More Psalms Reading, 9-1-2010

 I continue St. Augustine's Confessions and the Psalms. Augustine freely quotes bits of Psalms, but I find myself a bit uncomfortable with some.

Too many strike me as asking God to act like a big brother and beat up the bullies. Take Psalm 58 for example:

Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

² Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

³ The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

⁴ Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;

⁵ Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.

⁶ Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord.

⁷ Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.

⁸ As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

⁹ Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

¹⁰ The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹ So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

I cannot think how these views apply to the Christian, except to show the change from Judaism. As a Christian, I should be praying for the forgiveness of my enemies, not for their destruction.

In Psalm 90, I read the following as being changed by Christ: 

 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

³ Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

⁴ For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

⁵ Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

⁶ In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

⁷ For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

⁸ Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

⁹ For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

¹⁰ The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

¹¹ Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

¹² So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

¹³ Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.

¹⁴ O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

¹⁵ Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

¹⁶ Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.

¹⁷ And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

Does not Christ answer all these requests?

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