If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this, and the introduction to the Psalms for this book of the Bible in particular.
3 July. Psalms 36-39
As with yesterday’s group of psalms, there is a contrast between those we read today. The first two are impersonal, detached, a meditation on how, despite the anger a good person feels at the way bad people behave, it is still worth living an upright life, praising God for his goodness, for that will win his recognition and favour, while evil people will not. “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act” (37:4-5).
There are, however, some very challenging verses in here. How about this: “I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread” (37:25). Taken literally that seems to mean that good people will never suffer hardship or poverty. Experience tells us that is just not so; in fact in this life, good people are the ones who get trampled down. There must be a deeper meaning, but it eludes me.
Psalm 38 is very different. It expresses the raw emotions of someone in trouble. Following the understanding of the time, that suffering was due either to one’s own sin or someone else’s, the writer (identified as King David) confesses his sinfulness, asks God to stop punishing or rejecting him, and complains that other people also ignore him. Psychologists would no doubt say that this is unhealthy introspection and unnecessary guilt. In one way they are right. But the opposite extreme, of only ever blaming other people for one’s suffering and not considering whether there is a good reason for it, can be equally unhealthy. None of us is perfect, and it is well understood these days that physical and psychological health go closely together.