Somebody Else’s Mail (9)

The superscription to Psalm 5 reads “To the choirmaster: for the flutes. A Psalm of David.” I had to take a quick peek at the Hebrew for “flutes” in my Strong’s, as I don’t imagine what the Levite musicians played 3,000 years ago bore much resemblance to a modern wind instrument, especially one usually made out of nickel-silver alloys.

As it turns out, the word only appears in certain English Bibles. Some consistently omit the superscriptions for reasons discussed in this article. Even in the cases where it does appear, we have nothing else in the Old Testament with which to compare it. The usage is unique. Strong’s says it may refer to a musical instrument or simply be the name of a particular melody, which is a discreet way of saying the translators are guessing. Most modern translations go with “flutes”, though a few say “wind instruments” and the NIV goes with “pipes”.

It would be nice if we perfectly understood the etymology and popular usage of every ancient Hebrew word. This one we don’t. We can only imagine how this psalm sounded in full vocal chorus with accompaniment.

Somebody Else’s Mail (8)

The superscription to Psalm 4 reads, “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm of David.” It reminds us that no matter how personal any given psalm may appear, each was written with the entire body of believers in mind. Three thousand years ago, your new psalm did not get played on the radio in your car, revolve on the turntable of your stereo, or get discovered on Spotify. The average Israelite did not even have a copy of the words at home in a scroll to read and meditate on.

Psalms were for the congregation when it gathered, whether sung and accompanied or performed for worshipers by trained musicians.

Somebody Else’s Mail (7)

Psalm 3 is a little piece of history.

The superscript over it reads, “A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.” It takes us back to chapters 15 through 19 of 2 Samuel, which describe Absalom’s conspiracy against his father. The scripture says he “stole the hearts of the men of Israel”. An attractive, charismatic young man, Absalom pretended to care about the people of God and to offer them something his father could not, and large numbers of Israelites followed him in rebelling against David and driving the king from his palace in Jerusalem to exile across the Jordan River.

Absalom’s conspiracy ultimately failed. God delivered David, and if we read Psalm 3 with those events in the back of our minds, we see its words harmonizing with the history in Samuel.

Somebody Else’s Mail (6)

The word Selah appears in the Old Testament a total of 74 times, primarily in the Psalms, but also a few times in the prophecy of Habakkuk. If that seems odd, you may want to read this post and possibly this one. Hebrew scholars entertain the possibility that in the midst of his prophetic utterances, Habakkuk quoted something constructed very much like a traditional Hebrew psalm (though not one preserved in the Psalter). If that is in fact the case, it should not surprise us to find the prophet using the language of a psalmist. Selah is one of those words peculiar to Psalms.

We are about to encounter it for the first time in Psalm 3.

Somebody Else’s Mail (5)

We were looking last week at the future, earthly opposition to God and his Messiah described for us in Psalm 2. David tells us that the rulers of the nations in those days will take their stand against both, craving freedom from the moral restraints Christ’s righteous government of our world will impose upon them. The psalmist cautions them from resisting the Lord’s Anointed. But as Isaiah would later write, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.”

A fallen world will not want that, even if it comes packaged with all manner of millennial blessings.

Somebody Else’s Mail (4)

Some day soon a Jew is going to rule this world, and he’s going to do it from the throne of David, making beleaguered Jerusalem the capital city of our planet.

There may be notions more offensive to modern sensibilities, but I can’t think of any at the moment. Let’s just say the nation of Israel is not currently in vogue. But that’s what the Bible teaches. It’s called the Second Coming of Christ, the hope of Israel, and the literal fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. It’s an idea so audacious that it even riles up a significant segment of Christendom.

Guess what? The Gentile nations of that coming day will not be thrilled about it either.

Somebody Else’s Mail (3)

Before we dive further into our sequential exposition of the Psalms, it’s probably a good time to set out what my objective is in devoting every Saturday for more than the next three years, Lord willing, to one of the longest books in the Bible.

An aside: You may be surprised to realize Psalms is not the lengthiest by any standard other than total chapters and verses. I was. It’s actually third-longest. By Hebrew word count, both Jeremiah and Genesis exceed Psalms by a fair margin. (Translating Hebrew poetry into English apparently requires more words than does prose. The original is quite succinct.)

In any case, it’s a very long book and a major project. Why invest the time?

Somebody Else’s Mail (2)

I have a second introductory post coming next week, but I’m eager to get going, so let’s just jump in.

The author of Psalm 1 is unknown. Naturally, most scholars attribute these first six verses to David. For me, that’s a bit like the answers you get from ten-year-olds in Sunday School to questions about who did this or that in the Bible: they always guess either “God” or “Jesus”. Kids are not stupid. Those odds are usually better than 50/50; that’s just how Sunday Schools roll. Hopefully, they think, there’s something better at stake than yet another pencil. Maybe so do the scholars.

Somebody Else’s Mail (1)

Reading somebody else’s mail can be a profitable exercise. We can learn much about the Lord and his ways from truths he has not directly shared with us, just as I can learn a great deal about my natural father’s character by reading his letters to my brother or sister. We can take very personal lessons from things that happened to people from wildly different cultural backgrounds in distant times and places. After all, God is the same God. He never changes his character.

That is not true of his tactics and strategies. Those may vary quite a bit.