Hello, welcome back. This is lesson nine of Psalms lift up your hearts. Let's pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil amen and name the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit amen All right, well lesson nine is a new beginning so to speak We're gonna be looking at the first half of book three of the Psalter We're gonna be looking at Psalms 73 to 81 in the next lesson lesson 10.
We're gonna finish book three looking at Psalms 82 to 89 But before we dive into Psalm 73 I think it's gonna be very valuable just to take a moment and review the overarching structure the thematic structure of the Psalter according to its five books So I mentioned this to talk a lot about it in lesson one when we talked about the whole Psalter that was a long time ago, right? Number of lessons ago and I did do a little bit of a review when we introduced lesson two I should say lesson two a bigger part of book two. So now that we're doing book three I think it's gonna be very helpful inifying for us just to look at the structure here, especially as we've progressed so much Last number of lessons. All right, so remember that the Psalter itself tracks along Israel's history specifically the royal history There's a lot of discussion of course of creation and the Exodus in so many different places But by and large this is tracking Israel's royal history of King David and the David Kingdom for a longer trajectory called lament to praise Many commentators point this out and lay it out for us in their books But you got this movement from lament to praise from the whole Psalter So the whole Psalter begins with book one with lots of personal laments of King David and in book five There'll be a lot of praise Psalms So the movement from lament in book one and emphasis I've a little mention book one to an emphasis in praise and book five You can clearly see this movement this trajectory from lament to praise each individual book itself has a little bit of this as well a Movement from lament to praise and even many psalms have a movement from lament to praise and what we call a toda cycle from lament to Prays and things giving we talked about this about this a lot in previous lessons So that trajectory is really really important because King David and the David Kingdom moves along that trajectory and history of Israel moves along that trajectory trajectory And so to do we to a certain extent remember we can apply all of this stuff to our own spiritual lives If we take some time and take it to meditative prayer, we are Israel So we are born into this world We're conceived and born into this world in a state of spiritual exile from God and we lament our fall in states and through God's sacraments We're brought closer to him and of course at the end of our life who died in a state of grace We will be united to him in the beat of a vision and behold his face So our own lives in the spiritual trajectory of our birth to our death hopefully death in Christ We have a movement from lament to praise as well So there's always a lot of fruit food for thought and fruit for prayer and applying all this stuff to us Alright, so you got that trajectory from lament to lament to praise always keep in mind And then the other thing to remember is that of course the the sultry is divided into five books And I'm gonna review those the emphases of those five books in just a second But each book ends with a doxology and so at the end of last lesson I discussed this right so after Psalm 72 There's a doxology there of blessed be God.
Let me just actually read this Yeah, blessed be the Lord the God of Israel who alone does wonder things blessed be his glorious thing forever May his glory fill the whole earth amen amen and amen every single book ends with a similar doxology Which is a praise or thanksgiving or glorification given to God? Alright, so that really marks off the definitive end of a particular book So it's really cool that you've got these five books of the sultry because five is very significant in biblical literature because it Looks back and echoes to the the books of Moses So a little quotation here I shared with you in lesson one I'm gonna mention again now It says the rabbinic tradition concludes from this five-fold structure that the Psalms constitute a Davidic Torah That is a Davidic counterpart to the five books of the Mosaic law and quote All right, and that's really awesome Right many people have pointed this out five books of David in the sultry plus the fight are paralleled with the five books of Moses So essentially you got the five books of the law parallel very beautifully the five books of praise and worship liturgical worship And the two of them together lifts up the stolen contemplation and worship of God to obey his covenant and to be in friendship with God So that's really really lovely now. What are the themes of these five different books? Well, we've already completed books one and two so book one which was Psalms one through forty one focuses on the Davidic King He is the suffering but righteous King who trusts in God to deliver him from his enemies and glorify him That's what we look at there's a lot of individual laments In fact, I believe if I remember correctly up top my head most of the individual laments are found in book one So that's really interesting there.
Oh, I should also remind you that so songs one three forty one focuses on David King he's suffering his righteous, but don't forget that Psalms one and two are technically set apart from that they are the prologue So Psalm one is generally focusing on the life of blessedness So there's a contrast between the life of wickedness versus the life of righteousness and life of righteousness is the man who is righteous is blessed Psalm two is living life under the righteous King the anointed one of God who delivers his people and who is victory over his enemy So Psalm one and two I've said many many times remember serve as a prologue to the whole Psalter And you've got those names that are developed throughout each and every book Alright, so book one focuses on the Davidic King But two which is Psalms 42 to 72 focuses on the glory of the Davidic kingdom And so you do have some laments kind of you got a little a nice transition from book one to book two in those early Psalms there with some laments But it does definitely builds up towards the glory of the Davidic kingdom Why is the Davidic kingdom so glorious and so amazing? Well, it's because God rules through the Davidic kingdom Right that God has taken David to himself in a covenant and the heirs of David will constantly be on the throne of his kingdom And the great Davidic Covenant is the reason why the Davidic kingdom is so glorious because God is truly the king who reigns from Zion Right? So we had all those Zion and royal Psalms so they all build up beautifully to Psalm 72 Which is the high point of the Psalter. It's more or less dead center of the entire book And it's just a high point of everything.
This is where Solomon is described in such great regal Descriptions and beauty you almost have to think this doesn't really apply to Solomon It's got to apply to someone beyond him and of course as we discussed it applies to Jesus So there's more praise Psalms in book two I can't say it than anywhere, but there's the majority of book two has praise Psalms about God praising God praising him for his kingdom Well now here we are in book three book three is Psalms 73 to 89 It's pretty short honestly We're only gonna tackle it in two lessons And this is gonna focus on the fall of the Davidic kingdom the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple It's pretty bleak. It's pretty dismal. It's the darkest of all of the books Things have not gone well. So we're looking at the royal history the trajectory the narrative of royal history of Israel So after Solomon after his great height of building the temple and praising God and things are going well Remember that Solomon blew it right big time and after Solomon the kingdom splits and the north ultimately because of her sins are destroyed by a seria The south is destroyed by Babylon and then they're hauled off into captivity many people die things are destroyed It's very very ugly So book three is really focusing on that and crying out to God like you know We were looking for your justice to lord come back to us remember us how long will we be outcast etc So it's pretty dark and it has the most communal laments of any book So there's a lot of individual lament Psalms in book one because it's the individual David lamenting for his sufferings Although he's righteous.
Well book three has communal limits because Israel as a community as a nation is really Suffering because of the fall of the Davidic kingdom So that's what we're going to be looking at here today or in this particular lesson and the next lesson as well the fall The destruction of the Davidic kingdom asking how long the lord will this take place or along will it last And then book four just really quickly what we have to look forward to book four is Psalms 90 to 106 That's focusing more on like more kind of meditation while they are in exile So books three and four have a lot of similar themes But in the book five Psalms 107 to 150 focuses on the restoration of the Davidic kingdom now that restoration is not yet realized It's not yet fulfilled historically They have not israel never had a new king on the throne until jesus comes of course right so that expectation of fulfillment will only take place Film will only take place when jesus comes all right so we have a lot to look forward to for books four and five We have accomplished books one and two now. We're just going to see The dark dreary depressing Psalms of the fall of the Davidic kingdom All right now one little quote here i want to share with you from your calving direction to the Old Testament It says that book one was dominated by Davidic Psalms and book two ended with a significant collection of his prayers Which would have been Psalms 51 to 72 in book three. However, there is only one dividic Psalm Psalm 86 So in this way we may speak of the disappearance of David in this book and that's really interesting So the disappearance of David in this book he only has one Psalm now granted There aren't a lot of Psalms here Psalm 7389 that's not very many but David has pretty much disappeared Why? Well, it's because the Davidic kingdom is destroyed And so in a certain sense David is gone David has disappeared and that's what you need to keep in mind As we go through you're gonna see the the parallels the repetitions of the themes are very consistent in this book But David has gone the kingdom is destroyed and so that you've got this real fall this real plunge in the mood of the salter at this particular point Okay, all right now as far as authorship is concerned.
I did discuss a lot of this in lesson one But we're going to see that starting in Psalm 73 if you read the superscriptions they're attributed to asaph Asaph, asaph, asaph, asaph was a liturgical leader So he's kind of responsible for a guild of liturgical Worshipers music worshipers musical composers. There's a various references you can find in various commentaries where he pops up in first chronicles But essentially he's like a liturgical leader like the sons of Korah where okay now asaph is responsible for the Psalms Running from 73 to 83. We're not gonna cover all of them today. We just don't have time So we're gonna get Psalm 73 to 81 and those are attributed to asaph.
All right, so I think that's sufficient enough of an introduction 10 minutes or so Hopefully that was helpful for you to just kind of step back a second I mean we've been looking at all these Psalms one after another trying to understand the narrative of the trajectory of the story The links in the chain remember I keep calling it to understand how they are all connected But don't lose the force for the trees because the forest looking at the big picture is this narrative trajectory from lament to praise according to the five books And of course praise and god for his justice and his righteousness of what he's going to do for all nations through the divinity kingdom And with that, I think we should just dive into Psalm 73. All right, so here we go. Psalm 73 It's called a wisdom psalm. Um, and this is where it's kind of interesting where the psalm kind of shows up It seems to be kind of out of nowhere thematically speaking because the psalmist here is expressing this crisis of faith that he is struggling with So he observes and laments the apparent prosperity and the success of the wicked and he wonders gosh Is a life of righteousness really worthwhile or not?
Should I keep my heart pure and clean if the righteous if the unrighteous and the wicked are prospering and doing so well And nothing seems to happen to them. Why be righteous at all right now? That's a really big question that many people wrestle with in every generation I mean, this is also a big theme that a lot of other wisdom literature is going to tackle So that's why I think i'm not going to touch this topic too much But I would just simply say briefly in passing that we really do need to consider the psalms as part of the wisdom literature Often times in some books and commentaries, it's not it's like the psalms and the wisdom books Well, the psalms is really I mean you could say many respects the greatest of the wisdom books as it's tied to turgical worship of god in so many different ways So in any case whatever this is a little beam I bought it there, but it is a wisdom book So this is a wisdom psalm addressing this scandal of what's going on in the world if the wicked prosper why be righteous at all All right, so chapter 73 verse 1 and chapter 73 verse 28 the very first and the very last Verse of this song begin with a particular theme of god's goodness So that's what we call an inclusio All right, remember clusio or his book in verses so the whole song begins and ends with this theme about god's goodness So here's what I mean verse 1 says truly god is good to the upright to those who are pure in heart And then the very last verse says but for me it was good to be near god I have made the lord my refuge that I may tell of all of your works So it has to do with god's goodness to be it is good to be near god and god is good to the upright Because obviously the upright are near to god So that's important because all of the reflections of the psalmist here as he's dealing with the scandal the prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings The difficulties of the righteous It's really framed by the fact that god's goodness governs all things And that's really important to keep in mind in our own personal lives making the psalms relevant to us When we look around and we see the apparent prosperity of the wicked and we're wondering why be quite Catholic at all Why the Christian at all why do what's good obey the 10 commandments and obey god's law Why does even all matter and if we look at things that happen in their lives It's all governed by god's providence and his goodness all things happen for good for those who love him, right? So that's why I think so beautiful this song is framed by that inclusio All right now getting back to verse one Look, god is good to the upright to those who are pure in hearts There's a condition there god is good to the upright god is good to those who are pure in heart In order to be in right relationship with god to walk with god as the scriptures describe so many different times to be in friendship with him You have to be you have to have a pure heart purity of intentions It's not just chastity that's a big part of it, of course To be pure in heart is to have your sexual desires in order right?
And governed by reason of course that's true The purity of heart could be anything desiring the good of your neighbor Which is what love is and everything that's involved in it you can unpack that a lot The purity of heart is essential to be in right relationship with god And this is exactly what jesus says in the sermon on the mountain the bi attitudes Blessed in chapter five verse eight of the gospel of Matthew blessed our other pure in heart for the shall see god Jesus also makes this requirement So if you want to see god which of course remember the songs i've been talking about seeing the face of god Let your face shine on me and all these different expressions That's what the beatific vision is that's what heaven is to see god face to face You know remember st john says now we see dimly as an amir But then we shall see face to face This is what the desire is well, you got to be pure in heart So this is a call for us right the very first verse of book three is to be pure in heart And we're going to see that all the bad things that happened israel was precisely because they were not pure in heart Because they did go fall after other idols and fall into grave immoral sense So I just think it's amazing how many times the Psalms and also the wisdom literature as a whole is behind jesus's teachings That would be a really great specialized study right there to see the wisdom literature in the Psalms behind the teachings of jesus christ and the gospel So blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god echoing here 73 one god is good to those who are pure in heart Awesome All right Well, I want to read the first half of this song because this is the Psalmist observing the scandal of the wicked who prosper Everything seems to go well despite their many sins And so he's going to kind of fall Almost fall I should say almost fall to temptation of turning away from god and it's just kind of questioning everything because of this observation So let me read you now continuing on 73 verse 2 Excuse me. He says well under reverse one just get the flow again Truly god is good to the upright to those who are pure in heart But as for me my feet almost stumbled my steps well, nice lips really quickly This is going to be hard. I always want to stop I want to read a bunch of verses I'm gonna stop after each one and say something but I might forget about this So when he says you know my feet had almost stumbled my steps well nice lips Obviously he's talking about falling away from god almost falling away from god But in the context of walking all right and that's that's really important here because in scripture You always have the theme of walking with god those who walk with god are upright They're righteous they're in friendship with him. That's really really important And I do want to make a connection at the end of my little observations for you on Psalm 73 I'm going to connect it to Psalm 1 but remember back in Psalm 1 It talks about blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked or stands the way of sinners or sits in the sea The scoffers and it talks about how in verse 5 the wicked will not stand in judgment, etc Well this particular Psalmist the author Asaf in 73 is talking about how he almost slipped meaning he almost stopped walking with god All right, so if you you you're blessed if you're not walking the council of the wicked or stand the way of sinners Well, he almost did that right he almost fell away from god and stopped walking with god in order to Hang out with the wicked and that's what's going to be unpacked here So I just wanted to make a little connection to Psalm 1 and that'll make sense as we go along I'm really heading myself here All right, let me keep reading for I was for I was envious of the arrogance when I saw the prosperity of the wicked For they have no pangs their bodies are sound and sleek.
They are not in trouble as other men are they're not stricken like other men Therefore pride is their necklace violence covers them as a garment their eyes swell out with fatness their hearts overflow with fallies They scoff and speak with malice loftily they threaten oppression They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongues struts through the earth Therefore the people turn and praise them and find no fault in them and they say how can god know is there any knowledge in the most high Behold these are the wicked always at ease they increase in riches All in vain have I kept my heart clean and wash my hands in innocence for all the day long I have been stricken and chastened every morning. I will just stop right there Now this is the great scandal It's very clear it's very descriptive here about how how well off the wicked seem to be and how they're receiving praise from everybody But they're just so full of malice and oppression and they speak against god against other people It's an awful situation and so here this honest is wondering gosh was it all worth it in verse 13 I just read for you all in vain. I kept my heart clean or pure so that's in contrast to verse one right and god is good to those Were pure in heart so now he's thinking gosh. I've kept my heart clean and pure But have I done it in vain I wash my hands in innocence was it worthwhile because I have been stricken and chasing every morning and every day But the wicked don't seem to be so right again I think that we can you know spend a lot of time thinking about how this applies to our modern modern life Honestly, anybody politicians are always pick on the worst and first maybe rightly so There's of course many individuals maybe in the business private sector They just sing to prosper and they have no ethical values whatsoever So why why follow the rules if following the rules doesn't seem to help me anyway, right?
So very powerful stuff All right, so this is the problem that he's observing and he's struggling with it and he finally gets insight When let me actually just keep reading here for you when does he get insight? How does he when does it click for him? All right verse 16 But when I thought how to understand this it seemed to me a weary some task Until I went into the sanctuary of God and then I perceived their end Truly you set them in slippery places and you make them fall to ruin How they are destroyed in a moment swept away utterly by terrors They're like a dream when one awakens unawakening you despise their phantasms or phantoms, excuse me When my soul was embittered when I was a prick in heart I was stupid and ignorant I was like a beast toward you nevertheless I'm continually with you and you hold my right hand You guide me with your counsel and afterward you will receive me to glory Who am I have in heaven but you and there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides you Beautiful stuff all right so when does things change for him when do things change for him when he was trying to understand this It was weary some it was difficulty difficult. It was frustrating But then when he went in verse 17 into the sanctuary of God and then it all clicked He got what many call now the eternal perspective Right things can be very difficult in the moment Right in the moment you don't really have 2020 vision hindsight is 2020 as they say You don't have the big picture but when you get into the sanctuary he got the big picture It was through prayer and worship of God that he finally understood the end of the wicked which is ruined It's destruction and it's gonna happen very quickly Right so in the moment meanwhile like now for a while Yeah, sure they seem to prosper and everything goes well for them But it's not gonna last because God is to just judge and a whole theme of God being to just judge and bring in judgment on the wicked We're gonna see that would be unpacked in the next number of verses or excuse me the next number of Psalms a whole bunch Right so God will make everything right so he repents because I was foolish I was an idiot I was ignorant and stupid I was like a beast toward you by the way the whole concept of I was like a beast I was acting like a stupid animal that's very much in connection with the number six I've said this in other Bible studies but I'll mention it now Six is as many people know the number of evil the number of the beast why well because on the sixth day of creation God created all the animals as well as mankind But when God created mankind he created mankind to come to the seventh day of covenant rest with him covenant union and friendship with God So when man rejects the seventh day rejecting God he stays on the sixth day the day of the beast and he's no better off than a beast He's stupid and ignorant like a beast so that's why six is often in scripture the number of the beast And then of course he got the threefold six six six six He's the heebie-jeebies right that is the epitome of rebellion against God so six is rebellion against God And so when he says I was like a beast towards you It's because he was tempted almost to reject God and to reject the seventh day of Sabbath rest So hopefully that's all very helpful for you whether it's review or not To to reject God is to act like a stupid animal All right driven by your instincts not using your reason and being really enslaved by your passions All right, so we said I was like a beast or sweetie-re-pence I was dumb I was idiot.
I was foolish but you are good You guide me with your counsel you take me you leave me by my hand Right, I desire you I have no one in heaven but you I desire nothing on earth besides you really beautiful language here Of him saying you know what I almost slept like in verse two I almost slept I almost fell away, but I didn't and so now I realize that I for my faithfulness will receive glory That's verse 40 or sorry verse 24. You will receive me to glory So the wicked will receive ruin and destruction it will happen quickly, but the righteous will receive glory for faithfulness That's really beautiful So what a contrast here between the wicked and the righteous and how the righteous need to be encouraged to stay faithful And to be tenacious and persistent and persevere right and keep doing good because jagad judgment will come Now in this contrast between the righteous and the wicked this parallel is Psalm one And I was ahead of myself a little while ago when I was talking about how his feet had a well nice Slipped that whole kind of theme of your walking with god or you're walking with the wicked All right, well, there's a lot of parallels you can say there But I have this quote from your know our bible It says that this this psalm parallels in a way of Psalm number one because again We see by way of introduction the separate fates of the upright and the wicked and are invited to follow the example of the Psalms who despite his failings Has opted for god his is the true wisdom that forever guides the reader of the Psalter That's a great little quote here. I like that I want to share that with you So this Psalm 73 the very first Psalm of book three is kind of like an echo of Psalm one Remember Psalms one and two are the prologue for the entire Psalter So we're going to see those themes be unpacked as we go along and Psalm 73 is no exception He's talking about the two ways the way of righteous which leads to blessedness and glory and the way of unrighteousness Which leads to destruction and ruin don't be tempted to follow the way of unrighteous because you see them prosper because you see everything going Well for them that's going to change very very quickly So the crisis of faith that the psalmist has in 73 in my mind So the question is why is this this particular psalm the very first one of book three It doesn't seem really to fit the narrative at first glance I think what's going on here is because as the psalmist has a crisis of faith in choosing between God's way and the world's way Righteousness and wickedness that's what's going on in book three israel has a crisis of faith as well Israel must choose God over the way of wickedness Because the way wickedness is very powerful and of course They're going to see Jerusalem and the temple it's all been destroyed So there's going to be a great temptation to leave God and to turn away from him But you're not supposed to so it happens at the individual level in Psalm 73 You see at the communal national level and the rest of book three do not faulta temptation do not turn away from God stay persistent Stay faithful and you will receive glory right don't fall into the temptation to follow the way of wickedness I think that's what's going on here. So Psalm 73 is really a prologue for all of book three All right So on that point then let's move on to Psalm 74 Which is a communal lament most of the limits in book three are communal limits national limits But here you're going to see precisely the fall of the divided kingdom the fall of Jerusalem the destruction of the temple Which is really sad because remember the psalmist in 73 says I got this eternal perspective at all clip out I understood things when I went into the sanctuary of God Well now Psalm 74 is that sadly the sanctuary is gone is destroyed and it gives pretty descriptive language So let's read these verses here and we're going to see it all be very very instrumental for understanding the rest of book three is Psalms All right, so chapter 74 verse one begins like this Hey, this is doc neck.
Thank you so much for listening to this course sample If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson Please become a student over at scripture and tradition calm where you can listen to this entire course But also all the other courses that we have available in the snt audio library where you can listen to them on demand However, and whenever you want so thank you so much god bless you and keep studying your bible