Day 263: Psalms 33-35 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebaldapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) Family, welcome to day 263. We are diving into Psalms 33, 34, and 35 today on the Bible Department podcast. And I'm super, super excited to dive into these Psalms with you if you have not done the reading, which means you have not read Psalm 33, Psalm 34, and Psalm 35. Stop the video, pause the audio, go do the reading. Sit down with your Bible, whether it is a physical book or on a device and read the Psalms, all right? So, and then come back, and let's actually go through this content together. For those of you who have done the reading, good job. I hope that today's content through just the Bible without any of my commentary has spoken to your soul, has been food for your soul, okay? Like every day we're gonna give context clues. I've got five nerdy nuggets for you today. Gonna give you as much context as possible. Gonna give you nerdy nuggets, and then we'll leave off like we do every day with a timeless truth. So let's dive into the context, okay? For Psalm 33, this is a Psalm of descriptive praise. You're probably already getting a sense

of putting these Psalms into some kind of category, okay? We've been going through the Psalms for, you know, probably I feel like it's been at least a week or more at this point. And so you're probably getting a sense of like, oh yeah, okay, that's a Psalm of descriptive praise. Yup, that's a Psalm of a met. Or okay, that's a Psalm of personal a met, okay? I want you to start to categorize the Psalms as you get more and more familiar with them. Psalm 33 starts out, sing joyfully to the Lord, right? Not a shock that this is a Psalm of descriptive praise, okay? Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous. It is fitting for the upright to praise him, praise the Lord with the harp. Make music to him on the 10 string liar. Sing to him a new song, play skillfully. I love that word skillfully. Play skillfully and shout for joy. For the word of the Lord is right and true. He is faithful in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of his unfailing love. So a Psalm of descriptive praise. And we'll get in more and more into just the contents of this Psalm as we move into our nerdy nuggets. But that's our context. This is a Psalm of descriptive praise, Psalm 34. The heading here tells us what Psalm 34 is about, but I want to kind of help us maybe

because this could kind of cause some confusion, okay? It says of David, which kind of is a clue that is not written by David, but in the style of David, okay? However, we get a context that's actually from David's life, okay? So when David pretended to be insane before Abimelek who drove him away and he left. Now, when did David do this, okay? This is 1 Samuel 21 verses 10 to 15, okay? 1 Samuel 21. And if we go to 1 Samuel 21, so he pretended to be insane in their presence, this is 1 Samuel 21. I'm actually gonna back up to verse 12. David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Akish, okay? Akish, King of Gads, remember that name Akish? Okay, so he pretended to be insane in their presence. And while he was in their hands, he acted like a mad man making marks on the doors and the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. Akish said to a servants, look at the man, okay? He's insane. Why bring him to me? Am I short of mad men that you have, that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house? So he escaped Gath and escaped to the king, to the cave of Adelem, okay? Why does David pretend to be insane? He pretends to be insane 'cause Saul is chasing him.

He has nowhere to go but Philistine territory, but the Philistines know him, okay? As someone in Saul's army. So the Philistines know him as the enemy. The only way for David to keep his life is to go, is to pretend like he's insane, which is pretending like he's not a threat, okay? Now, so if you've re-inverse 10 of 1 Samuel 21, that day David fled from Saul and went to Akish, king of Gath. But when the servants of Akish said to him, any the one they sang about in their dances. And remember, this is the song that is prompted by him killing Goliath, who's a Philistine, okay? So the king of Gath is a Philistine. David took these words to heart and was afraid of achish king of Gath, so he pretended to be insane in their presence, acted like a mad man. All right, that's the context. Now, if you go back to the psalm, it says he pretended to be insane before, a bimilek, okay? So did he do this in front of a bimilek or did he do this in front of achish? Yeah, this is a bit of a wrinkle here, okay? Here's what you need to know. A bimilek, the word a bimilek, is a lot like the word pharaoh. So when the Bible says pharaoh, pharaoh could mean Ramses, pharaoh could mean Amenhotep, pharaoh could mean multiple

different names of a particular pharaoh. So pharaoh, it's kind of mean king, that like the word, it means the word king. A bimilek is the same. So there's gonna be multiple a bimileks, why? Because a bimilek actually just means father of my king, okay? So the word a bimilek, I want you to think about that word like Caesar. Caesar could be referring to Nero, it could be referring to Augustus, it could be referring to Julius Caesar. Caesar could be referring to any of the Caesars, pharaoh could be referring to any of the pharaohs, a bimilek could be referring to any of the a bimileks, okay? So Psalms is gonna use the word a bimilek, then we get the first Samuel, you see achish, don't be confused. Achish is one of the many a bimileks, okay? So say Canaanite word, that means father of my king, there we go, some context there. And then we're gonna have Psalm 35, okay? Let's get into some nerdy nuggets, okay? I got five nerdy nuggets. If I don't get into these nerdy nuggets, we're gonna run out of time, okay? Number one, Psalm 33, verses six through nine are actually a mini creation story, okay? So Psalm 33, start at verse six. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, okay? This is a poetic retelling of Genesis chapter one.

So that's gonna happen quite often. Their story host by the breath of his mouth, okay? So this is zooming into Genesis one and kind of filling in some details, which is the Psalms are gonna do when it comes to the creation a lot. He gathers the water of the sea into jars. So you get this poetic language. Were there literal jars? No, that's the point of poetry. It's not just for you to learn things in your head, it's to connect with your emotions, okay? So the language is there for any motive purpose, for a poetic artistic purpose. So the author has artistic license. He puts the deep into storehouses, okay? Remember, darkness is hovering over the surface of the deep in Genesis chapter one. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, remember, let there be light. And it came to be God spoke to creation into existence. He commanded in its stood firm. The Lord foils the plans of the nations. He thwarts the purpose of the people. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever. The purpose of his heart through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. So why do the nations need to serve Yahweh?

Need to acknowledge Yahweh 'cause he's a creator. If he's the creator of the heavens and the earth, he's the creator of every individual nation. And what gods do these nations worship? Gods who they believe created Egypt or created Mesopotamia. They don't believe in gods that created the whole earth. They believe in gods that created each individual nation. And so this is again, the Bible is going to communicate from a monologist perspective, not necessarily monotheistic, but monology. Not just the belief in one God, but the worship of one God. And that the reason that we don't worship all these other gods that you think created Egypt and you think another God created, you know, Mesopotamia, you think another God created Canaan. You think another God created the land of the Philistines. No, no, no, there's one God that created everything and we worship that God, okay? So the nations should all worship the same God because it is the same God that has created everything, including every nation, okay? Psalm 33 verses six to nine is a poetic retelling of the creation story. This is gonna happen. This poetic reinterpretation of historical moments is very, very popular in the Psalms. I actually wanna bring you to Psalm 74, verse 13, 'cause we have another example of how the Bible does this, okay? Psalm 74, verse 13 says this, okay? This is the Psalmist declaring praise to God.

You divided the sea by your might. You broke the heads of Leviathan in the waters. You broke the heads of Leviathan in the waters. Okay, there's two things that could be being talked about here. The creation of the world again, like Genesis 1. Remember, Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. So Genesis chapter 1, verse 21 says this, so God created the great sea monsters, okay? That's all we got. So God created the great sea monsters. We got seven words, and what is Psalms gonna do? Psalms is gonna take those seven words from Genesis chapter 1, 21, and Psalms is gonna, Psalm 74 is going to turn it into more words, okay? So Psalm 74, where you can start reading in verse 13, you divided the seas by your might. You broke the heads of the dragons in the waters, okay? Whoa, whoa, what dragons? The dragons from Genesis chapter 1, verse 21, okay? So the Psalms are gonna take these moments from creation, these snapshots from creation, and give poetic, artistic. It's like they're filling in the blanks. It's like they're filling in the gaps. The other moment that this could be talking about is the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea. So Psalm 74 could be talking about the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea. You divided the sea by your might, and you broke the heads of the dragons in the water. What dragon, Pharaoh, right?

Pharaoh is described as a dragon throughout the Bible. Says this, you crushed the heads of Leviathan. You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You cut openings for springs and torrets. You dried up the ever-flowing streams. Yours is the day, yours also the night. You established the luminaries and the sun. You have fixed all the bounds of the earth. You made summer and winter. You see how Psalm 74 is pretty much like another poem about creation. So it could be about the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea or it could be about creation. And what the Psalms are gonna do is it's gonna take all these little snapshots from Genesis 1 and explode those snapshots and go into detail where Genesis 1 only gives us broad brushstrokes. All right, that's a massive nerdy-dugget for you. Okay, so you gotta get used to Psalms doing that. Psalms 33, verses 6 to 9 is a mini creation story. And we're gonna get a lot of these. Psalms is gonna fill in the gaps where Genesis 1 gives us a broad overview. Second nerdy-nugget is that Psalm 34 is an acrostic. So we got 22 stanzas in Psalm 34. An acrostic means that every single letter of the Hebrew alphabet represents a stanza. Okay, so Psalm 34 is an acrostic. But here's what matters more than that. We kind of talked about this a couple of days ago.

Is that an acrostic means that the full breadth of that topic is being covered. So the point of Psalm 34 being an acrostic is that David gives full range of praise and gratitude to Yahweh for saving his life. Full range, okay? It's like saying God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Well, by saying that he's the beginning and the end, it means that he's also everything in between. So an acrostic is saying, I wanna give full credit to where credit is due, full honor to where honor is due. So an acrostic is a literary tool that communicates to the culture that David would have been writing to. God deserves the full range of praise, the full range of thanksgiving, the full range of gratitude for what only he could have done by saving me from achish in the Philistines, okay? Next, nerdy nugget, number three, okay? We're gonna look at Psalm 34 verse eight. Psalm 34 verse eight says these words, taste and see that the Lord is good. This is actually a very, very popular phrase in church and Christian circles, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Now, two New Testament writers are going to use this,

and I think it's interesting how the New Testament is going to use this little, almost like could be an easily forgotten phrase from Psalm 34 verse eight, okay? the heavenly gift and those who have tasted the goodness of the word of God, who fall away from Christ and deny who Christ was, is going to give a really, really, really firm warning. By the way, Hebrews is probably the most intense book of the Bible when it comes to falling away from Christ. If you believe that you could be once saved and always saved, don't read the book of Hebrews because you will come out going, "Oh no, people can definitely lose their salvation." So this phrase that seems really positive here in Psalms is actually going to get used as a warning in Hebrews. Next, first Peter chapter 2 verse 3, "Peter is going to urge his readers to put aside sin and long for maturity." Well, like infants longing for pure spiritual milk, which is the diet that they can use to grow into their salvation. If they have actually tasted and seen that the Lord is good, it's interesting that although David uses the phrase completely positively in Psalm chapter 34 verse 8, the New Testament uses it as a warning two times, not once, but twice, that even those who have tasted the goodness of Yahweh could fall away from him. So yes, David is like, taste and see that the Lord is good, you should experience the goodness of God. However, the New Testament is going to add, if you've experienced the goodness of God, if you've experienced the presence of God, if you've experienced the breakthrough, the anointing, the power of God, the miracles of God, and you still don't believe or you fall away or you lose your faith. Oh, man, it would be better to have never tasted of the goodness of God, because at least then you could say, yeah, God, I don't know, you could plead ignorant, but to have tasted and seen that God is good and to still have doubts and to still fall away or to deny Christ, that is a massive warning that Hebrews and the author of Hebrews and 1 Peter are going to use this exact verbiage from Psalm 34 verse 8 as warnings in the New Testament. Okay, nerdy nugget number four, okay, we're going to look at Psalm 34 verse 20, Psalm 34 verse 20, it says these words, okay, he Yahweh protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. Now, obviously David is praising God that his bones weren't broken, that he went through a tough scenario, he went through a very difficult trial in life, but all of his bones are still intact, he still has his strength, he still has the functioning of

his limbs, okay, the New Testament, okay, is going to take this, particularly John is going to take this, this line about David and apply it to who? Jesus, the son of David, and say, although Jesus went through great affliction on the cross, he emerged with no bones broken, that typically on the cross, they would break your legs in order to expedite the process, but this does not happen to Jesus, and this is going to be a fulfillment of Psalm 34 verse 20. All right, last nerdy nugget, I told you I had five, fifth nerdy nugget, the angel of the Lord, or the angel of Yahweh is going to get mentioned two times, Psalm 34 verse seven, and Psalm 35 verse five and six, so Psalm 34 verse seven says these words, the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them, okay, and then Psalm 35 verse five says this, may they be like chaff before the wind with the angel of the Lord driving them away, may their path be dark and slippery with the angel of the Lord pursuing them, okay, the angel of the Lord, so we get two Psalms back to back, they're going to talk about the angel of the Lord. Now, not like the Psalms are going to talk about the angel of the Lord a ton, so we really want to pay attention to these, who is the angel of the Lord? Well, the angel of the Lord has a couple of cameos through the Old Testament, probably maybe the most famous is Joshua is going to talk to the angel of the Lord before marching around Jericho. A lot of people would say that the angel of death that's in the 10th plate in the book of Exodus is probably the angel of the Lord. People are also going to say, this mysterious figure who talks to Abraham, Now, there's two ways that we could go. The angel of the Lord is either gonna be some kind of physical manifestation of Yahweh in the Old Testament, or the angel of the Lord is going to be a pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. Another cameo of the angel of the Lord is gonna be Nebuchadnezzar throws the three Hebrew boys into the fiery furnace and looks in and sees four men in the fire, not three, and a lot of people would say that fourth person in the fire is the angel of the Lord. Who is Jacob wrestling with before meeting with Esau? Probably, probably the angel of the Lord.

Is this the pre-incarnate Christ? It could be. There's a lot of scholars who would line up that way. Is this just some manifestation, some physical manifestation of Yahweh could be? Is it just literally an angel, some unnamed angel? That's probably the least likely option here to be totally honest. But we get the angel of the Lord in these two Psalms, which leads us right into our timeless truth. Sambley, the weight is over. My brand new book, "Crushing Chaos," is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally, today, I walked into a Barnes & Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So, you can grab this book at a physical Barnes & Noble or you can go to a books a million, or Amazon, or anywhere books are sold in grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode.

And that is when Psalm 34 verses seven and eight, I'll scroll back up. Psalm 34 verse seven says this, "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him." Well, in this Psalm, David should have been afraid of the Philistines. He should have been afraid of King Akish. But who is he actually afraid of? He's afraid of the Lord. And so what does the Lord do? The angel of the Lord encamps around David and protects David. And so fear is never gonna be something that just goes away in your life. But the question for you and I needs to always be, what am I afraid of? Am I afraid of people? Am I afraid of the economy? Am I afraid of Satan? Am I afraid of lack? Or am I afraid of the Lord? Like in a good way, in a healthy way? Because fear isn't gonna go away, but what I am afraid of can totally change. And so we don't wanna just do away with fear. Fear's not bad, but who I'm afraid of changes everything. I can either be afraid of the rejection of men or I can be afraid of God rejecting me. And one of those fears is gonna cause me to be paralyzed, and one of those fears is gonna cause me to actually live uprightly and live in a way that circumspect.

And so those who, the angel of the Lord, protects and camps, defends who, those who fear him. That actually, I wanna be afraid of a good healthy fear. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And you can begin to see how there are themes here in the Psalms that are very linked to proverbs. So those who fear the Lord have the protection of the Lord. And I don't wanna rebuke fear or do away with fear. I just want to harness fear by being afraid of disobeying God. I wanna be afraid of displeasing God. I wanna be afraid of a life lived without God. I wanna be afraid of the rejection of God, like when this life is over. The Bible says, don't fear those who could kill the body, but not do anything to the soul, but rather fear the one who after killing the body could also send your soul to eternal damnation. So it's not about whether or not there's gonna be fear in my life. It's about who am I afraid of? The moment I decide, I'm not afraid of losing resources when I act out in faith. Nope, I'm afraid of missing an opportunity to have faith. I'm redirecting fear. And when we redirect fear, I actually think that everything changes. And that's not just true for David in Psalm 34. That's true for you.

That's true for me. That's our timeless truth for the day. Tomorrow, we'll be right. For day 264, we're gonna be walking through Psalms 36, 37, and 38. Solid, solid, solid Psalms cannot wait to walk through them with you. Can't wait to get to understand the heart of God better. I'll be right here. If you're honest, she can pry to you. If you're not honest, I'm pry to you. I love you so much. I'll see you tomorrow, peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment? Share with a friend and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebobaldapartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. [MUSIC]