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.
To the Chief Musician on Muthlabben, A Psalm of David.
I will praise [You], Lord, with my whole heart. I will
show forth all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You.
I will sing praise to Your name, O most
High. When my enemies are turned
back, they shall fall and perish at Your presence: for You have maintained my
right and my cause. You sat on the
throne judging right. You have rebuked the heathen. You have destroyed the wicked. You have put out their name forever and ever.
O enemy, destructions are come
to a perpetual end. You have destroyed
cities. Their memorial is perished with
them.
But the Lord shall endure forever. He has
prepared His throne for judgment. He shall judge the world
in righteousness. He shall minister
judgment to the people in uprightness. The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of
trouble. And those who know Your name
will put their trust in You: for You, Lord, have not
forsaken those who seek You.
Sing praises to the Lord, Who dwells in Zion. Declare
among the people His doings. When He makes inquisition for
blood, He remembers them. He forgets not
the cry of the humble. Have mercy on me, Lord. Consider my trouble from those
who hate me. Who lifts me up from the
gates of death: so that I may show forth all Your
praise in the gates of the daughter of Zion. I will rejoice in Your salvation. The heathen are sunk down in
the pit they made. In the net,[ii] which
they hid, is their own foot taken. The Lord is known [by] the
judgment He executes. The wicked is
snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Consider.
The wicked shall be turned to
hell, all the nations that forget God. For
the needy shall not always be forgotten.
The expectation of the poor shall [not]
perish forever. Arise, Lord. Let not man prevail. Let the heathen be judged in Your sight. Put them in fear, Lord: [so that] the nations
may know themselves [to be but] men. Consider.
[i] Inquisition
for blood: the search for murderers, haters of the Decalogue, the Law of God. Inquisition for blood, my enemies, the
heathen, the wicked all designate the same group of people: these are not
people far off who have never heard the Gospel.
David's principle enemies were Jews, Israelites, and Hagarenes: close
cousins who grew up with the Gospel, and yet despised it. Today, God's principal enemies do not all
come from outside of churches or Christian societies. Someone has sowed tares with the wheat.
Muthlabben: an unidentified word. It may mean white (laben) death (muth) or
things of (muthlab???) a son (ben). The
Psalm may focus on David's grief over the death of Bathsheba's child, or over
Absalom's death. David lost four sons as
punishments for the murder of Uriah, and his enemies may have used any or all
of these tragedies as occasions to rise up against David. Note that these deaths are not punishments
for the children: they are punishments only for David. As soon as David knows of the death of
Bathsheba's child he stops mourning, because he knows that the child is at
peace with God. When Absalom dies, David
continues in mourning, probably because he known what judgment Absalom
deserves.
All of this is prophetic of the enemies of Christ, of Judas
and the rest, almost all of whom were from Judah, Israel, and the Hagarenes. Christ's enemies have stormed and invaded our
churches.
[ii]
The retiarius cannot possibly represent the origins of net fighting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retiarius. Relatively little is known about nets as
weapons: probably because they are overlooked, thought to be inferior or
effeminate, not even thought of as weapons.
The Roman retiarius is obviously patterned after a fishing model, as he
is equipped with a trident, rather than a spear. However, nets were also used for hunting as
an aggressive weapon that was cast over the prey, as a lining for traps, as a
foot snare hidden on the ground, as a device for scaling walls, and as an
instrument of restraint and transport. Since,
the manifold handiness of the net is so easy to grasp, it’s absurd not to
suppose that most of these uses are as old as the net itself, surely almost as
old as man. Any net fisher or hunter,
being set upon by a dangerous adversary, would immediately grasp the closest
thing at hand to defend himself. Escaping
with his life, he would immediately fathom the necessity of developing and
improving new combat skills with the net.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope.
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