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 Mahalath, Maschil, [A Psalm] of David.
The fool has said in his heart, “[There is] no God.” They are corrupt. They have done abominable iniquity. No one does good.
God looked down from heaven on the children
of men, to see if there were [any]
that understood, that sought God. Every
one of them is gone back. They are
altogether become filthy. No one does
good, no, not one.
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat up my people [as] they eat bread. They
have not called on God. There were they
in great fear, [where] no fear was:
for God has scattered the bones of him who besieges you. You have put [them] to shame, because God has despised them.
Oh that the salvation of Israel [were come] from Zion! When God brings back the captivity of His
people, Jacob shall rejoice, Israel shall be glad.
________
If you have been
blessed or helped by any of these meditations in Psalms, please repost or share
all of them.
[1] For
all intents and purposes, this Psalm is identical to Psalm 14, at least in the
English text. The notable differences
are these: Psalm 53 adds the word Maschil to the heading: we have little idea
of what this term means. Psalm 53 has
the word God, rather than Yahweh in the second, third, and fourth paragraphs:
since both Psalms are attributed to David, we have little reason to believe
that this difference is due to a change of convention or custom; David
considered the terms interchangeable.
This leaves the difference in the explanatory clause in paragraph four
(verse 5). Knowledge of the exact
situations escapes us.
Psalm 14: “for God [is] among the generation of the
righteous. You have shamed the advice of
the poor, because the LORD [is] his refuge.”
Psalm 53: “[where] no fear was: for God has scattered the
bones of him who besieges you. You have put [them] to shame, because God has
despised them.”
Our conjecture is that this triumphal Psalm was intended as a formalized
pattern, similar to a Todah. Whenever, Yahweh
God granted victory, this prayer would be sung, changing only the explanation
of the particular circumstances at hand.
Thus, this Psalm may have had uncountable versions: only two are
recorded for our instruction.
The commentary on Psalm 14 follows, to save the reader the
trouble of looking it up.
David could be staring at the living, talking, flaming Glory
of God for all we know. He had seen this
Glory many times; being in His Presence was David’s chief joy. When David says that atheism is foolishness,
he is not mincing words: he knows exactly whereof he speaks.
David turns from his own evaluation to Yahweh’s
evaluation. There is no such thing as a
good person anywhere. It is clear that
whatever David knows about his intimate inner self and about people in general,
he learned from talking with God.
Knowledge is a fundamental element in people’s evil: not that
knowledge isn’t available, but people are mentally defective, neither able to
nor desirous of receiving it. So, they
destroy God’s servants, and think they’ve done God a favor. But God is about to intervene in that
situation, and make the wicked afraid: not because God’s servants are good,
while others are not; that is not the case, all are not good. The righteous are righteous because they have
taken ownership of their lack of goodness; they have sought and found refuge in
God’s forgiving, healing, and justifying mercy; they have received the gift of
God’s goodness.
David concludes that Zion is the center for such hope,
salvation, and worship. Captivity speaks
of the gathering, calling together, congregating of God’s people as one. This may indicate that David is writing during
the first seven years of his reign, before the Israel and Judah tribes were
reunited as one nation, under one king.
However, this unity, or lack of it, is just as true today of heavenly
Zion, and we look for the reality of this united congregation.
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