. Everything else is detail.” But what detail to consider – what thoughts to consume our insignificant minds…Amen?

Pastor Dave