Psalm 138-150

Psalm 138-150

            Psalm 139 is a confession of the omnipresence and omniscience of the Lord. At first, David sees it as a good thing—awe-inspiring—that the Lord knows him so thoroughly. On reflection, though (verses 7-12), David realizes that that means there is no place in which he can hide from the Lord. There’s a certain fear in that. If God knows and sees all, then He knows and sees our sins, too, even the ones we think are in secret. But David quickly recovers; the Lord is not some kind of secret police, looking to catch us in wrongdoing. No, he is our Creator (vv. 13-16), who has known and loved us since we were in the womb. The psalm concludes with a prayer (vv. 19-24). It never explicitly mentions the Lord’s omnipresence, but the foregoing verses inform it. You can hear David wondering, “If God sees all, why doesn’t He do something about the evil?” a sentiment we certainly understand.

            In the order of Evening Prayer in our hymnal, Psalm 141:1-4 is the basis for one of the main canticles. That’s where I first learned Psalm 141, and I have cherished verse 3 ever since. “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep a watch over the door of my lips.” For a man given to say whatever is on his mind at the moment, it’s a powerful prayer. James says that “the tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body… a restless evil, full of poison” (James 3:6, 8). Many a conflict is sparked by careless words. It is good when the Lord sets a guard over our mouths, keeping thoughtless words from escaping.

            The superscription for Psalm 145 names it a ‘psalm of praise,’ and praise will characterize the last five psalms, too. Three themes bear comment in Psalm 145. First, “One generation commends your works to another.” Ronald Reagan once commented, “Democracy is never more than one generation from extinction.” I think in the last 20 years the church should have learned the same lesson. Young people have left the church in droves in that time, and that loss should remind us of the responsibility to pass the faith on generation to generation. Second, verse 8 repeats that common description of the Lord, a description we’ve read several times in the psalms, namely, that He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. There is a time, a place, and a necessity to preach the Law of the Lord, but as CFW Walther famously commented, “Let the Gospel have predominance.” Finally, as David recounts the Lord’s faithfulness, he notes that that faithfulness includes the food we eat. My language arts teacher in middle school often used verses 15-16 as our lunchtime prayer, and I’d suggest it makes a very nice addition to a family’s repertoire. “Come, Lord Jesus,” is a fine prayer; “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing,” is a rich and deep prayer, too

            Psalm 146 contains a line we should take to heart, “Put not your trust in princes, in human beings who cannot save!” Way too often, we look to the powers of this world for our good, but we should look to the Lord for all good. Anything else is idolatry.