A Little Consistency, Please!

Book III of Psalms begins with Psalm 73. The superscriptions over the next 11 psalms tell us a man named Asaph wrote them. Asaph was a Levite singer and musician commissioned during David’s reign. Among other things, he was a harpist and a cymbal player. He and his fellow Levites sang and played David’s psalms as well as their own.

Most psalmists were prophets. Orthodoxy accepts that without question. Asaph too was a prophet, as his psalms establish beyond any reasonable argument to any reader using consistent interpretive principles.

We looked at one of these late last year. In Psalm 83, Asaph time travels to either the Babylonian Captivity or Armageddon to give expression to the prayers and concerns of a future believing remnant of Israel. Psalm 79 is equally jarring when we consider that Asaph lived during the reigns of David and Solomon, around 1000 BC. The Babylonians did not destroy the temple in Jerusalem until 586 BC or thereabouts.

A Time-Based Conundrum

Yet, many years earlier, we find Asaph writing:

“O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food, the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.”

Nothing like this happened during Asaph’s lifetime, nor did it occur in the years prior, when the temple did not exist to be defiled. Of these facts we can be very sure indeed. Nevertheless, assuming we believe the Lord actually spoke to his Old Testament prophets and previewed the future for them, as the scripture witnesses, Asaph writing about Jerusalem’s destruction four-hundred-plus years prior to its occurrence should give us no difficulties. As Isaiah puts it, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.” Amen to that. It’s how God operates.

For What Possible Reason?

Yet, despite knowing and believing this basic biblical concept, we find otherwise-orthodox commentators like David Guzik, to cite only one of many examples, opining that Psalm 79 “was clearly written after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian armies”.

“Clearly written after”? Unbelief apart, for what possible reason? The evidence to back such a statement is non-existent. The superscription over Psalm 73 is word-for-word identical to those over six other psalms generally ascribed to the Asaph who lived during David’s reign. It sits right between two other psalms we confidently credit to Davidic Asaph.

Apparently, what makes it impossible for scholars to agree that the same man wrote Psalm 73 is its strikingly accurate description of Jerusalem’s future, which, to believers, should surely be a point in its favor.

Let’s Try That Elsewhere, Shall We?

Mysteriously, the vast majority of commentators hurling Asaph’s authorship of Psalm 73 under the bus are quite unwilling to apply the “It speaks accurately of later events, so it must have been written after they took place” principle across the board. For example:

• Guzik is happy to take the prophetic validity of Psalm 16 (concerning Christ’s resurrection) entirely at face value. He writes, “Wonderfully (and perhaps unknowingly), David spoke beyond himself … only Jesus Christ fulfills this in His resurrection.” So true.
• Concerning Isaiah 7:14 (the virgin birth), Guzik writes, “The far or ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy goes far beyond Ahaz, to announce the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus Christ.” Agreed.
• Concerning Zechariah 12:10 (the piercing of Messiah), Guzik writes, “As Jerusalem is supernaturally defended and the Spirit is poured out on the nation, they will turn to Jesus, the pierced One. His head was pierced with thorns, His hands and feet were pierced with nails, and a spear pierced His side.” Amen.

So Then …

It baffles me that commentators will confidently defend relatively obscure Messianic references in the Psalms and Prophets as genuinely predictive, while just as confidently late-dating Asaph’s authorship of Psalm 73 on the basis of nothing more damning than its incontestable accuracy.

Either God spoke to the prophets or he didn’t. If he didn’t, then no prophecy of scripture is actually meaningful, including the dozens of Messianic passages Christians know and love. If he did, then no perfectly fulfilled prediction should give us even one moment’s pause.