posted on Nov, 19 2021 @ 05:10 PM
Psalm 131 is a very short psalm, but there is much to be thought about in each of the thee verses.
V1 “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvellous for me.”
Obviously the psalmist should not be doing these things, and neither should we. So it’s very important to understand what it is that he is not
doing. What fault is he avoiding, and what fault do we need to avoid? What exactly would constitute raising the heart and eyes to a level “too great
and marvellous”?
I think there’s a very important clue in the book of Job, who confesses his own fault in very similar words.
“I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job ch42 v3).
And that expression “too wonderful” really is the same Hebrew word as the one translated “too marvellous” in the psalm.
All the way through the book, Job has been setting himself up as judge of the way God is running the world. He complained that God was acting unjustly
and allowing injustice to prevail. In effect, he was claiming to have a better understanding than God of what is right and what is wrong. He was
certainly “raising his sights”. He was occupying his mind with things that were too deep for him to understand, and therefore getting them wrong.
He repeats in self-accusation God’s question “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?”
I think the psalmist has been consciously refraining from imitating Job’s example.
V2 “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child quieted is my soul”.
The repetition at the end reminds us that this would have been delivered musically. It would have provided a very powerful condensed aria. By a
soloist?
Inevitably we think of the injunction of Jesus, on the need to “turn and become like children.”(Matthew ch18 v3). That is essentially about
resting in God, resting in trust. Surely this verse has the same theme.
And that is exactly what Job did in the final chapter. He admitted “I know that thou canst do all things, an that no purpose of thine can be
thwarted.” He submits to the Lord in humility; “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job ch42 v2, v6). He has “turned away from”
his former error.
I suggest that the book of Job can help us to understand this psalm, because they are alternative ways of reacting to to the same challenging
situation.
In the first place, the major theme in Job is the presence or absence of sin. Job maintains, on the one hand, that he is righteous, and on the other
hand, that he is being unjustly treated as though he were one of the wicked. Whereas his friends claim that he is not being unjustly treated, because
he is as wicked as anyone else.
The previous psalm, Psalm 130, amounted to a confession of sin. If these psalms are being used in sequence, then this psalm may well follow on from
that theme. For the purposes of worship, both psalms are expressing the same viewpoint (even if they have different authors). The same person or
corporate “person” is speaking on both occasions. So the confession in Psalm 130 means that the psalmist is NOT echoing Job’s attempt to deny
his sinful state, and that is what he means when he says in this psalm that his “heart is not lifted up.”
In the second place, I am convinced that the background of the writing of the book of Job is the traumatic experience of the fall of Jerusalem to the
Babylonians and the destruction of the kingdom. In other words, behind the obvious question “Why did God allow these dreadful things to happen to
me?” and the subsequent question “Why does God allow dreadful things to happen to men in general?”, there lies the original question “Why did
God allow these dreadful things to happen to his people Israel?”
I have made this case in a previous set of threads, and I have argued in another set of threads that the Song of Solomon has the same background.
And the progressive study of the Songs of Ascent gives me reason to think, from accumulating clues, that the Songs of Ascent themselves, as a
sequence, belong to the period of the Second Temple, after the return from exile. That is, they are the psalms of a community which has already been
through the traumatic experience of the destruction of Jerusalem. Therefore I propose that the temptation being resisted in the first verse was the
same temptation that Job experienced, namely the temptation to think ill of God for allowing these things to happen, and to plunge into despair,
giving up the covenant relationship altogether. Many of the Jews must have given in to this temptation during the exile, which would explain why the
returning remnant was so small.
V3 “O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and for evermore.”
The address to “Israel” in this response implies that Israel is deemed to have been speaking in the first two verses, as I have been arguing.
I always point out that there is no uncertainty implied in the Biblical word “hope”. It means confident faith, specifically directed towards the
future. That is what “the Christian hope” means.
Hope is the opposite of Despair. Instead of allowing the experience of the Exile to traumatise them into giving up on the relationship, let them
continue to trust in their covenant with the Lord and expect it to continue for ever, without ceasing.