Thursday, January 16, 2014

Psalm 28:1-9


Salutation

... in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.  Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.  Amen.  Glory to You, our God, Glory to You.

O Heavenly King: Prayer to the Holy Ghost

O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, You are everywhere and fill all things, Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.

Psalm 28:1-9[i]

[A Psalm] of David.

To You will I cry, O Lord my rock.  Be not silent to me.  Lest, You are silent to me, and I become like those who go down to the pit.  Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands to Your holy oracle.  Draw me not away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, but mischief [is] in their hearts.

Give them according to their deeds, according to the wickedness of their endeavors.  Give them after the work of their hands.  Render to them their desert.  Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them, and not build them up.

Blessed [be] the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications.  The Lord [is] my strength and my shield.  My heart trusted in Him, I am helped.  Therefore my heart greatly rejoices.  With my song will I praise Him.
 
The Lord [is] their strength, He [is] the saving strength of His Christ.  Save Your people, Bless Your inheritance.  Feed them also, Lift them up forever.




[i] David spills out his prayer in a torrent.  There was considerable temptation to group it in one paragraph: because one thought rushes onward to the next.
The “Oracle” is the Holy of Holies, the Most Holy place in the tabernacles and temples of the Israelites.  It is the place where the Ark of the Covenant, the Throne of God, is kept, it is God’s special residence, the place where the Glory of God sits, from which He speaks, and where He hears and judges petitions: it was active among the Israelites for eight hundred sixty years, it is very likely the place where Samuel slept.
David is painfully aware that it is this presence of The Living God that separates him from wicked men and not his own behavior.
The entire security of David and his kingdom rests on this visible Flaming-Smoking Presence of God: nothing else.  Israel is a tiny country, which could have been easily overrun by truly powerful empires, like Egypt to the south; or Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia from the north.  Israel exists as a nation for eight hundred sixty years, for one, and only one reason; the Glory of God, Who calls Himself God and Jehovah, dwells among them, speaks to them, and listens to them from the Oracle.  There was, at that time, one place on earth, where the Ubiquity allowed Himself to be seen and heard by men.  Of course, the infinite, omnipresent God cannot live in a small manmade room: but the living picture was always there to remind the Israelites that God rules the Universe, God is the only reason that they exist, the only reason we exist.  The fact that God speaks and listens, is central to this Psalm and all the Psalms.  He hears our prayers and answers.

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