Psalms Lesson 2

Psalm 6

 

Last week we started the various Psalm types and part of the objective of Wednesday night is not just to have a lecture on the Psalms but to show you some of the forms, parts and pieces of the Psalms so this will help you when you go to study it yourself.  We distinguished Psalms on the basis of content and on the basis of emphasis.  Two kinds of Psalms we distinguished were the lament and the praise Psalms.  We said that this was not an absolute in the sense that all Psalms that are praise Psalms have no lament and all lament Psalms that are lament Psalms have no praise; they are always mixed, but it’s just like a see-saw, which end of the see-saw has the most weight on it and that’s the decides for you whether the Psalm is a praise Psalm or a lament Psalm.  And then we can deal with an individual or the nation, so we can have a national lament or an individual lament, and we can have an individual praise or a national praise. 

 

Then under praise we distinguished two kinds of praise; one declarative praise which means that because God has done a specific work in your life, you give praise to His name for it, for His character that’s revealed in that specific work; that’s declarative praise.  But then there’s a another kind of praise and that is descriptive praise, which is when you have praise that is more than just a specific act, it is praise that reflects back to the generalization from experience.  In other words, descriptive praise has to do with God’s character that you deduce on the basis of how He works in experience.  So descriptive praise is further removed from direct experience than declarative praise. 

 

We then went through the five parts to an individual lament Psalm, and we are going to identify these tonight and hopefully you’ve done some thinking on Psalm 6 to see if you can spot where these five pieces are.  Maybe if you have worked with Psalm 6 you’ve already discovered there’s no cut and dried way; these are blocks of material that are creatively woven together in a piece of literature; they are not just mechanically scotch taped together to form a Psalm.  But nevertheless, these five categories should give you something to start with when you read an individual lament Psalm.  The first thing we said was the address; obviously you look for the address in the first two or three verses.  This is an introductory cry for help and expresses the Psalmist attitude in the middle of a crisis, that he will turn, using the faith technique under pressure and he’s already turned to God; he’s expressed positive volition at the point of a crisis. 

 

Then we said another area was the lament; the lament was a description of the situation, the problem.  Usually you can spot it because it has the first, the second and the third person in it.  That is, the Psalmist will say “I,” or “Woe is me,” and then he’ll say “But You, O God, You have allowed this to happen, and then he’ll say the third thing, “my enemies.”  So you usually find those three components to the lament section.  Then we said the fourth thing, skipping the third for a moment, the fourth one is the petition section and here is where he makes a designed petition to the Father to remove the problem.  It is a request for God’s intervention in his life, to deal with the crisis at hand.  And then we dealt with the praise section, and the praise section can be of two sorts; it can be a vow if the petition hasn’t yet been answered, it’ll be a vow; it’ll be a vow to give praise to God whenever the petition is answered.  Or it can be declarative praise if the prayer has been heard, the petition has actually been answered, at least he’s got the assurance it will be answered. 

 

Then we said the trust section is hard to find because this thing can occur in any section.  And the only spot that you’ve got for it is usually it’ll say “But Thou, O Lord,” it’ll usually have something like this, “But Thou,” it’ll be in the middle of a lament and then it’ll suddenly shift, “But Thou, O Lord,” and that’s your tip off that you’re in a confidence section, a trust section.  And this expresses his confidence in the Lord who will take him through the crisis.  So although this trust section is the hardest one to find, it’s the most critical to find because it’s precisely that on which the which the whole Psalm is built, it’s his trust in Jehovah in the middle of his personal crisis that is going to enable him to get through that crisis.  So that’s his anchor, that’s his center, so you’ve got to find where that is.

 

Now I gave you those in the usual order in which they are found.  Let’s look at Psalm 6 and see what we come up with.  First of all, a hint in reading these Psalms and looking for these sections, and that is, if you can’t find the section right away, don’t worry about it, start blocking the Psalm off in the areas where you can find sections that are clear.  With this, what would be one of the clear sections of Psalm 6.  Where would you block off, by verses, any one of these five things?  Let’s start with the obvious ones first, and don’t worry about coming up with a different answer to someone else; I took a whole years course in hymnic literature and we differed all the time so don’t worry about it.  [someone answers, verses 6 and 7], there’s the lament section. 

 

Now it will be helpful as we go through Psalm 6 I am going to draw a chart and what I’m going to do, on the left side of the chart I’ll draw what we will call the normal order for these sections; on the right side of the chart I’ll draw the order of Psalm 6.  When we compare Psalm 6 to the normal order, then we can tell where the emphasis is in Psalm 6.  In other words, the way to visualize this in your mind to catch the emphasis of the Psalm… now this didn’t really happen this way, but visualize this in your mind, visualize the fact that the Psalmist starts with the five sections, just mechanically, one, two, three, four, five, and as he weaves them together in his Psalm that he readjusts the order of these, and think of why he’s readjusting the order, and when you ask yourself why does he readjust the order, you’re going to come up with the emphasis of the Psalm, what he’s trying to get across. 

 

So first I’ll put the address, the lament, the petition, and the praise.  We won’t put the trust because that’s a variable.  That’s the rough order.  Now the lament, verses 6-7, “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. [7] Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it grows old because of all mine enemies.”  Now there you don’t find the second person, just notice this.  There’s something abnormal, so to speak, about this lament.  There’s no second person addressed to God here.  Now if we’re going to interpret this Psalm we’re going to have to come up with an explanation why does the Psalmist leave out what usually is in a lament section.  Why does he do this? There’s a reason for it; the whole thing is reasoned out.  But let’s look at what’s happened here.  The lament has dropped down into the third position in Psalm 6, so the lament has been pushed down into the body of the Psalm.

 

[someone says something] all right, she put 2c, the third clause in verse 2 and 3a, do you see why?  That’s kind of a lament there too, see that’s describing his situation, isn’t it.  Now this is an observation that you’re going to have to hold, and reserve here.  We’ll put verses 6-7 and now we’ve got to explain the fact that it looks like part of the lament has been split off, and he’s dropped one section down into the Psalm and then he’s pulled pieces of it up and put it in verses 2-3.  So that’s something we’ll have to account for, so let’s put that up here as a note, “watch for 2c-3a.”  We’re going to have to come up with an explanation of what’s happened here, why he’s done this.  So there’s the lament. 

 

Are there any other sections that would be obvious to you?  [someone says something] 8-10 the praise section, okay, that’s obvious.  Someone else, why do you think that this… what kind of phrase is this?  A vow or is this a declarative praise, verses 8-10.  In other words is verses 8-10 anticipating an answer to prayer and vowing that if it comes then he’ll [can’t understand word] or does verses 8-10 suggest he already knows the answer is on the way?  This is a declarative praise, verses 8-10 is the declarative praise section. Some other sections; the address is the hairy one because you’ve got the problem of where it stops.  But what’s the one left?  The petition and the address get kind of goo-ed up together here and this is where we’ve got to kind of thread our way carefully, in that the address looks to be about in the right position, at least verse 1 is clearly the address, “O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.”  That’s a typical address, in other words it’s a summary statement, I’ve got a problem, I’m turning to God with my problem.  That’s very typical for an address.  But the problem is, it looks like we’ve got a part of a lament in verse 2 and we’ve got part of a lament in verse 3, and then you look at verse 2 and he’s already making a petition.  But then you look in verses 4-5 and that’s also a petition. 

 

So let’s tentatively do this and let’s say the petition section has been moved up and it is in verses 4-5 and then we’re going to try to work with where we’ve got the problem, verses 2-3.  Verses 2-3 are the hard ones in this Psalm to break it down.  But notice what’s happened, notice what the Psalmist has done, here’s your creativeness coming out.  He has not held to a rigid mechanical form in this Psalm.  What he has done, he has pulled his petition up in advance of the lament.  Just off hand what does this suggest to you?  What would you do if you were writing a Psalm and you put a petition in there before you put the lament in?  I was just wondering what some of your impressions would be of this, before we get into the details of it?  Someone said a sense of urgency.  If you’ve got a problem and you get the petition off fast, and then after you’ve made the petition then you bring in the lament, that would connote a sense of urgency. 

 

Do you notice anything about the lament itself that would suggest the reason for the urgency?  Do you know anything about the way he petitions in verses 4-5 that suggest urgency.  He says he’s weak, but let’s make it even stronger than that, what’s the tone you get as you read verse 5 and 7?  [someone says something] He’s under divine discipline, yes, but further.  He’s dying, you know, see, the point is that the movement of the whole petition section to jump ahead of the lament is to point this out; he’s dying of the pressure in his life.  And so therefore to cope with the situation he gets off this petition, and the whole Psalm is designed to connote an emergency; he’s getting the petition off fast and then after he makes sure the petition has been communicated, then he comes in with a lament and works with it.  So the very form of the Psalm argues, this is an urgent Psalm, there’s nothing blah, blah, blah about this Psalm.  This is a quickie and it’s meant to be used in an emergency situation.  That’s one feature of the Psalm

 

Now we’ve still got to deal with verses 2-3.  Now here’s where you get somewhat subjective, but I would suggest that the address is verses 1-3 in this case, but what has happened, and the reason why the address has become bloated, so to speak, with a lot of lament is because what has the lament proper done?  It’s been dropped down.  All right, if he shoved his main lament down but then he comes in with a petition, just a raw bare, naked petition without any description of the situation, it would be kind of out of place.  So it looks to me that the reason we have some of the lament stuck up in the address is because he has to do this, because otherwise, if he barges, so to speak, before the throne of grace with a petition, and he has no explanation of what the situation is, and the very mechanism that has caused him to hurry up and get his petition ahead of his lament has also caused him to split his lament and put some of that lament up into the introduc­tory address, so you get some idea of what’s happening before he makes his petition proper. 

 

Now there’s one section we haven’t dealt with, and this is a hard one, and there’s not an obvious answer, where do you think the trust section is in this Psalm.  3b is one part, that’s an obvious part and that certainly is a trust, although to you when you read it in the King James it doesn’t sound like it, but “O Lord, how long,” it doesn’t sound like it’s very confident.  But you’ve got to get used to reading the Psalms here, take it by faith for a while on my authority, I’ll explain it to you, that this is a confidence section.  “…but Thou, O LORD,” do you see what happens in verse 3, “My soul is also sore vexed,” and then in the Hebrew, “but You, O Jehovah,” and then there’s a break, “how long?”  In other words, what he’s saying is not that he’s lamenting this, but when he says “But You, O LORD,” he stops the sentence, it’s a break, it’s an ejection in the Hebrew, “but You, O LORD,” and what he means is here’s my situation, here I am, “but You, O LORD” are sufficient for it.  Now “how long” will it be before You act into my situation.  He’s confident that God is capable to handle the situation “but You, O LORD,” and the “but” there, that strong contrast, an extremely strong contrast, and that’s your tip off that you’re coming into a trust section. 

 

[someone says something]  Let me just say this and this will help in the future, usually in the petition you’ll find some trust in there, and the reason for it is is because you see, when a Jew in the Old Testament turned to God you notice how they always bargained with Him, in a good sense, this is not running them down, they’re bargaining here and I want you to notice that’s what it is, “Return, O LORD, deliver me, oh save me on account of Thy mercies sake.”  In other words, God, Your character is at stake if you don’t do something to me right now; and furthermore, “in death,” Lord, you see, if you let me die, then “in sheol,” this is in an intermediate state, I’m not going to be able to praise you so you might as well leave me around so I’ll have a chance to praise you.  Now this seems funny to us as believers, but there’s a theological reasoning behind it, and incidentally what does this show about God, just the bare nature of God, versus say the nature of God seen in philosophy and other religions? What does this show about the Biblical God, this bargaining that goes on?  This bargaining thing is one of the most eloquent testimonies we have to the personal nature of God.  You’re not talking to a computer, at the other end of the line there’s a person.  And at the other end of the line He’s affected by what you say.  And this thing that sounds almost humorous to us, this reasoning and bargaining, kind of “Jewing” God is what it is, and what it is is a real interaction in the prayer.  That Lord, you see, if You could just work it around, and it’s sanctified bargaining is the only way I can describe it. 

 

[someone says something] You’ve got to it by… otherwise you wind up studying the Bible with a razor blade here, you know, every word is different; you’ve just got to get the flow of major blocks of material.  Now there is one section, there is a confidence voiced in the petition but there’s another section in which the confidence is there, and of course this comes largely… the only thing I can say is when we get to verse 10 I’ll show you why there’s confidence there too, because verse 10 has not yet occurred; verse 10 is a forward looking thing.  In other words, God has answered his prayer and he knows that God has answered the prayer, that’s past, but as the result of the answer to prayer is still future.  God is in the process of answering.  So verse 10 shows there’s still more to come. 

 

The question, how does he know that God has answered the prayer.  Basically in the Old Testament it appears that they knew in three different ways.  Two of these we know for sure and the third one is just a deduction; let’s give the third one first.  The third reason why they know that God answered their prayer was a conviction, a subjective conviction in their heart, just like we know today.  That’s the normal way we know God answers prayer; there’s a peace.  You pester God, you pester God, you pester God, and badger Him so to speak, over and over, and then there’s an attitude, and the only way I know how to describe it is that you know that He’s heard you and that’s all, that’s it.  So that’s one way they knew.

 

But they knew other ways, more explicitly.  1 Samuel 1:17 gives you a case in point where the priest, the high priest, was apparently endowed with the ability to tell whether prayer was answered. For example, in 1 Samuel 1:17 the high priest comes to Hannah when she’s praying for her baby, and he says, Hannah, your prayer has been answered.   Now that’s a priestly word, a word from the priest, the high priest, and you see, David wrote this and David had a high priest in his day, and the high priest could give him this word.

 

And then the other way in which they would know and that is by direct revelation. At least one Psalm clearly shows this, Psalm 12:5, and there the Psalm is broken right in the middle, just like there was two Psalms tacked together and right smack in the middle is this statement of God saying something.  So there we have direct revelation.  How this direct revelation occurred I don’t know, and I’ve been unable in my reading and study to find out just how this happened, but in the Old Testament there are times there was direct revelation.  But mainly they probably found out just the way we do.  Can any of you think of a famous verse, 1 John 5, “This is the confidence that we have that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us,” that’s the thing I’m talking about, the subjectivness  on the part of the believer.

 

Are there any questions on this thing?  It was clear pretty much in the lament, the declarative section and the place where we got fuzzy was right here, and that’s to be expected because this is not put together by an IBM computer, this is a creative person working this material.  Are there any questions on the block of material?  Do you see why we say what we say for those block sections?  Any question about the address, the address in verse 1, he comes to the Lord, verses 2-3 he kind of packs in a little petition, a little lament into that address, he bloats the address because he’s going to go directly to his petition instead of going to the lament first. 

 

[question asked] Yes, 9b could also be a trust, see the trust tacked into the praise section.  The trust section is always tacked into something, usually you’ll find that.  Now some of the real exciting Psalms, I don’t know whether in our series we’ll get to one, but all of a sudden the trust section explodes and takes over the whole Psalm.  In other words, you start out and you get a little bitty address, you get a little bit of a lament, you get a little bit of petition and boom, a whole big expanse of trust section.  And then it concludes with praise; there you can see, if you keep these categories in mind, immediately you know from the analysis of the categories what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you in this Psalm. 

 

[question asked] What times are there when the Lord doesn’t accept your prayers?  Well, I would say that when we are, basically the general rule is when we’re praying over here and He wants to draw our attention over here.  In other words, the idea is that we’re praying around Robinson’s barn here and the Holy Spirit is trying to get us to see something over here.  I’d rather say it that way than say well, if you’re out of fellowship He won’t hear your prayer because again, our God is a personal God and He doesn’t deal with us mechanically.  He’ll hear prayer out of fellowship, and sometimes it appears that He doesn’t hear prayer when we are in fellowship, and that’s very vexing at times, the so-called silence of God problem.

 

[question asked] Accepting and answering?  All right, in the Old Testament God would answer prayer, as far as they were concerned, when they could see an either yes/no answer.  Or they would have the confidence that a yes/no answer was on the way.  God can answer prayer sometimes that is disobedient, I can’t think of a text right now, but there are prayers in the Bible that were wrong prayers made, that were prayers made by believers in disobedience and because God wanted to discipline them, He gave them the answer to their prayer.  See, answered prayer is not necessarily a blessing, and this is why… see, you can get a yes answer to a wrong petition and get fouled up. 

 

[question asked] In the sense that He covers our sins, he has applied the finished work of Christ to us, and He teaches us petitions, but He doesn’t directly interfere in our prayers.  In other words, when we eject four words from our mouth, He doesn’t flick out one and replace it with another one; the prayer is ours all the way to the throne.  [something said] Samson’s prayer was what? All right, Samson prayed a wrong prayer there because he was… Samson was just praying Lord, these people punched my eyes out, now let me punch theirs out, and give me strength to do it.  Well, God answered the prayer, but the prayer was out of line.

 

Let’s look at Psalm 6 and see what we can learn from just this analysis.  This is what we call form analysis.  What have we learned first by form analysis?  We’ve learned that this Psalm is an urgent prayer, an urgent Psalm by a desperate man that’s being disciplined. We can catch that just from the form analysis, the analysis of the form of the whole thing.  Another thing that we said we have to watch for is why is the “you” missing in the lament; that’s usually there, why is it missing.  The “you” is usually missing, it’s missing here because of what went on with the address and petition.  There’s so much interaction and playing around that already you’ve had a lot of you, you, yous, and it’s not necessary, so it’s simply dropped out of the lament.

 

Now we have another form that we have to use to approach the Psalms, that was form analysis.  Now to make these Psalms come alive in your Christian life you should have a doctrinal analysis or what doctrines are you looking for in the Psalms to apply to you right now; what truth can you walk out of here right tonight as you see this; how are you going to convert the doctrine of the Psalms into something that you can use in your Christian life.  This goes back to the divine viewpoint framework and the era of history we’re in.  The Psalms are in the era of the kingdom; in the era of the kingdom what’s the main theme?  Loyalty and discipline.  This is the main theme and this is the theme you’re going to encounter in the Psalm. 

But with David, and we have to go t 2 Samuel 7 to appreciate some of the problems of this Psalm.  2 Samuel 7 sets up  the conversion factor.  In other words, 2 Samuel 7 will give you the key to take the theology of the Psalm and bring it over into the Christian life because 2 Samuel 7 is David’s personal position. 

 

In 2 Sam. 7:13, this is the Davidic Covenant, this is the promise God made to David.  It’s a promise He will build a house, and [13b] “I will establish a throne of his kingdom,” [14] “I will be his father, and he shall be My son.”  All right, now this is analogous to our eternal secure position in Christ.  In other words, 2 Samuel 7 says the Davidic dynasty is eternally secure; that truth is the same as your salvation in Christ is eternally secure. Okay, top circle; this is David’s top circle, the dynasty will be saved.  So that’s David’s top circle, so when you see things in the Psalms that talk about “O God” and “my kingdom,” you’re talking about David’s top circle, and that would be principles right there that you could pull over and use because in top circle, the circle of our eternal relationship with the Father, that’s for us. 

 

Now the bottom circle, David’s bottom circle was defined in this last verse, verse 14, “…I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the wounds of the children of men,” that explains why in the Psalms under the lament, when David suffers discipline he is always talking about his enemies.  This is the verse, verse 14, that controls that.  In other words, the enemies are God’s spanking tool, so when David is going to be disciplined it will be through his enemies.  And this is what “the rod of men,” that’s how the Father is going to chasten the son.  So when you see “enemies” in the Psalms, that refers to disciplinary action, generally speaking.   And the theological control on it is verse 14 of 2 Samuel 7.

 

Now let’s take this over into the Christian life.  Who are the enemies of the believer?  Remember this is a personal enemies; we’re back to the angelic conflict, these are the principalities of powers and darkness, these are the demon forces that are used in history to discipline believers.  So when you see enemies attacking the Psalmist, the way to visualize this in your Christian life is that every time you see the “enemy” in the Psalm, just read the words “principalities of powers of darkness,” because those are your enemies.  So that’s how to get an anchor and toe hold out of the truths of the Psalms.  So don’t just think of this as some sort of sweet military hymn, written for the armies of Israel some place.  These are principles that carry over into our spiritual struggle.  That’s the theological analysis.  Is there any question in this area as to what corresponds with what here. 

 

Then let’s go to Psalm 6 and for the rest of tonight let’s deal with the first section.  First I want to deal with something else, and that is in your study of the Psalm we’ve covered how to analyze it, we’ve covered the basic theology of the Psalms, now here’s the next step in your study.  The next thing you want to do, and to this by yourself when you read these Psalms, is try to outline the content of the Psalm.  This is where your analysis is going to help you a lot. What are the places for dividing this up.  Here’s our chart, the address, the petition, the lament, the declarative, what is a good… what’s the most obvious break in the whole Psalm.  In other words, between what sections do you have the most obvious strong break, and this where we’ll start the outline of the Psalm.  Where’s the strongest break?  What two groups of material most strongly contrast.  Verses 7 and 8 because you’ve got a strong declarative praise appearing right after the lament.  So when you outline you’ll have at least two sections to your Psalm and you’ll divide the Psalm between verses 7 and 8. 

All right, let’s think of what would you say, summary, what would you say is the thought of verses 1-7?  Could you summarize it?  David’s in trouble, let’s add t that, there’s a little bit more we could add, just summarizing the whole concept. What does he do in trouble that’s also in here?  Well, does he sit around and mope about it?  What is he doing?  He’s hollering help.  He’s praying. So a simple analysis of the first seven verses, David prays to Jehovah for release from suffering by his enemies. That would capture basically the content of the first seven verses: David prays to Jehovah for release from suffering by his enemies or suffering through his enemies.  That would summarize the thought of the first seven verses. 

 

[question asked something about are David’s enemies real?]  It’s both, it’s going to be both, because go back to 2 Samuel 7:14, if he’s being disciplined, how would God apply the discipline?  In other words, by 2 Samuel 7:14 what’s God’s stick that He’s going to use?  So the fact that his enemies are there indicates that is part of the discipline. 

 

Now how would you summarize verses 8-10, let’s get two sentences; one sentence will summarize the first seven verses; the other sentence will summarize the last three verses.  [someone says something] Triumph over trouble, all right, here’s a thing that will help you in outlining, and by the way, outlining is not an end in itself; the only reason why I throw this out to you tonight is this will help you get the content out of the Psalms yourself.  If you have to come up with a sentence, with subject and predicate, it’s going to force you to observe the text.  This is a gimmick to discipline yourself to read and observe.  So that’s why I have one sentence, one complete sentence to summarize the thought of verses 1-7; now we want one complete sentence to summarize the thought of verses 8-10.  David’s in trouble, but can someone just summarize it in a sentence; just read over verses 8, 9 and 10? 

 

[someone says something] Okay, since the Lord has heard David let his enemies be smashed.  How’s that for a good marshal phrase?  Do you see something that’s tremendously marshal about these Psalms?  Really it’s a warfare thing here, you really get face to face with the warfare in the believer’s life, and once you catch this thing in the Psalms and then you go back to the usual Christian devotional literature, it all seems anemic.  It just seems like it’s written by fairies or something once you’ve got a good solid dose of the content of the Psalms.  It’s much more militant than the usual Christian devotional stuff; much more so.

 

Now we’ve got this as our outline.  If you were outlining it, you had to give a talk somewhere or you were just leading your Bible study in your dorm or you were leading a home Bible class you’d have verses 1-7 as your first section, and then you’d have verses 8-10 as your second section.  You’d have those two sentences summarizing the thought.  Is there a way of breaking this first section down into smaller subjections.  Think back to your literary analysis, the form analysis; that will help you.  Where would you say it logically breaks, that you could… again, not airtight compartment because you’ll always have a problem and you can’t totally separate one sentence from another, but where do the breaks naturally come?  Between 3 and 4, so you can link the first three verse together, verses 1, 2 and 3, and you could just summarize that with a smaller sentence saying that “David turns to Jehovah in the middle of trouble”; or just “David turns to Jehovah,” verses 1, 2 and 3.  What’s the next break, I think we can make one more break in that first section.  Between five and six; so verses 4 and 5 we could say this is the petition, David prays for immediate relief because there’s a sense here that he’s about to die.  So verses 4 and 5 would be “David prays for immediate relief.”  And then verses 6-7 would be the lament and so you could just say “David describes his problem.”  Or “David describes the crisis in his life as a believer.” 

 

Now maybe for some of you this sounds awfully involved, but if you have meditated upon the Psalms at all I think you’re going appreciate this form because it’s going to be the key that will unlock a lot of stuff here in the Psalms for you.

 

Let’s spend the last fifteen minutes on verses 1-3 and let’s go through these verses in detail, keeping in mind the overall outline and why we say what we say.  Also now that you have this form analysis you will see why it is that oftentimes when I teach sometimes I’ll cut short and run late, and it’s simply because what has happened is that in the text I’ve been teaching from I’ve got a block, and I can’t stop in the middle of a block, I’ve got to finish that block of material.  You’ll notice this in Proverbs, it’ll become quite obvious, where I’ve selected blocks each Sunday morning and I can’t control the length of those blocks.  So sometimes what I do if I have two short ones I’ll cover those two short ones, but if I get one of these intermediate ones, the next one is too long to start, I can’t start into that, but the other one is too short for a real full lesson; well then I’m stuck with it.  So this is where the time of teaching actually is controlled by the blocks of material in the Scripture.  It’s not that the electronics people sit back there and say Clough, you’ve got 25 minutes left and the lights go on, etc.  There are other more rational reasons for this. And then of course sometimes it’s the congregation, I see they don’t get a point so I just sit on it for about five minutes and that delays things. 

 

Verses 1-3, remember what I said last time; what is the first verse in the Hebrew?  It includes the heading; the heading is part of the text in the Hebrew and this particular heading is an instruction, “To the chief Musician.”  Remember I gave you the background from 1 Chronicles, David gave the Psalms over to the Levite choir.  This is an instruction to the man who will be in charge of performing this Psalm.  In other words, this Psalm, though written by David, will actually be publicly performed in their worship, and this is an instruction “To the chief Musician.”  Now the next word, “Neginoth” nobody really knows, the best guess is that is a stringed instrument; it means that whatever he uses to accompany the singing and chanting of this Psalm in the Hebrew, there will a stringed instrument used.  Then “Sheminith,” is a word that means somberness, and some commentators have felt that this is a signal for the male choir, because in other places, the opposite, the antonym for this is the high pitched joyous thing that comes in and it seems to be used for the female choir of other Psalms.  So whether it’s male or female it’s debated but this doesn’t mean a pawn, as though it’s an instrument, it means a mode of playing it.  Can some of you guess why if you publicly perform this Psalm it would be kind of a somber, a somberness about it, the guys nearly ready for the grave, so your whole musical mode is going to mirror the atmosphere of the Psalm.  And obviously it’s “A Psalm of David.”  I don’t know why this has to be pointed out but some people think that because it says “A Psalm of David” therefore David couldn’t have written it.  This is the Lamed of authorship and it means that David wrote it; it doesn’t mean that he hired a staff to write for him, it means he probably wrote it himself.  His son, later on, wrote half the book of Proverbs, why couldn’t the old man write this book of Psalms. 

 

Now verse 1, again read verse 1 with this idea that we covered before, this bargaining that goes on with a personal God.  “O LORD, rebuke me not in Thine anger, neither chasten me in Thy hot displeasure.”  Now here we are immediately posed with a theological problem.  Can you spot what the trouble is in verse 1.  There’s a theological difficulty in verse 1, it has to do with God’s anger and the position of the believer.  You get the impression from reading some of these Psalms that God really gets hacked off, to the point where you almost wonder whether David believes in his eternal security.  It gets that bad in some of these Psalms.  Now keep in mind 2 Samuel 7, David knew 2 Samuel 7 when he’s writing this.  That means that he had no doubts that he, so to speak, was eternally secure.  This attitude you see here, that we’re picking up in verse 1, that attitude means that David feels, through the discipline that he’s receiving, the anger of God.  In other words, he’s very conscious that God is personally mad at him. 

 

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of that, or whether you think… this will channel some of your thinking, whether you think of God as so far off and so personally detached from you that He can’t get angry at you.  I mean, you know that God’s angry or maybe it’s the idea that He doesn’t pay attention to you.  I think a lot of Christians have the idea that God is angry at them and so He isn’t going to pay any attention to them.  But notice in verse 1, here David’s problem is that God is paying quite a bit of attention to him, like ouch.  See; in other words, it’s not that God is angry and turns His back; it’s rather that God is angry and gets His stick out and starts hitting him.  Do you how this is different than the 20th century idea of God and man.  See how it comes alive; even in the discipline, even in the downcast era of David’s life he never lost the fact that he was dealing with a personal God.  There was a happy personal God, there was an angry personal God, but it was always a personal God.  Now this is an important point, and I think if you get this in your mind and rotate it around and keep just meditating on this, this will improve your Christian life, just this one truth alone, that is a personal God who can get this angry at us. 

 

[someone says something]  Good point, and that is why isn’t there any confession in this Psalm.  The only explanation for this is that it is implied, by analogy with Psalm 32, 28 and 51.  Those are the great confession Psalms and they are all individual lament Psalms.  And so therefore, we by analogy with Psalms 32, 38 and 51, we deduce that confession is implied.  It’s just that David doesn’t bring the issue of confession up in this particular Psalm. 

 

“Do not,” now in the Hebrew there are two ways of a negative; one looks like this, lo, and the other is sort of a sharp breath and the ’l.  This one is used here, and that is immediate; if the Hebrew wanted to indicate a general principle of negation, such as the Ten Commandments it doesn’t use this one; it uses that one.  In other words, the general principle, O Lord, don’t do this, now he’s not saying that; here he’s saying, Lord, stop it.  It’s a quick immediate thing.  In other words, God is doing it now, stop it, that’s what he’s saying.  He’s not worried that some day in the future God might rebuke him in His anger; that’s not the point, God is already now, present tense, rebuking him in His anger, now God would you please stop it.  That’s what the request is for.

 

Verse 2, “Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak.  O LORD, heal he; for my bones are vexed.”  Now in this verse we have something called parallelism.  Let me point this out because it will help you again in your Bible study.  If you are in doubt about the meaning of a phrase and you see it, like verse 2, the way to test your understanding is visualize the two parts of the sentence, one on top of the other like sandwich. So the first part, 2a and 2b.  Now if it’s parallelism, either they will be parallelism in contrast or parallelism will be synonymous, but you should try to figure the relation between the first part of verse 2 and the last part of verse 2.  What would you say it is, contrast or synonymous.  If you had to choose between those two you’d pick synonymous. 

The last part of verse 2 is clearer than the first part in the sense the first part is “Have mercy upon me,” but you don’t yet know exactly what’s on his mind. So let’s go to the last part of verse 2, “O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed.”  That lets you know what’s on his mind.  So in the first part of verse 2 when he says “Have mercy upon me, O LORD,” he’s talking about O Lord, do something about this suffering that I have; it’s not just a blank O God, you know I’d like a little grace now.  It specifically says God I’d like grace, right about here, that’s where the grace wants to be dropped, right there.  So this “Have mercy upon me” is a specific, it’s not a general, you know, just have mercy, kind of pious, it’s a real specific request.  “…for I am weak,” now this word “weak” if we had a chance to do a word study… if you’d like to do a word study may I recommend a concordance, either Young’s or Strong’s Concordance; they cost a bit but it’s a once for all investment and once you’ve made the investment that’ll last the rest of your life.  But these two concordances are excellent, and you just look up “weak” for example, find out what Hebrew word is translated, and look at how it’s used elsewhere.

 

This particular word, “weak,” is usually used in the following context; a woman becomes infertile, and she loses her purpose for life in the Old Testament and she says I am weak.  A man becomes lame and cannot work in the field, he loses his purpose for productivity and he says I am weak.  What does that suggest to you about the context of this word, “weak,” as David is concerned? [someone says something]  He’d lost fellowship with the Lord but more powerfully than that, how does he see his situation described by this word “weak.”  Thinking of the infertile woman, the lame man who can’t work, the infertile woman who can’t bear children, what does this suggest about David in his position?  He feels utterly without production, he feels like just a fifth wheel.  In other words, he’s not having any ministry whatever.  Sound familiar?  Ever have that feeling.  This is exactly David’s position, “weak,” with the context that I feel absolutely useless.  Can you identify with David a little bit.

 

All right, “I am weak.  O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed.”  Now the word vexed is a word which means terror that is felt down to the point where it’s having physiological reper­cussions in your body.  Two examples of how this is used, Genesis 45:3 and Judges 20:41.  In Genesis 45:3 it is used for the brothers of Joseph; Joseph is a vicar of Pharaoh, so to speak, and his brothers come and all of a sudden it hits them, good night, that’s our brother, you know, that little brat that we dumped in the pit, look where he is.  And not only that but he happens to be in command of all of Pharaoh’s troops, and right now the guys are holding swords.  And guess who hasn’t got any arms to defend themselves?  It’s the brothers.  And so you would suggest thy might possibly be a little bit disturbed.  And the word “terrified” is used in Genesis 45:3.

 

The other place, in Judges 20:41 is a case where a bunch of men get caught outside of the city, it was a military tactic that was pulled off on them, the Benjaminites, they worked back and their cities are being burned and all their children and wives are being killed, and they turn around and they see the smoke coming up over the hill, and they turn around and they see it, and the Bible says they were vexed.  Well, put yourself in the situation and see how you’d be vexed.  That’s how David feels. 

 

Now let’s tie the “vexed” with the “weak.”  The word “weak” connotes that David now feels like he’s at the end of his rope spiritually, he has no ministry, he’s absolutely useless.  And the word “vexed” introduces another problem; David is terrified.  What do you suppose terrifies him?  What do you get as you read through the Psalm?  He’s coming to the Lord and he’s terrified.  What do you suppose might be on his mind?  He’s dying.  The weakness looks toward his life and he says I’m absolutely useless, I have no production, I’m a fifth wheel and I’m out of it.  And then he turns around and he looks at this, and he looks at where he’s sliding, slowly he’s sliding, sliding, sliding, each day he gets weaker.  The fact that “my bones are vexed,” means that he is exper­iencing some physical problems in his life.  In other words, he has experienced discipline to such a degree that it has affected his body, that’s how bad it is.  And he’s terrified.  Now how can you read verses 1 and 2, slowly and calmly, and not really realize the tremendous personal adrenalin is flowing in the veins here when David comes to God.  This is not any just pious devotional he’s having at 6:30 in the Palestinian hills.  This is an emergency situation. 

 

All right, now verse 3.  “My soul is extremely vexed,” the word “vexed” is the same word used at the end of verse 2, but the it has the Hebrew word which means “extreme.”  In other words, if you thought he was having physical problems, he says you should see what my soul looks like right now; my soul is a wreck, it’s full of terror.  And therefore, you see, we can go back and look at what David’s soul must have looked like at this time, recreating it.  When he says his “soul is vexed, extremely so,” it’s full of terror.  In other words, his mind, he’s in danger of losing his mind right at this point, he’s experiencing psychological difficulties, not only bodily difficulties, not only is his instrument of service being affected psychosomatically in verse 2, but in verse 3 he’s experiencing tremendous distress in the mental attitude.  He can’t get his mind together, he can’t even think straight, because of terror, the chill and the coldness of the terror that grips his mind.  This is what he feels.  And as a result, his emotions are having problems. 

 

So you see, he’s out of fellowship, he’s being disciplined, probably he’s out of fellowship in the middle of it, now it may be that he confessed before this Psalm and the discipline is sort of carried over and he’s petitioned the Lord to just end it right now.  He’s trying to convince the Lord he learned his lesson, now just turn it off for a while.  All right, so there’s a conflict now, possibly, between his conscience and his mind.  I would suggest he’s probably out of fellowship here because of the extremeness of his inner problem.  In other words, it’s not just external enemies that’s bothering him, he’s suffering psychologically here, tremendously.  So this is what he means, “my soul is extremely terrified.” 

 

And in the middle of the blackness and the darkness that we’ve looked at in verses 2-3a, now we come to the trust of 3b.  Do you see what made David great?  At the extreme nadir of existence, physically, psychologically, he was just about ready to be put in the basement; that’s where David was spiritually, but even when David was there he could still say, “But thou, O LORD.”  Do you see the significance of that trust section jammed inside the address.  Look at that and that tells you something about David, that no matter how far down the drain he got, still before he got down there, there was a big “but” for positive volition.  In other words, I’m [can’t understand word] “but, Father, you are in charge.”   Next week we’ll deal with the petition section and what I’d like you to do is to see if you can, as you read through the petition and the lament, visualize the psychological problems that must be going through the man’s mind.  Imagine yourself writing a biography of a man in the position of Psalm 2 and try to identify a little bit with it so that in verses 8-10 you’ll understand why he’s going to say the things he’s going to say, that at first glance sound so militant and so unloving and so ungracious.  You’ll understand why he says it if you’ve followed the rest of the verses.