Day 277: Psalms 76-78 | 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 thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) - Family, welcome to day 277. We are diving in to three more Psalms of ASAF. We are now in book three of the Psalms and we got three Psalms of our man, ASAF Rocky, okay? ASAF with the Psalms today. We got Psalm 76, 77 and 78. If you haven't done the reading, this is a good time to stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done so that you can actually have context for what we are talking about here on today's episode. If you have done the reading, then I hope that just doing the reading by itself with no video, no explanation, no context clues, no nerdy nuggets, no time was true. The hope that the reading alone edified your spirit, it's building your faith and helping you fall in love with the word of God in a deeper way. All right, like every episode, I'm gonna give context and then I'll give nerdy nuggets. I'll try to give a couple for each Psalm and then I'll give a timeless truth. I'm really excited about the timeless truth for today's episode. So context clues, let's dive in. Psalm 76, we've got a generic, I would say, a general Psalm of praise, all right?

This is a Psalm of praise or worship. And again, by our good guy ASAF, if you need more context on who ASAF is, then you can watch. I believe it was yesterday's episode where we really talked about ASAF as a character and the context of when he got brought up in first Chronicles 16, verse five, in second Chronicles chapter five, verse 12, okay? Psalm 77, this is a Psalm of individual lament, a Psalm of individual lament, and we are gonna look at what that means in a little bit. Now with Psalm 77, we get a interesting little nugget. Okay, that's not a nerdy nugget, but more like a context nugget if we can allow that. It's gonna be according to Jonathan, okay? So we're gonna get a name here. And Jonathan appears in two chapters of first Chronicles, first Chronicles chapter 16, verses 41 to 42. He, along with Heman, were instructed to lead worship. As Zaidok and the rest of the priests were sacrificing. He and Heman played trumpets and symbols and led the people in songs of worship alongside the sacrifices. In first Chronicles chapter 25, verses one to three, again, okay, Jonathan is mentioned alongside Heman and by one of the other great Psalm writers, ASAF, okay? So we get this pairing, ASAF and Jettathon.

They and their sons are again instructed to lead worship alongside the priests. This worship is said to prophesy, which I could get into a whole lesson on how worship is prophesy. I think that there are a lot of worship leaders who actually are operating in a prophetic gift. I don't wanna get too far in a tangent, but the Bible teaches us in the New Testament, Paul writes that to the church Christ, Jesus Christ gave five gifts, and those gifts are apostle, prophet, evangelist, teacher and pastor. And worship leaders, not one of those. So I always love to teach worship leaders that you're probably operating in a teaching gift, a pastoral gift, an evangelist to gift, a prophetic gift or an apostolic gift. And I actually have found that a lot of worship leaders are actually operating in a prophetic gift. That's why they can lead spontaneously so well, jumping from song to song. They really do have a prophetic gifting. And even when we see characters in the Bible like Elijah and Elisha needing to prophesy, they will actually say like, well, go get someone who can play. I think that music has a prophetic nature to it. And yeah, I don't think that's just an emotional thing. Now, I know there are super cynical people on the internet

who are like, yeah, they're emotionally manipulating you by how they play music at church. And it's like, that's not emotional manipulation. That's invoking the power of the Holy Spirit, actually to help move on the hearts of people to make godly decisions. So yeah, I mean, you can see that as cynically, or you could see it through the lens of cynicism. Like, yeah, they play the keys at the end of the sermon so that you could, you know, be emotionally manipulated into making a decision. Or it's that a spirit of prophecy. to use that to help steer people towards godly decisions. There is a nonsensical way to think about this exact same content. Okay, back to our guide, Jonathan. Jonathan then was a leader of the Levites that David appointed in his Reformation and Transformation of Israel's worship to Yahweh, the inclusion of this probably older psalm, okay, in this collection, Book 3, made in the context of the return to Jerusalem and building of the temple is probably due to its content, reassuring the people that once again, God is enthroned in Zion and he rules all the world. So that's Psalm 77. So Psalm 77 is a psalm of individual event. It's according to Jonathan and 1 Chronicles 16 and 1 Chronicles 25, give us context for who Jonathan is. And again, I want you to remember that the context of Book 3, for the most part, are psalms that have been curated, collected from prior generations, but the purpose of the curation is to help the returned exiles to actually be faithful to Yahweh to rebuild their lives. And so we're not just looking at the context of the original psalms and when they were written, like what was Asaph thinking or what was Jonathan thinking? No, but what was the editor who assembled these psalms thinking and why did they assemble these psalms for their audience? So the audience here isn't Asaph's audience or Jonathan's audience, it's actually Asaph's ancestor's audience and the return exiles. I hope that that's clear. I'll try to say it as clear as I could. Psalm 78, this is a wisdom psalm. You probably realize that just by reading it. Psalm 78 starts like this. "My people hear my teaching." That sounds like it's straight out of the book of Proverbs, right? "My people hear my teaching. Listen to the

words of my mouth. I will open my mouth with a parable. I will otter hidden things, things from a vault." Okay? This is wisdom. It's a wisdom psalm. And just one little tidbit I'm going to add, there's a very pro-David, pro-Judah, pro-Jerusalem, pro-South agenda here in this psalm and we'll kind of unpack that as we go. But Psalm 78 is a wisdom psalm, but the wisdom really is around accepting God's choice for who he's anointed. And that anointed leader is David. And so we're going to really dive into how politically charged this psalm is. That's all the context for the content. Let's dive into nerdy nuggets. I guess before we do, I'll just say this, okay? All three of these psalms are designed to encourage the people in their rebuilding efforts and energy. Okay? The context of the group assembling these psalms, not the people writing the psalms, okay? The psalms themselves are very old, but they're being assembled for a new generation. And that generation needs to be spurred on to have the effort and the energy to rebuild their lives, but to also rebuild God's dwelling place, his temple, his city, okay? So that's the context. All right, let's get into some nerdy nuggets. For Psalm 76, one of the biggest nerdy nuggets I could give you is that Psalm 76 is split into two halves. From verse 1 to verse 6, Zion is the dwelling place of Yahweh. You can actually see the pro-Judah, pro-South, pro-David agenda right at the top of chapter 76, or Psalm 76, says this, God is enthroned in Judah, aka he's not enthroned in any of these northern kingdoms of Israel. He's enthroned in the southern kingdom of Judah. And the fact that the northern kingdom has split the united monarchy and taken people up north is not God's will, okay? What does God dwell? God is renowned. Where in Judah? In Israel, his name is great. His tent is in Salem, okay? Which is the root of the city, Jerusalem, okay? His tent is in Salem. His dwelling place in Zion, okay? Zion is the city of Jerusalem, Okay, Zion, so this Now, this is just a quick, just wanna help everybody with these three words, okay? Hebrew, Israelite, Jewish. Hebrew, Israelite, Jewish. There's a nerdy nugget for you. Not in my notes, just felt like this is probably gonna be helpful. The term Hebrew is the oldest of these three words. Hebrew, Israelite, and Jewish.

It's the oldest. It refers to descendants of Abraham. Israelites are descendants of Israel, okay? So Jacob, whose name got changed to Israel, had 12 sons. Those become the 12 tribes of Israel. Why? 'Cause they are the 12 sons of Israel, okay? So obviously, Abraham lives two generations before the lineages, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, okay? And so we don't get Israelites until we get Jacob's sons. So Hebrew is an older term that refers to all of Abraham's descendants. Israelites refer to anyone who identifies as coming from any of the 12 tribes of Israel. Jews, okay? Someone who is a Jew is someone who is a descendant of the line of Judah, okay? So Hebrews are descendants of Abraham, Israelites are descendants of Israel and Jews are descendants of Judah. So when the Bible talks about Hebrews, you can always know, that book is probably dated pretty far back. Israel is really talking about the 12 tribes of Israel and Jews are gonna be referring to the descendants of Judah, AKA David's descendants, okay? David is the king of Judah before he becomes the king of Israel. David's like ethnic background is that he's from the tribe of Judah, Judah being one of the 12 sons of Israel, okay? That's an early nugget that I think will help you out.

All right. Psalm 76 is split in half, verses one through six. Zion is the dwelling place of Yahweh, okay? His tent, his tabernacle, his temple in Jerusalem, the holy of holies is his throne. However, from verse seven to verse 12, what's clear is that heaven is the throne of Yahweh. So I want you to begin to see how the Psalm is working. The Psalm is actually communicating that the temple in Jerusalem is simply a model. It's a type, it's a shadow. It's a symbol that the reason that the type and shadow even has power is because the real temple, which is in heaven has power. And the reason that we have a symbol on the earth is because God wants us to know that the same way that he rules the earth from his holy of holies is the same way that he rules the universe from his throne in heaven. All right, so the temple in Jerusalem is a archetype of the reality of what's happening in the entire cosmos. All right, Psalm 77, let me give you a nerdy nugget. From Psalm 77, one of the coolest things about Psalm 77 is from verse 16 to verse 20. We are gonna get a poetic retelling of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. We are gonna receive in those couple of verses in ancient mythological, okay? The reason it's mythological

is because we're gonna get those themes from Genesis chapter one. Again, that God conquers chaos. So we're gonna get words like the very depths we're convulsed, okay? We're gonna get words like mighty waters, okay? We're gonna get words like the sea, okay? We're gonna get words like whirlwind. We're gonna get words that really communicate not that God made something out of nothing, but that God made order out of chaos. So those chaos words are all what we would call mythological. And I'm gonna help you to see how this is linked to Leviathan, okay? But we'll see that in a second. This is ancient mythological spiritual warfare language, okay? It's a dramatic demonstration of Yahweh's power over chaos. So let's read it together. This is the retelling of God delivering his people through the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds. The water saw you God. So that's, first of all, the water saw you. Okay, this personification of the water. Remember, in an ancient world, the sea or the waters or the depths are the abode of chaos. So it says, "The water saw you, God. The water saw you, and writhed. The very depths were convulsed. The clouds poured down water. The heavens resounded with thunder. Your arrows flashed back and forth.

Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind. Your lightning lit up the world, the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea, the sea, the place of chaos. You made a path through it. Your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron." Okay? This is a dramatic retelling. Why do we get this mythological, ancient, dramatic retelling of Yahweh's power over chaos? Well, it is because the people of Judah at this point in juncture where the people of Israel are experiencing insane amounts of chaos. And so these psalms are going to have this flavor to them, okay? I want to actually draw your attention to Ezekiel 29 verses 1 through 4. Ezekiel 29 verses 1 through 4 is also going to give us a dramatic retelling of this exact same moment. Ezekiel 29 verses 1 through 4, and it's good that we would read the actual events happening in Exodus, I think it's Exodus 15, it's the crossing of the Red Sea. I will fact check myself really quickly. This 14 is the crossing, and then Exodus 15 is we get the crossing talked about in song form through Moses, okay? So it's good that we get kind of a historical record of how it happens back in Exodus, but then we get the veil is lifted, and we get to see a mythological retelling of the same story. Now Ezekiel 29 starting in verse 1 is going to talk about the Red Sea. You could tell way more mythological take. I saw it in verse 2 actually. Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him in all Egypt. Speak to him and say, this is what the sovereign Lord says, I am against you Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you great monster, okay, that's new, lying among your streams.

You say the Nile belongs to me. I made it for myself, but I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your stream stick to your scales. Okay, so Pharaoh's being talked about like a dragon here. He's got scales? Why is Pharaoh being talked about like he's Leviathan? I will put you out from among your streams with all the fish sticking to your scales, okay? We're also, we got this yesterday, Psalm 74, okay, Psalm 74, reading verse 13 is going to say this. It was you who split open the sea by your power. You broke the heads of the monster in the water, so we're going to get that mythological language again. The word monster, the very mythological word, okay, monster in the waters. It was you who crushed the head of Leviathan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert. So Ezekiel chapter 29 and Psalm 74 are all going to echo the same exact thing that Psalm that Psalm 77 is echoing, which is God has proven over and over and over again that he has ultimate authority, power, control over chaos. And I know that maybe for modern readers of the Bible, you would just want the Bible to say that plainly. But the Bible speaks through images. And one of the images that the Bible speaks through is this chaos language that is found all over the scriptures. There's so much chaos language in the Bible that I wrote a book entitled "Crushing Chaos" because I think that this mythological way of reading the Bible could really, really help us to understand what's happening in the Bible and how to understand what is happening in the Bible and how to understand God better. All right. Last Psalm, I'll give you the last nerdy nugget from Psalm 78.

This Psalm is deeply political, very, very pro-David, okay, very, very, very pro-David. So is Psalm 76, by the way. But when we look at Psalm 78, what we are going to see is that there is this whole story. the psalm of wisdom. But it's not just the people of Israel. It's Ephraim. Ephraim is contrasted with Judah Ephraim the heir of Rachel and Judah is the heir of Leah Ephraim did not keep the covenant just like those who rebelled against Yahweh in the wilderness Just like the family of Eli when Shiloh was destroyed in the ark was taken Okay, the psalm ends very clearly. He rejected the tent of Joseph He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but Yahweh chose the tribe of Judah Mount Zion where he loves and he chose David his servant and took him from the sheep Folds that's chapter 78 psalm 78 verse 67 through 70 I skip some things but generally chapter 78 verse 67 through 70 this psalm was originally a psalm that rebukes Ephraim and the northern tribes that Followed for rejecting David and David's house and splitting the kingdom into the psalm is clear David and Zion are the choice of God to reject David as king To reject his dynasty and Jerusalem as the site of the temple is to reject Yahweh the true king The lesson that Israel must learn from the history that's recounted all throughout psalm 78 Is that rejecting Yahweh always ends in disaster and the psalm was compiled So that that lesson could come in a sharp focus the Jews the people of Judah the people of David Led by the rubble bowl a son of David have returned to the promised land But Ephraim and the northern tribes have not they were lost forever Which is a vindication that like hey God had always chosen David and Jerusalem He chose a person and a place where he was going to dwell and it doesn't really matter If you don't like that choice okay, which leads us right into our time is true family 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 and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a books a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and 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 I wrote it down this way says freedom of choice doesn't free you from the consequences of making poor choices Okay, a lot of times we try to Pit the sovereignty of God against free will and I think these Psalms are pretty clear God sovereign choice is David That's his sovereign choice But Jessica's God's chosen David doesn't mean that everybody else is forced to choose David So they have the freedom to accept to reject what God has already chosen So God's made some choices and now you can make corresponding choices based on what God has chosen and You are free to choose what God has rejected, but that also comes with consequences Okay, freedom of choice doesn't free you from the consequences of said choices Okay, you and I are free to reject God's plan But exercising that freedom comes with a cost There's a cost and that's not just true for the return exiles That's not just true for the original recipients of the Psalms. That's not just true in David's life That's true forever That just because you have freedom of choice doesn't mean that you are freed from the consequences of said choices and If you really trust that God has your best interest in heart, then you may want to Choose the things that he's chosen because that's a life hack. I'm not even gonna lie to you That's my timeless truth for the day that you do have freedom of choice God's sovereignty doesn't somehow take away your freedom of choice, and you got the freedom to choose bad decisions however, those bad decisions will have consequences and in this context the people of Israel with some bad consequences. All right, I'll see you tomorrow on day 278. We've got Psalm 79 through 81 tomorrow. So Psalm 79, 80, and 81.

I hope that the reading blesses you. I hope that this episode was a blessing to you. I'm so excited that you're on this journey with us to go through the entire Bible in a year. I love you guys so much. I'm proud of you. I'll see you right here tomorrow for day 78 of the Bible Department podcast. 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 thebobledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. (gentle music) (keyboard clicking) [BLANK_AUDIO]