Day 282: Psalms 90-92 | 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. (electronic music) Family, welcome to day 282 here at the Bible Department podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mani Orango. I'm super, super excited to dive in. We've got not just brand new chapters, but a brand new book of the Psalms. We're in book four. We have left book three of the Psalms behind. And for those of you who may need a refresher, the Psalms are divided into five books because these Psalms are designed to help people to re-enter into the Torah. And that's gonna become really, really, really obvious that that's the goal of how the Psalms are compiled as we look at Psalm 90. So if you have not done the reading, if you have not read Psalm 90, Psalm 91 and Psalm 92, then I'm gonna challenge you to stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done. This podcast is not designed to substitute your daily Bible reading, but to supplement your daily Bible reading. So we're gonna knock out three Psalms today. Like always, I'm gonna give you context clues, gonna give you some nerdy nuggets,

gonna leave you with a timeless truth. And I'm really, really excited about our timeless truth. For the day, we'll get to that at the end of the episode. All right, let's look at some context, okay? Context for Psalm 90, Psalm 91 and Psalm 92. Psalm 90, we get this heading, all right? And the heading is a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Now, the first thing that we need to know is that this is the first and only time that Moses is given authorship or claimed as an author of any of the Psalms, okay? So of all of the Psalms, this is one of one, okay? So we're gonna get a prayer of Moses, the man of God, okay? That is the context. That is the important context for Psalm 90 is that Psalm 90 is claiming mosaic authorship. Now, when we get into the nerdy nuggets later in this episode, we'll really have to think through what does it mean that this Psalm is claiming mosaic authorship? Because what many of you may not be aware of is that authorship in the ancient world is not the same as authorship in the modern world. So the way that we modern people think about authorship is not the same as how ancient people thought about authorship. What, how ancient people thought about authorship would be downright, what's the word? When you steal someone's writing. Oh man, I couldn't do it in college. Oh boy, this is gonna be a funny moment on the podcast.

No, it's not polygamy, it's not forgery, plagiarism. Boom, shout out to Cam who's in the studio with me. Cam's in the corner, like plagiarism. All right, how many ancient people would have thought about authorship? Most modern people would call that plagiarism, okay? So we gotta orient ourselves into the context of the ancient world. So we'll kind of look at what does it mean that this Psalm says that it's a prayer of Moses, the man of God. All right, context for Psalm 90. One is that there's no heading and no context in that fun. So we literally are clueless about the context for Psalm 91. And to be honest, that would be the case with Psalm 92 as well, okay? We would not have any context for Psalm 92 if it was not for the Mishnah. But the Mishnah tells us that Psalm 92 was sung or sang sung, was sung by the Levites in the temple on the morning of the Sabbath, okay? So on Saturday morning, this Psalm was sung aloud, okay? So that means another piece of Jewish literature is actually providing us context for the Psalm that we have in front of us today, okay? Which is going to actually be very, very helpful as we dissect this Psalm. All right, we've got context for at least two out of three of the Psalms.

I'm sorry, I cannot make up context for Psalm 91. We don't have context for Psalm 91, but we're gonna get a lot of nerdy nuggets for Psalm 91. And so hopefully that makes up for the lack of context. All right, let's dive into some nerdy nuggets, okay? Psalm 90, all right? We get a unique title, a prayer of Moses, the man of God. This is the only-- oldest Psalm in the collection of the book of Psalms, okay? Because obviously Moses is way older than David or anybody else who's authored the Psalms, all right? However, most scholars today doubt that this Psalm is actually written by Moses due to the content reflecting a long history, okay? Rather than the beginning of their history, which would be Moses perspective, also we have the usual how long question in Psalm 90 verse 13, okay? We tackled that. We saw that question over and over and over and over again while we were in book three of the Psalms and here it is again. Also, the anger of Yahweh for the iniquities of the Jewish people, which again, we saw a lot in book three lines that are usually associated with the people going through God's judgment for breaking covenant that we see in their history. There's also, and this is really what convinced me, there are also other technical issues with mosaic authorship in general. The lack of an adopted alphabet during Moses lifetime, meaning that if he wrote it, it would not have been in the Hebrew that we have here in Psalm 90, okay? Language changes. So think about it, right? Have you ever gone to read Shakespeare and it's like, this is Old English. I don't even know how to read this, okay? It's still English, but language adapts. If I said to William Shakespeare, you know, during his lifetime, just Google it. He wouldn't know what Google is. Like, that's not a word that existed while William Shakespeare was alive, even though he's speaking the English language, okay? Also, one of the things that scholars do is they're looking at manuscripts and they're judging, is this Old Hebrew? Is this modern Hebrew? They're able to date things based on how old the actual language is, right? When you read the Constitution of the United States of America, it's pretty clear, yeah, this was written in the 1700s, right? And then when you read Shakespeare, you're like, yeah, this is definitely written in a different century than the Constitution and so on and so on and so forth. You get the point.

Having said all that, okay, it is clear that this Psalm reflects heavily on the opening chapters of Genesis, a book that's actually attributed to Mosaic authorship, okay? The reason that there's a connection between Moses and Psalm 90 is because Psalm 90 is heavily reflecting on creation, on Genesis, on themes from Genesis. So, perhaps what we have here is that this, like a lot of the Psalms, some of the Psalms that are attributed to David are not actually written by David, but they're in the style of David, okay? And this is probably in the style of Moses and an unknown Psalmist writes this unique Psalm based on the language and themes of the books of Moses, the Torah. So, writing a Psalm the way Moses would have written a Psalm, okay? Which, in the ancient world, not weird, like that's not plagiarism in the ancient world, that's ought to us as modern people. So, let's actually look at Psalm 90 and look at those themes, okay? Verse 2, we're going to get God's creation of the earth in his eternal presence. Verse 3, we're going to get man's creation from dust and his return to it in death. This shows how dust is used in the Hebrew scripture as a metaphor for mortality. From the dust you are formed and to dust you will return. Verse 5, we're going to get a theme of humanity being swept away by the flood. Again, all this stuff is found in Genesis. Verse 10, we're going to see God setting the years of humanity's lifetime. And then again in verse 10, we're going to get man's life of toil, which is a massive theme, not just of Genesis, but of the five books of Moses. The theme throughout is the contrast, and this is can kind of almost be a timeless truth, but we'll leave it as a nerdy nugget. The theme throughout Psalm 90 is this contrast between God and humanity, between that which is infinite and that which is finite, between that which is eternal and that which is temporal, God and humanity. God is from everlasting to everlasting. A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday, okay? And so on. Whereas for humans, for you and I, we are from the dust and will return to the dust. We're not from everlasting to everlasting, we're from dust to dust, okay? We are like a dream, grass that withers in the evening. We live to 70, maybe 80, if we're particularly strong and healthy. Yet they're there. So the Psalmist writes this, teach us to number our days, the Psalm 90 verse 12, that we may get a heart of wisdom. So actually, this is kind of a wisdom Psalm, okay? Wisdom begins by knowing who you are and who you are not. Wisdom begins by acknowledging who God is and how insignificant you are in

comparison to God. That's right. Wisdom is rooted in a fear of the Lord. Why am I scared of God? Because I'm in, I'm in, I'm in full knowledge of his grandeur, of his infinite status, of how awesome he is. It should humble me, okay? This Psalm truly, in its comparison to the eternal nature of God and the mortal nature of humanity is a clear example of one of the prime themes of Hebrew wisdom, the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom begins as this Psalm does by putting us in our place, by fearing God acknowledging his eternal power, by being filled with awe and wonder as we compare our fleeting lives to his eternal life, this is the beginning of wisdom. But as all the wisdom books tell us, it is the beginning, not the end. It is not the goal of wisdom to fear God. But that is the wisest place to start, okay? And where do we end? We end with humility, worship, obedience. We start with, I cannot believe how much greater God is than me. I am mortal, I am not God, okay? Honestly, this should curb our tendency towards idolatry because we begin to realize, yeah, I'm a mere mortal, like I'm a human. We're nothing, we're nothing compared to God. All right, let's give you some nerdy nuggets from Psalm 91, okay? You're probably going to recognize Psalm 91. If you've read the New Testament, okay, because the words that Satan is going to use to tempt Jesus in Matthew, chapter four, verse six and Luke, chapter four, verse 10 and 11, come straight from this Psalm, Psalm 91. And so the Psalm is actually divided in the three unique sections. What I want to actually teach you, okay?

Psalm 91 starts out with the psalmist talking to God. You can see that in verses one and two. I'll read verse two to you. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. I will say of the Lord. And now we're going to see in verse three, the pronoun shifts. Surely he will save you. Wait a minute, he, you mean, surely you will save me? You see how the pronoun shifts? I will say of the Lord. So verses one and two, the psalmist is just talking about God. And then from verses three to verse 13, there's an intermediary who's almost like talking to the psalmist and then from verses 14 to 16. Now, Yahweh talks, because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him. So we've got the psalmist talking, then an intermediary talking, and then Yahweh talking. So the threefold division of this psalm is, is verses one and two is what the psalmist is saying to the Lord, verses three to 13 is what this unknown intermediary is saying to the psalmist and then verses 14 to 16 is what Yahweh is saying to the psalmist. It is in that chunk where an intermediary takes over and starts talking to the psalmist that Satan actually quotes from. Okay. So Satan quotes from that middle chunk of verses three to 13. It's almost as if there's an intermediary between the psalmist and Yahweh. The psalmist begins by saying, I will say to Yahweh that he is my refuge. And the intermediary speaks back to the psalmist, basically saying yes. And then going on to describe how Yahweh is his refuge. Now at the end Yahweh speaks, but he speaks to the intermediary and not the psalmist. Sorry if I said it the other way round earlier. He speaks to the intermediary and not the psalmist. It's as if Yahweh is saying, yes, tell him I will be his refuge.

Okay. And Satan quotes from the psalms, actually the entire showdown in the wilderness. Satan quotes from the psalms where someone is talking on behalf of God. Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 16, where Moses rebukes the people for testing Yahweh's patience and their disobedience and wanting things their own human way. I'll say this probably for the unteenth time on this podcast that Satan's a Bible nerd. out in the wilderness is that he knows the Bible better than Satan. That Satan is not able to manipulate Jesus with God's word because Jesus has made himself an expert at God's word. Now, I don't want to get too deep into the theology of the humanity of Jesus, but I don't think that Jesus knows the word because he is the word. I think he knows the word because he actually studied it. And sometimes we can rely so heavily or lean so heavily on the divinity of Jesus that we forget that the humanity of Jesus is, is there. I mean, Jesus is human. So he has to study. He actually has to memorize things. Okay. And Jesus is a Bible nerd. So here's a real thing. If Jesus realizes that he needs to be a Bible nerd, how dare you walk around not knowing the Bible? If Jesus, if Jesus, like all powerful, 100% God, 100% man, if Jesus has stored up the word of God in his heart that he may not sin against Yahweh. And you may want to really reevaluate how lax you may be around memorizing scripture. I'm just going to throw that out there. My hunch though is that if you're watching this podcast, you're serious about being a Bible nerd. So shout out to you for knowing the Bible better than Satan, because that's the goal, to know the Bible better than Satan so that you can do what Jesus does, which is to una reverse that thing back on the devil. Okay, let's go 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. Last section that we got to tackle and I've dropped a lot of timeless truths today.

Still going to give you one major timeless truth at the end. Psalm 92. Okay, this psalm is supposed to be sung on the morning of the Sabbath. This individual song of Thanksgiving was written to be a part of the rituals and worship of the Sabbath. This psalm was sung in the morning of the Sabbath as a part of the beginning of Yahweh's day. Okay, Saturday, the seventh day, Yahweh's day. This psalm does show that our usual picture of the Sabbath being a day of rest isn't completely accurate. It's not incorrect. It's just incomplete. And Psalm 92 begins to add some wholeness to our theology of Sabbath and our theology of work. Here's the deal. The word that is repeated throughout the Sabbath song, get this, is the word work. That's right. Work is a massive theme of a psalm focused on the Sabbath, which you're going to get why once I get to my timeless truth in a minute. There's two sections that really focus on work versus one to four show the work that is needed to be done on a Sabbath, singing of the psalms to thank and praise Yahweh and the night of the Sabbath and in the morning, but not just singing. Music is to be played on multiple instruments. Okay, I want you to see this in anyone who's a musician in church or anyone who serves in church. You're going to get this. Okay. Here's how Psalm 92 starts. It is good to praise the Lord. Make music for your name almost high, proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night to the music of 10 stringed liar to the strength 10 to the 10 string liar in the melody of the harp. It's funny because, you know, if you play keys at church on the Sabbath on Sunday, then you realize that you're probably waking up at four or five o'clock in the morning getting to church early for a sound check. If that church has multiple services, if you play drums, if you play bass, if you're a musician, you're probably realizing, yeah, actually the Sabbath means work for me. But there's a difference between your work and God's work. And the Sabbath is actually not just an invitation to stop working, but an invitation to stop doing the work that just pushes your business forward or your life forward and act to do the work that pushes God's family business forward, God's mission forward. which is worship the Lord. It's funny because it's like a light bulb moment went off while I was at a church, I was working at a church, I was on staff at a church in North Carolina. And a woman in the lobby looked at me and she said, wait, so today's my day of rest.

I love enjoying church. I go to get brunch after church. And I got a word today and I worshiped God. And the music was amazing. She said, but this is a work day for you, huh? And I said, yeah, while you're enjoying the sermon and the music, the sermon and the music don't work itself. Like I wrote down here in my notes that I wanna read it the exact way that I wrote it. I said, liars and harps don't play themselves. That God says, hey, on the Sabbath, play the liar, play the harp. Well, those don't play themselves, which means that Sabbath doesn't just mean I forsake all work. It means that I do holy work. It means that I do the kind of work that partners with Yahweh and doing the kind of stuff that Yahweh wants done. It's kinda like my wife keeps a honeydew list for me. And work for me is typically recording content like this or having meetings or looking at property or pushing the businesses forward, that I lead, armor, the Bible department, the church that I lead, the garden, right? But then I go home and my wife may have a chore list for me. Hey, this needs to get fixed. This needs to get done. Hey, Theo needs a haircut. Hey, Theo's my son's name. And that's not work in the same category

that the job where I get a salary is work. That's just like household work. And in the same way God begins to say, "Hey, there's the work you do at your law firm "or your doctor's office or there's the work that you do "wherever you get a paycheck from." But then there's like the work of up keeping my house and worshiping me and making sure that my name is exalted. And that is the kind of work I wanna invite you to on the Sabbath. And my timeless truth was actually that until we have a healthy theology of work, then we're never gonna have a healthy theology of the Sabbath that actually whenever people either don't practice a Sabbath or make the Sabbath into something that is not, it's actually most likely or most times rooted in a theology of work that's actually incomplete, not incorrect, but incomplete. And I actually pray and hope that Psalm 92 would add some context to our definition of work, our theology of work and our definition of Sabbath and our theology of Sabbath. And shout out to anybody who does the work of ministry on Sundays to actually make sure that these temples called church actually run smoothly. Shout out to the musicians, shout out to all the background vocalists, shout out to the worship leaders, shout out to everybody who's actually helping work with God to collabor with Christ to build his church

and expand his kingdom. That is not a violation of the Sabbath. That's actually you just doing your part and partnering with God as we work together towards a new humanity. And that's not just true for Psalm 92. Well, the Levites that are singing this on every morning of the Sabbath, that's true for you and I as well. All right, tomorrow we got day 283. We're gonna be looking at Psalms 93 to 95. I love you guys so much. I'm proud of you, especially if you're on the street. I'm proud of you if you're not on the street, but I'm especially proud of you if you are on the street. I love you guys. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Same time, same place. We're gonna be continuing our trek through the Psalms. It's gonna be fantastic. Love you guys. 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 thebobbledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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