Well, it's lesson six. We're beginning a new book of the Psalms, book number two, and we're going to be looking at Psalms 42 to 49. So I want to do a little bit of backtracking a bit and review the overarching structure of the Psalter just a few minutes here just so we know what the structure is. It's fresh in our brains and our minds and our memories of what we're looking at here.
So talk about all of this in lesson one, but now we're at lesson six. It's time to do a quick recap. And I'll do that when we get to books, the future books of the Psalter as well. Just do a quick recap.
So the, there's a thematic progression throughout these five books and that is tracking Israel's royal history along this trajectory from lament to praise. A different commentators will point this out that there's a lot more lament Psalms in the beginning of the Psalter and a lot more praise Psalms at the end of the Psalter. So the whole general trajectory, the thematic progression of the whole Psalter is from lament to praise. And you're going to see that a lot in individual books as well and also in individual Psalms.
This movement from lament to praise, from praise to worship to Thanksgiving. Remember we talked about this in previous lessons that's called a to-dah cycle. You're going to find this in, for example, Psalm 22. Next week we're going to look at Psalm 50, these various to-dah Psalms where the Psalm begins with a dreadful situation, a plight, a difficulty, a promise to God to offer vows of things, giving if he delivers them that deliverance comes and so there's things giving to God at the end and praise to God at the end.
That's called a to-dah cycle. So the entire Psalter has this to-dah cycle from lament to praise. All right. So the Psalter is therefore divided into five different books and each book concludes with a doxology in what's really, really fresh in our mind right now because we just completed book one in the last lesson.
The very, very last verse of Psalm 41, which technically is not part of Psalm 41, it's just the last verse of the whole book. It says in 41, 13, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting Amen and Amen. That is a doxology is a note of praise and worship of God. Blessed be the Lord from everlasting to everlasting Amen.
So every single book has a doxology concluding the themes of that book. All right. So the fact that there are five books in the Psalter is very significant because it echoes the five books of Moses. So as one of your commentaries points out here, it says, we've been 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 I really, really like that a lot, right? So you've got the five books of the law, got the five books of David. So five books of Moses, five books of David, you want to put it that way, and each of them together form this perspective of loving worship of God to follow his law, to obey him with love and then to praise him. So it's really nice how the law and the Psalter, both law and praise and prayer, they really reflect each other in our relationship of preserving our relationship with God and preserving the covenant with God.
So that's really beautiful. I like that a lot. So what are the five books then? Well, book one is one, three, forty one.
We talked about that in the last four lessons. Technically speaking, actually, I said this before many times, but Psalms one and two formed introduction or the prologue for the whole Psalter. So Psalm number one is life living under the law. Blessed is he who follows the law of the Lord.
So the whole Psalter begins with blessedness. That's significant because you are blessed if you follow the law, you are blessed if you worship God. So Psalm number one is living under the law. Psalm number two is living under the David King.
And so we're going to see a lot of Psalm number two being echoed here and developed in book two. And I've said this so many different times. Psalms one and two, they're not just introducing the entire Psalter. They introduced the various themes of each book of the Psalter as well.
So if you put them aside, technically book one is Psalms three through forty one. And the theme there is focusing on the David King. So we took four lessons talking about how David is the righteous king who suffers persecution from his enemies and he cries out to God for deliverance. And so there's a lot of lament Psalms, personal individual lament Psalms, all written by David and for the vast majority of book one is written by David.
So that's book one focusing on the David King. Book two, which is what we're beginning right now, is Psalms 42 to 72. Now the theme is focusing on the glory of the David King them generally speaking. Now of course these are all generalizations but they're very safe, secure generalizations with a little bit of exceptions here and there but I find that those exceptions usually prove the rule.
So it's book two is focusing on the glory of the David Kingdom. And we'll spend three weeks or three lessons on that book three Psalms 73 through 89 focuses on the fall of the David Kingdom book four focuses on the exile of the David Kingdom. And then finally book five focuses on the restoration of the David Kingdom, which is partial restoration. It's not yet completely realized and we'll talk about that in due time.
So we're working our way down the path here book one is behind us. We got to see a lot of those different themes of the suffering righteous to the king. Now what we're going to be doing in the next three lessons is focusing on the glory of the David Kingdom. Now I will actually a couple different points here as we move along.
So let's introduce today's lesson focusing on Psalms 42 to 49. That begins book two and all of these Psalms are ascribed as a group to the sons of Khura. And this is the first time you've got Psalms attributed to some other than David. Like I said a moment ago, pretty much all of the Psalms of book one are attributed to David.
There's a couple of anonymous ones in there. But here 42 to 49 are for to the sons of Khura are from the sons of Khura. You're going to have the sons of Khura writing some other songs later on as well. But this is the first little cluster of Psalms attributed to someone else.
Now who are the sons of Khura? Really quickly now, Khura was a Levite who back in Numbers chapter 16 led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. So Khura is technically related to Moses and Aaron I believe they're just cousins. If I remember correctly, we're just straight up cousins and Khura is a Levite.
So he has a lot of great liturgical duties and taking care of the tabernacle and the ark and I forget exactly what his family clan, what his responsibilities were, but he had the surgical duties. He was a Levite. So that's wonderful. However, for him, he was upset and he had spiritual envy because he was not a priest.
He didn't descend from Aaron. Therefore, he was not a priest. He's basically considered a deacon. If you want to follow the broad strokes there and we talk about this a lot in the Bible study on the Numbers, you essentially have the high priest and then the priests and then all the Levites.
So the high priests would correspond roughly to like Bishop, Bishop of Rome even. If then you've got the priests and then the deacons would be considered like Levites. So he's just a deacon. He wants to be a priest and he leaves this rebellion.
It doesn't go well for him. Him and all of his followers are swallowed up by the earth in some kind of sinkhole. And it doesn't go well. It's a pretty bad day for Korah.
But his descendants, either biological blood descendants as well as probably you could say spiritual descendants, they became this liturgical guild of singers. And they're mentioned in a couple different places in Chronicles and have the reference for you here in your notes, 1 Chronicles 9, 2 Chronicles 20. You can check that out for yourself. They're mentioned there with the surgical responsibilities.
But it's kind of nice, whereas Korah was an incompoop and a knucklehead and he rebelled against Moses and God and it didn't end well for him. But his descendants end up becoming really beautifully. They have a lot of responsibilities in the temple and not just various responsibilities like cleaning the chalice's, but they have a great responsibility of seeing these glorious hymns of worship to God so much so that their songs, or many of them, I don't know how many of them, but some of their songs, are preserved here in the sacred scripture. So that's really, really nice.
That's who the sons of Korah are. It's a happy ending to a bad beginning is what that story is all about. So now here in Book 2, as we're starting this right now with Psalm 42, as this quote here says, in Book 2 compared to Book 1, far fewer psalms end with a plea of assistance and far more end on a note of praise. And that's really the transition.
So Book 1 is a lot of lament Psalms and there's a lot of Psalms that end with crying out to God for assistance. There is no despair. Right? Despair is a sin against the virtue of hope.
There's always this note of hope, even in those lament Psalms. The exception would probably be Psalm 88, which we'll talk about down the line. But there's a note of hope that there's all of this lament and cries for assistance. That's not the case here in Book 2.
Far more Psalms end on a note of praise and thanksgiving and worship and celebration of God. And that really changes the tone of Book 2 here as we are meditating on the glory of the Davidic Kingdom. And I'll just tell you right now why the Davidic Kingdom is so glorious, it's because of the covenant that God made with David. God himself rules all the earth and all peoples through the Davidic Kingdom.
That's what makes the Davidic Kingdom so special. It's because it's so glorious. It's because God rules from Jerusalem and from Zion, it rules over as people. And we'll unpack that a lot more especially as we get to these Zion Psalms.
I really begin with Psalm 45. So good stuff. Now about this comparison, one more point here. About this comparison between Book 1 and Book 2.
So yes, Book 2 ends on more notes of praise. There are far, far fewer lament Psalms here compared to Book 1. But however, it confuses students because Psalms 42 to 44 are laments. And they say, well, what gives?
I thought this was another glory that Davidic Kingdom here. Why are we beginning Book 2 on a down note here? Where the Psalmist is crying out to God. Where are you God?
I desire to be with you in your holy temple. Israel, we're cast away from you. We'll unpack this soon enough here. So why does it begin on the lament?
It begins on a lament because these Psalms 42, 43, 44 are lament and they are the hinge connecting Book 2 to Book 1. So there's a bit of a kind of a transition out of the Book 1 themes of lament into the Book 2 themes of praise and glory of God. And Psalms 42 to 44 are the hinge, the link in the chain for that purpose. So even so we had, I said, generally speaking, right, it's a book that focuses on the glory of the Davidic Kingdom.
And the exceptions really prove the rule that's here true for Psalms 42, 43, and 44. They're lament that connect Book 2 to Book 1 as a hinge as a link in the chain. And that will make a lot of sense here. So with that then let's dive in chapter 42.
Psalm 42, our first lament Psalm, it's an individual lament Psalm. And it's very famous to opening words here. Very, very famous because the Psalmist is expressing this very powerful, intense, deep desire to be in God's presence, specifically in the temple, right, especially the temple. I want to be with you, Lord.
And let me just read the first couple of verses you'll probably recognize immediately. Chapter 42 verse 1, as a dear longs for flowing streams, so long as my soul for you, O God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God, when shall I come and behold the face of God? That's really, really lovely, right? It's just as a dear longs for flowing streams for, you could say rivers are living water almost, I say that intentionally is I'm going to pack this.
So my soul thirsts for God. What a great metaphor there comparing once thirst for God as a dear longs for flowing streams, presumably in the desert, right? Okay, so he desires the face of God and thirst for God. There's a lot to say right here.
Now, okay, really quickly, this longing for God is going to be the marking characteristic of Psalms 42, 43, and 44, desiring to be with God, which will then be answered in the Zion Psalms and the royal Psalms afterwards. So just keep that in mind as far as the flow of all of these together. 42, 43, 44 is marked by this desire to be in God's presence, especially in the temple. And then the Psalms afterwards is that God is present in his temple to be with his people, right?
So this will be clear as we go along. So I like, I want to say a couple of things here first about this concept of flowing streams. I've said a lot in other contexts here, and even in the Psalms itself, more often than not, when you're talking about rivers of water or flowing streams, rivers of living water, that is very much a echo or a type of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is depicted in many places of scripture, all the New Testament as rivers of water. So for example, there's a couple of connections I want to make for you here in these notes.
The first is that the waters represent the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says as much explicitly in John chapter seven, verses 37 and following. And he says, it begins in John 737, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me as the scriptures has said out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.
And then John says, he said this about the Holy Spirit, which those who believe in him were to receive. So this is really interesting. And I think this is a very strong connection. The Psalm says, as a dear thirst for flowing streams, I thirst for you, if in Jesus will stand before the throngs of people and say, if anyone thirsts echoing, especially Psalm 42, then come to me and drink.
I will give you the rivers of living water, which is the Holy Spirit. So when we thirst for God, we're thirsting for intimacy with God, and we're thirsting for the very spirit of God, which Jesus Christ will give to us. So that's the first connection here that I think is really, really beautiful. When when Jesus says, if you thirst come to me, and I will give you rivers of living water, AKA the Holy Spirit.
So Psalm 42 is a foreshadowing of the thirst that all of us should have for the Holy Spirit, which Jesus Christ will satiate. There's another connection, however, in Jesus' preaching, and that is again with the beatitudes. I always find these connections between the beatitudes and the Psalms and the wisdom literature in general, but especially the Psalms. We talked about this before in the last lesson about, remember, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
That was a reference almost literally literal quote to Psalm 37 verse 11. Well, now here, the very next beatitudes says, blessed are those who what hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Now, there's a lot to say about that Psalm. I'm going to resist the temptation to veer off track for 10 minutes, but hungering and thirsting for righteousness and being satisfied is what Jesus is talking about when he says, if you thirst come to me and I will give you the Holy Spirit.
So behind the beat, this beatitude here, beatitude number four, and behind Jesus' words, before the throngs in John chapter seven, is Psalm 42. We thirst for God. We thirst to see his face. We thirst for intimacy and the whole, with the Holy Spirit, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus will satisfy us. So there's a lot behind all this. And I haven't even talked about the woman at the well in John chapter four. I haven't even talked about Jesus thirsting on the cross.
Believe me, if we had another hour for this, which I, every single, just be like we should just multiply the 16 part series in like 32 parts, there's so many other connections here about rivers of living water, the woman at the well. And when Jesus on the cross, he says, I thirst, many saints says, say that he thirsts for souls. You know, we should thirst for God and to be with intimate, intimate with God and have a covenantal personal relationship with him, which will be satisfied. And he thirsts for us as well, which is why he suffers.
So believe me, there's a lot to say about these ideas and images of thirsting for living water and being satiated by the Holy Spirit that Christ gives to us from the cross. Because again, another connection is what flows from the side of Jesus on the cross, but blood and water. So blood and water flow from the side of Christ, which is imagery of the sacraments of the Eucharist and baptism, which are the channels of grace for the Holy Spirit is communicated to our soul for the sacrament. So anyways, it's a gigantic, beautiful, long topic here that would take many, many hours to make all these connections.
But I hope you can see right out the gate. Book number two in Psalm 42 opens up with a great, great start. You know, with all these biblical images of thirsting for God, like a dearest for water, that's the Holy Spirit. Jesus mentions that in the beatitudes, John 7, John for all these different places.
So hopefully you've followed on all that. There's a lot for fruitful prayer, but I got to move on. All right. So he's thirsty for God.
And then he says, when shall I come and behold the face of God? This is the end of verse two. Or says, this is what he desires to behold the face of God. And we've said this a lot already in previous lessons.
We talked about this in Psalm 17. We talked about it in Psalm 21, I believe. So to see the face of God is the great desire of the human soul. Hopefully we're thirsting for that.
And I didn't even get on a little soapbox to preach about this. Remember how the Psalms are mirror for us. The Psalms are a mirror for our soul, which describes the various movements of our soul, but also should really prescribe for us what we should be feeling and thinking and desiring and hoping. We should be thirsting for God as a dearest for water.
And we should be desiring to behold the face of God. If we're not, then we need to recalibrate a little bit. If, you know, we also box just a little tiny bit. If the faith of our Catholic faith and our relationship with Christ is just one of the many things that we have in our life, right?
You know, I like to hunt and fish. I like to go hiking and camping. I like to watch a movie. I like to have a bourbon and a pipe with friends.
You know, I like to spend time with my family and I like to go to church, you know, and maybe every the Bible sometimes. Well, then you got a problem because Christianity and our relationship with Jesus is not just a part of our lives. It should be the whole center and purpose of our lives. And then so this Psalm is a reflection.
It's a little examination of conscience. Do we feel that way or not? All right. So I'm getting off my soapbox now.
Desiring the face of God is our ultimate goal. And I said this just a moment ago, I talked about this in Psalms 1721 and others, beholding the face of God will be fulfilled with the beat of vision. Seeing the face of God is all over the scriptures. It is with Moses who spoke to God, face to face in his face, radiated the glory of God.
It's in the blessing of Aaron at the end of chapter six. I'm going to read this actually for you because there's a little connection I made later on with the Psalms. It's going to be connected with the blessing of Aaron. This is Aaron.
This is called the High Priestly Prayer. It's Numbers chapter 6, verse 25 and 26, 24 following I should say. So Numbers chapter 6 verse 24, this is the blessing of Aaron. The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. That's a very short blessing. I highly encourage fathers to bless their children with this blessing.
It's in our liturgy as well. But part of this, the center of this is relationship with God. The greatest blessing of God that he could give to us is that we behold his face, his countenance upon us, and he gives us peace. So this desire and the Psalms over and over and over again, we're going to come back to it in just a little bit.
To desire the face of God will only be fulfilled in the conquest of the Promised Land of Heaven. We get to heaven and we see him in the beat of vision. And I have for you again many references in the Old End New Testament for desiring the face of God. Matthew 5, 8, 1 Corinthians 13, 12, 1 John 3, 2, and Job 42, and the Old Testament.
I read it to you in Numbers 6, 25. This is what the Psalmist greatly, greatly desires is to see the face of God. He thirsts for that. He desires that with all of his heart.
And hopefully we feel the same. Now then moving on here, the problem is he's far from God. He's exiled from God. He's in the North Country.
I'm going to share a little bit with you down the line. Let's keep reading actually where we're going to see his enemy is taught to him in mock him because he's separated from God. Verse 4, excuse me, verse 3, my tears have been my food day and night. While men say to me continually, where is your God?
That's repeated again at the end of Psalm 42. Verse 10, let me just read it for you now. As with a deadly one in my body, my adversary taught me when they said to me continually, where is your God? So that taunt, that mockery is repeated twice.
Verse 4 and verse 10, which I find again very relevant because of course the Scriptures are relevant. You know, oftentimes in this valley of tears, we should be longing for God, longing to see the face of God, longing to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and so we will be satisfied. But our enemies say, where is your God? This happens all the time, especially in the aftermath of a disaster or difficulty or suffering.
Where is your God? Where is your God? I don't know. I've felt this before.
I've heard this before many times. Where is your God? So what David here, or I should say, the sons of Carat are describing is something that we all feel as well. Our enemies taunt us and mock us and revile us, saying there is no God.
As we've said, we've seen before in previous Psalms, the fool says in his heart there is no God, because where is he? We can't see him. He doesn't seem like he's evident here, and we just simply need to have peace. And okay, let's actually keep reading on here.
Verse 4, these things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I went with the throne and led them in procession, where to the house of God, with shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. So he's remembering here those happy times when he was a pilgrim with all the rest of the pilgrims, going up to the presence of God in the temple and offering sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. That's the Todah sacrifice. Sacrifice of thanksgiving I've said this to you in previous lessons is the greatest of all the sacrifices.
So he remembers these happy times that he's not experiencing any more. He's estranged from God far away from God, and he remembers the times that he was close to God. I think we can all relate to this, certainly in our own personal spiritual lives. There are moments where he felt very, very close to God and God revealed himself to us with great consolation, spiritual warm fuzzies, but then the suffering comes, the reviling from enemies comes, hopefully not from family members, but that happens.
And we feel like God is far from us, and we remember the good times. So verse 5, why are you cast down, oh my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my Savior, and my God. That whole verse right there, at least, yeah, verse 5, and just a tiny little bit of verse 6 there, is going to be repeated a couple of different times in 42 and 43.
I'm going to tell you just a minute that 43 is really just the second half of 42. They are really just one song there, but that refrain is the refrain of hope. I hope that this will happen. It's a very important theological virtue where we hope in God and we hope in his promises that he will achieve his promises and give us the grace we need to be persistent in our life of faith, of life of grace.
So why are you cast down, my soul? That word cast down is repeated many times in 42 and 43 as well. Don't be cast down. Don't be melancholy.
Don't be sad. You will again come before the presence of God in the temple. All right, that's kind of the underlying theme here. And you will worship him because verse 8, by day the Lord commands to steadfast love, and at night his song is with me.
So the Psalmist here, the singer, the sons of Qur'a, they remember God's steadfast love. He said that word a billion times, his steadfast love, covenantal, loyal, persistent love for his people. Because of that then his heart sings with joy. Now we talked about the importance of singing to God in the last lesson.
I gave you a couple good quotations from the church fathers, especially saying a gust and remember where he says, seeing well, everybody forgets that part. Seeing everybody, but he says, seeing well, however, and of course he's not talking about the actual gift of being able to carry a tune, which I cannot singing from your heart. Well, on that point I came across another beautiful quote from Saint John Chrysostom, the golden tongue, and this is what he says about singing. There can be, sorry, excuse me, there is no need of a skill acquired with great effort to produce a spiritual melody.
One can always and everywhere sing in the mind, whether in the marketplace, while traveling or in the company of others, one can even sing without a voice, since we can sing not to others but to God who hears the heart. I really love that. So it reminds me of what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5 17, pray unceasingly, pray without ceasing without stopping all the time. In the same way here, part of prayer is singing to God.
So Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Augustine, we saw last lesson, says, sing from your heart, God hears your heart, he hears the sincerity of your heart in your mind. Even if you don't sing with your voice, you can sing all the time. So certain people you run into, they're always kind of humming to themselves. They have this joyfulness about them.
I think that it's really beautiful and hopefully they're singing and humming to God. They're happy and rejoicing in God's blessings. I like to think that. Okay, so that is really Psalm 42, my friend.
So it is kicking off Book 2 with this profound desire to be with God, although he's a strange, I didn't read this verse, but let me just why do I keep saying that he's a strange and separate from God? Because he says, go down to verse 6, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and Herman and Mount Mizzar. Depending on which commentary you read, nobody really knows precisely where he's talking about, but it's somewhere in the North Country, somewhere in Northern Galilean area.
He's far from Jerusalem, and that's why he is remembering the good times when he went with the pilgrims to the temple. And that's why his soul is downcast, and that's why he does long for God to see the face of God as the dear lungs for the flowing strings. All right, so that is Psalm 42, and it's a really great Psalm to kick off the rest of the feeling of the Psalter, or I should say the rest of the feeling of Book 2, because God answers this prayer, and he is going to be reunited to God in the temple and in Zion. So Psalm 43 is just a continuation of 42.
Exactly. Like they should be one Psalm. In fact, they once were one Psalm. That's pretty much unanimous in all the commentators.
Psalm 42 and 43 used to be one Psalm. So here's a quote for you about that. It came from your Catholic study Bible. It means study Bible.
So scholars surmise, and that's almost unanimous as far as I've seen. So scholars surmise that Psalms 42 and 43 originally formed one Psalm. Why? Number one, Psalm 43 has no superscription.
So just like we talked about this with Psalms 9 and 10, it's the same kind of thing. It's really odd for a Psalm not to have a superscription, so that probably means it's connected with the previous Psalm. All right, here's another more evidence. Number two, the two Psalms are punctuated by the same refrain.
Why are you cast down on my soul? Now, here, where is that refrain? I'm going to tell you right now. It's in Psalm 42 verse 5.
Why are you cast down on my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope and God for I shall indeed praise him again, praise him my Savior and my God. That exact same verse is repeated at the end of 42 verse 11, and then again at the end of 43 verse 5.
So Psalm 43 is very, very short, only 5 verses. Why are you cast down on my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope and God for I shall again praise him by Savior and my God.
So that refrain is punctuated three different times at the beginning, middle, and end of Psalms 43, 42 and 43. Another reason, because number three, both Psalms express a desire to be in the Lord's presence. So we open up and spend all that time, which again, I kind of abbreviated it because we talk a lot more about the flowing streams and whatnot, but there's this desire to be in the presence of God. I want to see your face.
I want to drink the flowing streams like the deer. I remember going into the house of God. All that is repeated again, right here in Psalm 43 verse 3 and following, which says, Oh, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me.
Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God to God my exceeding joy. So that same desire to be with God in the temple and in Jerusalem at Mount Zion is continued in Psalm 43. So for all these various reasons, they really are two Psalms.
So what does that mean? Why are they are sorry? They really are one Psalm. So why are they two Psalms?
Well, in the mystery of time in God's providence, the final editor or in the process of editing and redacting the Psalter here split up 42 and 43 to get us to the round number of 150. And you just find that there. It's mysterious. Not exactly know why that happened, but it sure did.
I think it's indisputable. 42 and 43 were one Psalm, which somewhere along the line was split into two, probably get us to 150, but there could be other reasons as well. All right. So just a couple more points about Psalm 43 before we move on since it's basically the same thing as 42.
He continues to trust in God and mourn the oppression of his enemies. So remember in 42, there's that constant oppression. Where is your God? Where is your God?
Same thing as going on here in chapter 43 verse 2. For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you cast me off? And that word cast me off.
The word cast is mentioned so many times. Why do I go morning because of the oppression of the enemy? So enemies continue to oppress him in chapter 43. And then in this verse three, we said, his light and his truth will guide him to the temple.
That's really beautiful. A lot has been said about the light and the truth. That guides him to the temple. Remember, Jesus is the light of the world.
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Ultimately, Jesus fulfills that particular verse. How are we led to the temple of God and ultimately the heavenly temple, the temple of the new Jerusalem, only through Jesus Christ, only through the gods, light and truth in Jesus Christ. Can we be fulfilled in our desire for the truth and in our desire for springs of living water as we've been talking about before.
And then finally, the song ends with this refrain, which I've already said, as the quote pointed out as well, don't be cast down. Hope in God, you will indeed praise him. You're going to be brought back from your exile to come into the holy temple. God's light and truth will lead you there.
And all of this, of course, is so obviously beautifully fulfilled in Jesus, like I said. All right, so 42 and 43 are one Psalm, an individual lament Psalm of an individual. It could be the king. It could be a priest.
It could be a layman. Don't exactly know. But there is this desire to be with God in the temple. That was going to be teed up.
It's going to teed us up very nicely for the Zion songs coming down the line. All right, so we have a lot more to talk about here. All these little lessons go for at least hour and a half or more. So let's get going.
Psalm 44 is another lament Psalm, but it's a communal lament Psalm. And it's really still a continuation of the ideas from Psalms 42 and 43. So the desire for God at the personal individual level in Psalms 42 and 43 now is continued here in 44, but it's at the national level. It's the people of Israel desiring to have God's presence with them again, because they feel cast off.
Right. So in this way, Psalm 44 is an extension of the prayer of 42 and 43. It's just at the national level now. So what do I mean by that?
Let's look at this. Hey, this is Doc Nick. 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.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T 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 setting your Bible.