Introduction: This is a long Psalm. This is the fifth day that we have spent choosing sections as thoughts for devotions and there is enough remaining for another devotional tomorrow to end the Psalm. We know the name of the author or maybe we only think we do. Ethan was named by David as one of the choir leaders/music directors of the temple. The substance referred to in the Psalm fits more with what was happening a few hundred years later. I’m sure that when David appointed Ethan to his position it was to be a family posting and it wouldn’t be surprising if one of his great, great….great descendants was named after the one to whom David gave the post – the author was Ethan but we’re not sure when this Ethan lived. The title of the worship performance is ‘I Will Sing of the Steadfast Love of the LORD’ but today the Ethan who wrote this is not singing in praise to God for His steadfast love, rather he’s accusing God of having deserted His promise to make David’s Name and Kingdom an everlasting one! Over the couple of days looking at this Psalm we have ranged from absolute amazement of the extent of God’s caring and Promised care to and for David and his succeeding progeny to a glimpse of a Promised Messiah. This day the author seems very disappointed at God’s failure to make things work out as he had promised! Read on and see what you think.
38 But now you have cast off and rejected;
you are full of wrath against your anointed.
39 You have renounced the covenant with your servant;
you have defiled his crown in the dust.
40 You have breached all his walls;
you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
41 All who pass by plunder him;
he has become the scorn of his neighbors.
42 You have exalted the right hand of his foes;
you have made all his enemies rejoice.
43 You have also turned back the edge of his sword,
and you have not made him stand in battle.
44 You have made his splendor to cease
and cast his throne to the ground.
45 You have cut short the days of his youth;
you have covered him with shame. Selah
Time to think, and think deeply about what I said in the Introduction. And please remember that in verses 30-32, when God was speaking, God said ‘If his (David’s) children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.’ I guess that we will have to see what the ending of the Psalm says. I suspect that the author is accusing the wrong person of failing to do their duty!
Isaiah 45:7 (KJV): “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” – Here is ‘evil’ ‘sin – morally wrong’ or ‘calamity, chastisement’?
Prayer: Thank You Father that You permit us to ask uncomfortable questions – if we ask them in ignorance not rebellion.