Category: Psalms
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The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
One fatal tree there stands, of knowledge called,Forbidden them to taste: Knowledge forbiddenSuspicious, reasonless. Why should their LordEnvy them that? Can it be sin to know?Can it be death? Paradise Lost, Book IV Adam was given only one rule or commandment regarding food: he may eat fruit of any of the trees of the garden, […]
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The Spirit of the Day
Meredith Kline, in Images of the Spirit, has a wonderful exposition of the post-fall encounter of Adam and Eve with God. They had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; their eyes were opened and they sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness. The KJV (most other […]
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Messianic King
Psalm 110 celebrates God’s gift of a messianic king over the people and the restoration from judgment*. It echoes themes from earlier in the Psalter. This king to whom Yahweh says, “sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool,” is the same one who received the commendation, “You are my Son; […]
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Psalm 118
Psalm 118 opens and closes with “Oh give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” The three divisions of the Old World – Israel, the Priests, and Gentile God-fearers – each in turn take up that refrain. Though the psalmist is distressed by what is going on around him, […]
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The Trinity Pervades Reality
We see the distinct actions of each Person of the Trinity at work in creation. God the Father, the initiator, is the fountain and wellspring of all things. God the Son, the Word, is the wisdom, counsel, and order of all things. God the Spirit hovers or broods over His creation, bringing the environment together […]
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Sit at My Right Hand
Yahweh says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” Psalm 110 starts with the Father calling the Son to sit on His throne until His enemies are made His footstool. This is of course a position of victory; His enemies are under His feet. But the footstool […]
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Clothed with nakedness
Psalm 132 contrasts the faithful priests of God who are clothed with righteousness with the enemies of the king who are clothed with shame. My five year old observed a link between the ones clothed with shame here and the shame of nakedness in the garden. I think it fits. After the fall, Adam and […]
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Creation and redemption
Ben Merkle points out that in Psalm 33, “David looks at God’s power in creation and concludes that ‘all his work is done in truth’ and that ‘the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.’ The triune God is our maker, creating and upholding all things by the power of his Word and […]
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All in all
Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10 There shall be the great Sabbath which has no evening, which God celebrated among His first works, as it is written, “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work […]
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Stripes of the sons
He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast […]