Day 280: Psalms 85-86 | 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 thebobledapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (tense music) Family, welcome to day 280. We got Psalms 85 and 86 to cover today, only two Psalms. However, I am gonna backtrack a little bit and cover some content from Psalm 82, which was on yesterday's reading. So, if you are new to the podcast every single day, I tackle context clues and I move into nerdy nuggets and then I always leave off the episode on a timeless truth. If you have not done the reading yet, how about you stop pause, stop the video, pause the audio, go do the reading, read Psalm 85 and Psalm 86 'cause that's primarily what we're gonna jump into today. Now, I've gotta kinda make up for some things I did not say yesterday. I just kinda watched the episode and realized, ah, there are some really, really, really some huge things about Psalm 82 that I think that we should really, really, really talk about. And so, gonna backtrack just a little bit. But if you've done the reading for today, let's jump right in. All right, Psalm 85, okay,

this is a corporate lament over Jerusalem. Now, we have seen tons of these here in book three of the Psalms, okay? Corporate laments over Jerusalem. So, as you read through Psalm 85 today, you'd see nothing new, right? First line, you Lord showed favor to your land. You restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger. Okay, so the first three verses are all past tense and then things are gonna shift. Restore us again, God our savior and put away your displeasure towards us. Will you be angry with us forever? That is a repeating thing all throughout these Psalms. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice and you show us your unfailing love, Lord and grant us your salvation? Okay, so you get the gist, okay? This is a corporate lament over the fall of Jerusalem and that is the context for this Psalm, okay? The people are grieving, they're mourning. Now, pretty much the context for book three as a whole, right? This collection of Psalms that we know as book three,

the context has been pretty much the same. Throughout all the Psalms in book three, the people are returning back from exile, there is mourning, there's lament, there is frustration, there's all kinds of emotions underneath the surface of these Psalms, like really good human emotions that I'm glad that we've gotten a chance to dive into. Okay, Psalm 86, what's the context? This is the only Psalm of David in book three, so it can feel a little bit out of place to be totally honest. But this is a Psalm of individual lament, okay? And Psalms of lament are definitely fitting for book three, okay? So we've got a Psalm of corporate lament for Psalm 85, a Psalm of individual lament for Psalm 86. And before we dive into any nerdy nuggets for Psalm 85 or 86, I now just wanna go back to Psalm 82, all right? I'm gonna go back to Psalm 82. It says this, we covered this a couple days ago, but I just don't feel like we covered it in depth enough. And I'm gonna try to do this really, really quick, 'cause I think that Psalm 82 is really, really, really important. And I wanna say this, most people don't realize that we record episodes really, really far in advance. And it's rare that I tell people kind of what's going on, like in present day, 'cause I don't want people to tie the episodes

to when they were filmed. I don't want them to be bound to a date or anything like that. But in the United States of America, yet again, right now, we're just dealing with a lot of political upheaval, political division, and people tend to silo themselves into political parties. So the political talking points become the frameworks for everything that people say or how people think. And I just think Psalm 82, I feel like I missed an opportunity yesterday because Psalm 82 gives us such a divine perspective on human issues that I think is really, really important. So it says this, "God has taken His place in the divine council." Okay, so remember, who's the divine council? I believe that the divine council are angelic beings, are spiritual beings, and they've rebelled against him. So here we go, in the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. So God, uppercase G, has taken his place in the divine council, okay? In the midst of the gods, okay? Yahweh holds judgment, he holds judgment. So God, which is not a name, it's a title. So Yahweh, okay, the God of gods, the king of kings, the Lord of lords, which means there are other kings, there are other lords, there are other gods, okay? Yahweh is taking his place in the council of all the gods and he has something judgmental to say.

He wants to hold judgment. How long would you judge unjustly, okay? And show partiality to the wicked, give justice to the weak and the orphan, maintain the right of the lowly in the destitute, rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked, okay? They neither have nozzle understanding, they walk around in darkness, all the foundation of the earth is shaken. I say, you are gods, children of the most high, okay? So there's another clue. So they're first called the divine council, then they're called gods, now they're called children of the most high, all of you. Nevertheless, you shall die like mortals. So now God is saying, you're gonna die just like humans, okay? And fall like any prince. So now there's another word, prince, okay? Rise up, oh God, judge the earth. That word for rise up, actually in Hebrew is resurrect, okay? So resurrect, okay? Rise up, oh God, judge the earth for all the nations belong to you, all the nations belong to you. Okay, now in order to understand Psalm 82, we really have to understand Deuteronomy 32. Okay, so we're gonna go back to Deuteronomy 32 and get context for Psalm 82. So in Psalm 82, God is sitting down and it's hard, I'm such in a habit of saying God.

However, God is not a good word for God because there are many gods, okay? And remember, the Bible is not a spousing, monotheistic worldview, where there's only one God, it's espousing a monolatous worldview where we are loyal to one God, where we worship one God, okay? There are many gods, in the Bible it's clear, there are many gods, okay? Psalm 82 is making it known. God, Yahweh, the one true God takes this place in the Divine Council, who's in that council, many gods. And one of those many gods gonna be called, they're gonna be called children of the Most High and they're also gonna be called princes, okay? But they're gonna die like mortals. There's a lot of clues, okay? Deuteronomy 32, here's what it says. Says when the Most High, okay, when Yahweh, when the, the God of the universe, a portion the nations, okay? Remember, in Psalm 82, the nations, okay? The way that the Psalm ends is that the nations are gonna belong to Yahweh. Says when He apportioned the nations, when He divided humankind, okay? When did God apportion the nations? When did He divide humankind? Well, a lot of scholars, including Dr. Michael Heiser would say that this is what happens at the Tower of Babel, that God divided humankind.

He apportioned the nations. Okay, if you go back after the Tower of Babel, we are going to get a table of nations, okay? And so God, okay, divided humankind, He fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods. Okay, so God creates nations based on how many gods there are. The Lord's own portion was His people. And God then Yahweh took Israel as His. And what does God do then? Right after the Tower of Babel, He goes to find Abram and Sarai who can't get pregnant. Perfect! God's gonna start a nation through two infertile people because nobody's gonna be able to say that it wasn't Yahweh who did it. They're actually perfect. I could preach that all day long. What seemed like something that would disqualify them, actually qualified them 'cause God was looking for someone who couldn't have kids on their own. That is just too good, man. Okay, so what does Deuteronomy 32 teach us? Now when God divided humankind, okay, when He separated the languages, divided humankind, gave boundaries to people, created nations, He did it according to the number of the gods so that these gods could be governing princes

and principalities over the nations, okay? So now we get to Daniel chapter 10. This is gonna help us to create like a biblical worldview for powers, principalities, politics, kings, queens, all this, okay? He said to me, "Do not fear Daniel." This is Daniel chapter 10, verse 12. "Do not fear Daniel, for from the first day, Your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. But the prince, this is good, the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Who's the prince of the kingdom of Persia? The God who was set up to govern as prince over Persia by Yahweh himself in Deuteronomy chapter 32. Well, recounted in Deuteronomy chapter 32, but then what it actually happened in Genesis after the Tower of Babel, okay? So the prince of the kingdom of Persia is a real spiritual being. So a lot of times what can happen in our nation and in many nations is people begin to put their hope in politics, but the Bible gives us a worldview that whoever your favorite politician is, guess what? There are puppet strings attached to those politicians, and those politicians actually work for spiritual beings that have been assigned to every nation, okay? So there's a spiritual being that governs over Persia. There's a spiritual being that governs over Russia. There's a spiritual God, there's a God,

there's a lower case, gee, God. There's a prince of the air. There's a principality that governs over Italy, that governs over America, that governs over Canada, over Mexico. And in Psalm 82, Yahweh is upset with these gods, 'cause instead of teaching the people about him, they've convinced the people to worship them. So in God says, "You are God's children of the most high." This is Psalm 32. Sorry, not Psalm 32. Psalm 82 says, "You're my children." You know what? Since you don't wanna act like my children, I am gonna cause Abraham and Sarah to have children through the power of the Holy Spirit, okay? This is all through the New Testament because the reason that Paul is so adamant about going on missionary journeys is because he wants the nations to see how Psalm 82 ends, rise up, oh God, resurrect, oh God, judge the earth for all the nations belong to you. You gave the nations to these gods. You gave the nations to these principalities and powers. They've done a terrible job. They've caused, when me and my wife went to Thailand, literally the phrase, right, of the airport, to be ties to be Buddhist, okay? I don't think Buddha is a figment of their imagination. I think Buddha is the governing principality,

the governing God, lowercase g God, that was set up by Yahweh to reflect his glory to teach people about his ways and Buddha's done a terrible job. So now the Psalmist is saying, rise up, oh God, judge the earth for all the nations belonging to you. Thailand doesn't belong to Buddha. It belongs to God, okay? So we have to realize we battle not against flesh and blood, but it gets powers and principalities, rulers in high places. And oftentimes, anytime something happens, we have this temptation to immediately, well, do you see it like a liberal? Do you see it like a conservative? And honestly, God's people have to actually rise up and say, no, no, I don't see it according to any of these parties 'cause all these parties are evil. And they're all being deeply influenced by these rogue children of God, these spiritual beings, this divine counsel that God is in the midst of judging. And there is no political party that is just perfect or that aligns perfectly with what the Bible says. It's not possible, okay? Does a governing prince and principality over America and what should our prayer be as Christians rise up, resurrect, oh God, judge the earth because all the nations belong to you. Lord God, America belongs to you.

This country belongs to you. We're not too far gone. God, yeah, oh man, we have been manipulated by spiritual beings that have gotten us completely in divisive patterns against each other, but Lord, we're your people. I'm not on the right, I'm not on the left, I belong to God. I'm God's, I'm God's property. And so often what begins to happen anytime something happens in the media that gets all of our attention is it's easy to forget a Psalm 82 Deuteronomy 32, Daniel 10, perspective. with Persia and, you know, the actual king of Persia, but what does Gabriel tell him? He says, no, I had to war against the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Don't get it twisted. Don't make it seem like this is just flesh and blood evil and have come to help you understand what has to happen. And what does he say, Michael, one of the chief princes. So here we go. An archangel is called a prince, which ties all this together, okay, that how we should interpret so many to is that these are not human rulers. I kind of gave you a bunch of options yesterday. Okay. That these are not just human judges and rulers. These are not just pagan gods. These are spiritual forces that oversee nations. And because they have the power to oversee nations, they have set up pagan gods and they manipulate political systems. And Daniel, Gabriel is saying to Daniel, hey, I know all your eyes can see is that there's

this king, but I want to show you what human eyes can't see, that there's a war happening in the heavenly realms between Michael, the prince, Michael, and the prince of Persia, who we don't even need to say his name because he's not relevant. But he is a, he has a spiritual force that oversees nations who's been set up by God to oversee the nations and has done a terrible job overseeing the nations. And one day, God is going to judge all of these sons of God that have rebelled against him. And God is going to claim the nations again as his inheritance. This is why when Paul is preaching the gospel, he's saying Jesus has resurrected. And what, what does the resurrection mean that all the nations can now be brought back to Yahweh, that God's promise to Abraham was, all right, Abraham, I've given the other nations to these gods, you are going to be set apart. And what I'm going to do, Abraham, is you're going to have a child and, and through you, all these nations are going to be blessed. You see that? I'm going to separate you so that you could be mine. But the ultimate goal is that through you, all the nations will be blessed. And how does that happen through the Messiah? His name is Jesus, through Jesus, all the nations are blessed. Well, Paul sees it as his mission to bring the gospel to all these nations because these nations have been under the corrupt leadership of spiritual powers and forces of wickedness. And there's all, there's tons of other verses that support this worldview, by the way. But Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 and Daniel 10 are the three passages that really support this worldview, and this is huge, and I think it's a good reminder to anyone who thinks that progressive ideas or, or conservative ideas are the solution, biblical ideas are the solution, biblical ideas are the solution, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the solution. The church of Jesus Christ is the hope of the world. All right, let me say a couple of things about Psalm 85 and 86, since that's actually what's a bit aside for today's reading, okay, I hope that my going through Psalm 82 is helpful. 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 going to 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. Here we go. Psalm 85, we should be 100% familiar with at this point, okay. This Psalm is lamenting the fall of Jerusalem. It has a structure versus one to three, recounting Yahweh's forgiveness in the past versus four through seven, crying out for restoration in relent, forgot to relent on anger, okay, versus eight through nine, listening for Yahweh to speak an answer. and then verse 10 through 13. and faithfulness. So one through three, four through seven, eight through nine, 10 through 13, this psalm is literally portioned out in four, kind of ding, ding, ding, ding, like four chunks, okay? Helpful to understand that. I think that's a nerdy nugget that will help you to interpret the psalm well. Psalm 86 is a psalm of lament

and the entire psalm is actually a chiasm, okay? Which is common for lament literature, okay? So a chiasm is gonna give you A, B, A, okay? So it's like a sandwich, okay? The two things on the outside are gonna mirror each other and whatever's on the inside is actually the buried treasure, okay? So A is gonna be what's gonna happen is verses one through seven, we're gonna get problem lament complaint. And then at the end of the psalm, psalm 14 to 17, we're gonna get problem lament complaint. But then right there in the middle verses eight through 13, David is gonna praise and thank Yahweh. And that chiasm helps you to interpret what's going on in this psalm of lament, which leads us right into our timeless truth. Because here's what you need to know about chasms. In an Eastern worldview, you always bury the most important thing in the center of the chiasm because it's always the buried truth that is the treasure. In a Western world, we make the most important thing, our thesis statement. But in a Eastern world, you make it the center of your chiasm because by unearthing it, by digging it up, you find the buried treasure. And that gives it, it gives it to a Thomas truth because hope and comfort are always buried. Buried and sandwiched in between what? Pain, lament, and complaining. And that's just life. Recently, I was in Columbus, Mississippi.

And one of the great guys that hosted me while I was there, I found out that his 21 or 22 year old son had died last year. And he said, you know, he said, me and my wife were in the biggest season of grief and mourning ever in our life. And he said, but comfort is there if you want it. Said there's a lot of people who went through what me and my wife went through with losing a child who they've made up in their mind. They don't want to be comforted. They'd rather drink or they want alcohol. They'd rather escape. He said, we went through unfathomable loss, losing a child. I don't want to rank pain, but that's got to be top five. I mean, just that's unfathomable. And he said, I promise you, if you are looking for comfort, you'll find it. But if you're not looking for it, you won't find it. And he's like, the reality is that we minister to a lot of people who have lost children and they don't want to be comforted. And I love that comfort is actually the center of the chiasm 'cause it's the buried treasure. Comfort is something that you're always going to have to dig up. You're going to have to unearth it. You're going to have to go looking for it is not just going to automatically find you. And I wrote out kind of a Thomas truth for the day. One of the good things that I love about these Psalms of lament

is they honestly portray the suffering and pain that causes the lament. And because of the nature of the chiasm, they do all of this twice. Greater space is given to the pain because pain has a right to be heard. They oppose these Psalms of lament, oppose the idea that we should suffer in silence. Christianity is not stoicism. I need you to hear that again. Christianity is not stoicism. We are broken people and God wants to hear us tell him about our brokenness. He is concerned with our pain. That's how compassionate and amazing God is. This reminds me, you should remind all of us of Romans eight, verse 26 to 28, where Paul tells us that the spirit hears our groans, hears our cries of pain, interprets them and intercedes for us with the Father. But even though the Psalms give voice to pain, even though they give space to suffering, even though they legitimize our cry for help, they do not give that pain to focus. At the heart of these poems, at the heart of the songs of lament sits Yahweh himself. It is in the midst of pain in the center of the chiasm that God comes into focus. It is in suffering that we are meant to look beyond and see God's face.

And that's our prayer for you today. If you're in mourning, if you're in suffering, maybe you're in mourning or you're lamenting because of things happening in our country. And I promise the God of comfort needs to come into focus. Whatever else wants your attention, I promise you that the only thing that is gonna heal America, the only thing that is gonna bring hope to our nation. the person of Jesus, and his amazing bride called the church. There is no other organization that has solutions to what we face, but God has solutions. And the nations belong to him. - I hope that today's episode was helpful. I'll see you tomorrow for day 281 as we dive into Psalms 87 through 89. I'll see you right here, same time, same place. I love you, I'm proud of you, 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. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You