SIM #7 Psalm 139 Genre: The genre of Psalm 139 is Hebrew poetry, simply because the psalms were written in Hebrew and are a collection of poems and laments. The first principle of interoperation is that the psalms blend experience, emotion, and theology. This should be taken into account while reading the poem in order that the reader does not simply skip over the theology by only focusing on experience and emotion. The second interoperation principle is that each psalm should be read as a whole. Verses of psalms should not be taken out of context, in doing this the reader may distort the meaning of the psalm. Another interpretation principle to take into consideration is the different genres of psalms such as: laments, thanksgiving, hymns of praise, wisdom, and songs of trust. With that being said, Psalm 139 not only falls under the Hebrew poetry genre, but is also classified as a psalm of trust. Lastly, the fourth interpretation principle is that parallelisms are used. In other words, ideas correlate in many different ways such as: synonymously, antithesis, intensifying, specifying, and synthetically.
Grammatical/Literacy: Why does David specify that God will hold him with his right hand? What is the “depths” and does this refer to hell?
Historical/Cultural: Are “concerning” and “precious” interchangeable in Hebrew (During this time period)?
Does “written in your (God’s) book” refer to the Old Testament that has been previously written, such as the Mosaic Covenant?
Each Psalm contains shades of meaning, the brightest of which shines with brilliant Christology. In his introduction to Augustine, Michael Fiedrowicz notes, “Augustine’s fundamental conviction is that the psalms represent a prophecy of the new covenant, and only acquire their true and full meaning at this level of understanding.” For Augustine, the psalms are both highly personal and prophetic. They depict both human and divine experience.
In Psalms 34:17-20 it says “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” I believe this is a great symbolic allegory of the darkness that slavery birthed into our world. Each of these were bonded together in hopeless but in each case and region had different difficulties that had to face. Each using their life story to be a beacon of hope to others that freedom was within reach
Peace is coming to the earth. Nothing will stop God’s glory from arriving on earth. We are all loved by God and He wants all of us to live eternally with Him. Psalm 85 tells us of all the great things to come. Love, patience, and fear of the Lord will be rewarded don’t turn away because we will be saved.
The book of Psalms contains some of the most beloved pieces of scripture across centuries and cultures of this world. Psalms have been frequently cited is sermons, devotionals, movies, poetry, and songs. Most often, Psalms are attributed to King David of the 10th century BCE. But regardless of the authorship of the different psalms, each seem to carry a special place in describing human relationships to God, to country, to friends, to enemies and more. As time has progressed, certain psalms have become favorites because of their encouraging and uplifting messages, such as the timeless Psalm 23.
Psalm one begins with the first word blessed. It is a word that describes the state of a righteous man. The word is first used as a negative statement; “Blessed is the man who walks not…” In it’s original Hebrew the word is ʾashrê, and functions as an adjective and affirms the blessed state of all those who submit themselves to God in obedient devotion to him. It occurs around forty times in the Old Testament . The word can also function as ‘happy’ or ‘The happiness of…!’ It is a word also found in 1Kings 10:8 as the Queen of Sheba visits Solomon, "Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!" The Psalmist reveals that a man is blessed when he takes certain actions that are a process in his endeavor to make progress in the study of God’s law.
Thank you for sharing your opinion, “In my opinion, self-interest is the ability to fully become the person God created us to become. Psalms 139:13-18 illustrates the importance of self-interest. According to verse 13, we are all created with certain skills, abilities and traits.” I like to add some of my insights about Psalm 139:13-18. I personally believe that we are a person of destiny. God chose us to be here before the foundation of the world God knew us before we were ever formed in our mother’s womb. He actually knitted us together in our mother’s womb. God made us with a unique purpose, and we are a vital part of His divine plan.
Throughout the novel, David, the protagonist is abused and tortured several times by his very own father, Joseph Strorm and his recently discovered Uncle, Gordon. David’s father is a strict believer in his religion and is unyielding on the subject of mutations and blasphemy’s. If anyone neglects to follow his beliefs and rules, he has serious consequences for them, like with David, once Joseph found out that David knows a blasphemy, he immediately subjected to abusing him for answers. David’s father continues to beat him until he receives the information he demands. David has been abused more than once by his father and this is evident when David says, “I knew well enough what that meant, but I knew well too, that with my father in his present mood, it would happened whether I told or not. I set my jaw,
The overall structure of the Psalm is that it is broken into two halves. The first half of the psalm is God’s creation. The second half deals with God’s Word. Though they are both different they both share the common theme of god revealing Himself to mankind. Inside of these halves the author uses different parallelism. In the first verse we see synonymous parallelism, using the heavens and skies to make the point that they are telling of God’s Work. In the seventh verse we see synthetic parallelism showing the progression from perfection to restoration of the imperfect.
The authorship of Psalm 119 remains unknown. Most scholars believe the author to be King David because of its Davidic tone and expression. It is also assumed that this Psalm is written over a period of someone’s life, as it shows maturity as the Psalm progresses (Bible hub). Regardless of the identity of the Psalmist, Psalm 119 has very special and unique qualities. Psalm 119 is not only the longest chapter in the book of Psalms, but of the entire Bible. Some believe that since Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible, it shows the priority of God’s Word to God. (bible.org) Although Psalm 119 is quite a long chapter, it is written in a format that allows the reader to study and follow the structure of the psalm with ease. This specific Psalm is written in the form of an acrostic poem, meaning each section begins with a letter from the alphabet. In this case, each section, made up of eight verses, begin with each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, the first eight couplets begin with aleph (A), the next eight begin with beth (B), then so forth in the same suit. (bible.org)
Psalms 139 speaks to me as a song of praise. God speaks very clearly about how he knows us. He knows our every thought. He cares about our comings and goings. Every word that we speak God knows it before we even speak it. I love the song there will be pain in the night and joy comes in the morning. Says that he is always with us no matter where we are at. His sprit never leaves us. We could go to the depths of the earth, settle in on the far side of the sea, we can hide in the darkest places and he will find us because he cares for us. This psalm is very meaningful to me because it lets me know that my Lord will never leave me or forsake me. He created me I will praise him because “I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful
As mentioned previously, within this psalm, there are three distinct strophes, or stanzas, in view. Bullock (2005) noted that, “at the heart of Hebrew poetry is a device called parallelism” (p. 36). Several instances of parallelism are found in Psalm 24, and especially in the first two strophes. For example, in the first distich, we see David proclaiming that “The earth is the Lord's, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1, King James Version). These two units are an example of synonymous parallelism, which Bullock (2005) noted as meaning that “the thought pattern in one line conforms to the pattern in the successive line” (p. 36, BULLOCK, PARAPHRASE THIS). Next, in verses three and four, we find the psalmist using a form of synthetic parallelism, which involves the second line solving or completing the thought of the first line (Owensboro Community and Technical College, n.d., para. 7). This can be seen in verse three when David asks the questions “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place” and then answers in the next verse with “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully” (Psalm 24:3-4, King James
The Bible is the Holly Book, composed by many text from different authors. The number of texts in the bible depends to the version. The Bible has two main parts, the ancient and the new testament. The Psalms, which are the object of our research paper, belong to the ancient testament. The Norton Anthology world literature offers us the King James version of the psalms, which played a key role in the literature. For our assignment, we will explore the historical context that lead to the writing of psalm, the information about of the author, themes treated by the psalms and the significance of those psalms in the world’s literature.
The theme of this chapter is mercy. We can experience mercy from God everyday in our lives. God said that he will forgive the evil things that we did if we ask for forgiveness. David asked God to show mercy and do not let him be with the evil. It is not only David who can ask for mercy. We can also ask God for mercy and help us not fall into evil.
Observation: Repeated word and repeated line, this week Psalms bring up a repeated word: praise. Reading Psalm 150 I tend to notice repeated words, for this reason they appeared to me and can be important. In Psalm 150, the Psalmist uses the word 13 times in the brief 6-verse Psalm. Furthermost, each time that “praise” is used, the word directly links to God. Psalm also begins and ends with the same verse. This is an example or repetition, which is often employed in literature. Literature says that repetition “stresses on the point of main significance,” which I think is the goal of the Psalmist in this case. The psalmist gives the following instructions in verse 1. Praise the Lord! Praise God in the sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty
According to merriam-webster.com (2015) a Psalmist is very simply put, “a writer of Psalms.” There were many different Psalmists that played an important role in writing the five different books of Psalms. In order to properly analyze a Psalm, one must look at the historical context of the Psalm, the major literacy features of the Psalm and any contemporary expressions that have been used for the Psalm. The Psalm that is being analyzed for this assignment is Psalm 24.