Day 289: Psalms 110-112 | 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 thebabledapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) - Family, welcome to day 289. I'm your host, Dr. Mani Orango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast. Today we are looking at three Psalms in our final stretch of the book of Psalms. We are in book five of the five books of the Psalms and we've got Psalm 110, 111 and 112 on the docket today if you have done the reading, then you're gonna understand everything that I'm gonna say. You're gonna have full context for what I have to say. But if you haven't done the reading, then you're not gonna be able to follow along. So if you haven't done the reading, how about you stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading for today done. Three beautiful Psalms. And like every day, I'm gonna give you as much context as I can via our context clues. And then I'm gonna give you as many nerdy nuggets as time will allow and we'll always end the episode with a timeless truth. That timeless truth will be a charge for you to go live the abundant life that God has called you to live.

So let's dive into our context clues, okay? We got Psalm 110, which is gonna be a standalone Psalm and then we've got Psalm 111 and 112, which are a pair. Okay, so this has happened as a couple of times here on the podcast where the pair will make sense individually. However, once you pair them together, they actually begin to make way more sense. It begins to the sense exponentially grows, okay? So we've got a single Psalm in Psalm 110. Now this identified as a Psalm of David and what's probably abundantly clear as soon as you start reading it is that this is a royal Psalm. Now in Hebrew, that word Messiah doesn't just mean the Messiah but it means a Messiah, right? So King David was a Messiah because the word Messiah simply means anointed one. And King David was anointed by God to be king. He was anointed by Samuel, by God via Samuel to be king. Solomon is a Messiah and every king is a lowercase and Messiah and all these messiahs are pointing towards the ultimate Messiah, which we know is going to be none other than Jesus Christ. Now, this Psalm, because it's a royal Psalm, it's a messianic Psalm. And actually this Psalm, Psalm 110, is gonna get quoted a lot in the New Testament. This Psalm is actually key. I mean, this is an interpretive key

for understanding the nature of the Godhead, for understanding the divinity of Jesus. And David is actually prophesying years and years and years, hundreds of years, probably most people would put David at a thousand BC. So David is prophesying a thousand years before the birth of Jesus about the divinity, the lordship and identity of Christ. So Psalm 110 is a royal Psalm. It's a messianic Psalm. And we are gonna have lots of nerdy nuggets as we dive into the episode further that are gonna come from Psalm 110. All right, Psalm 111 and Psalm 112 don't have a title. So we don't have context from a title. However, they are seen as a pair because both Psalms are acrostics, okay? You know, an acrostic, trying to think of one. One time actually, this is one of the worst moments I've ever had in youth ministry. I was probably in college maybe. Maybe I was a young adult. And the pastor, the young adult pastor at the time, he preached about twerking. It was terrible actually. And each letter of the word twerk stood for something. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, you know, tah, God be the glory. You know, work with all your might.

You know, everything that has breath praise the Lord. You know, the righteous will inherit the earth and king of kings. And you know, it's like T.W.E.R.K. like every letter of the word twerk kind of represented something. That is an acrostic, okay? It's when a letter starts out when you're using the Hebrew alphabet to give God praise. That's an acrostic. It's actually a common thing in Hebrew poetry. Thank God. There is no Hebrew word for twerk, okay? That's praise be to God. And honestly, it's one of the worst sermons I've ever had to sit through and hey, I apologize in advance. If you're watching this and you're the one that preached that sermon, you know who you are. I'm not gonna say your name, that was really bad. All right, let's keep moving. All right, not only is Psalm 111 and 112 a pair, we know they are a pair because both of them are an acrostic. They also both begin with the word hallelujah. Now, you may not be able to tell in your English translation that both of these Psalms begin with the word hallelujah, but they do, there's a nerdy nugget for you, okay? It says this, Psalm 111 verse one, praise the Lord.

And then Psalm 112 verse one. Guess what it says, drumroll, please praise the Lord. That's right, in Hebrew, that's hallelujah. So these Psalms start with hallelujah, which simply means praise the Lord, okay? They are also connected through the last verse of Psalm 111 and the first verse of Psalm 112, okay? So the last verse of Psalm 111 reads as follows. Says this, this verse 10, very final verse of Psalm 111 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who follow his precepts have good understanding to him belongs eternal praise. And then as soon as we flip to 112, we're gonna get our praise the Lord, our hallelujah. And then it says, blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands. So the end of Psalm 111 in the beginning of Psalm 112 are 100% linked through this theme of wisdom. That's right. So these are also low key, some wisdom Psalms that we have here in Psalm 111 and Psalm 112. All right, so big, big, big context. Psalm 110 is a royal Messianic Psalm. This Psalm 110 is gonna be a massive foundation for building a solid, not just theocracy, not just an understanding of God, not theocracy theology, sorry. Not as an understanding of God, but also a Christology, an understanding of Jesus. So Psalm 110, foundational for understanding

the person identity and name of Christ. And then Psalm 111 and 112, totally connected. And you've got to interpret them as a pair instead of as individual units. They both start with the words hallelujah. They are both acrostics and they are connected via the last verse of Psalm 11 in the first verse of Psalm 12. How about this? In the comments here on YouTube, if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple, sorry, you can't participate. But if you're watching this on YouTube, how about in the comments tell me if you saw that while you were doing the reading, all right? So I kinda wanna start to see whether or not, we've been on this journey together for 288 days, today's day 289. And if you've been rocking with me for a while, I wanna begin to see, can you see stuff before I say it, all right? And so let me know in the comments whether or not you saw that. Did you see that the Psalms both started with praise the Lord? Did you see that Psalm 111 ended with the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom? And Psalm 112 started with this same theme of the fear of the Lord. Let me know in the comments if you saw it.

All right, let me give you some nerdy nuggets, all right? Let's start out with our nerdy nuggets for Psalm 110. This is a royal psalm, a psalm connected to the ceremonies surrounding the kings of Israel, okay? So in its original context, before it gets used in the New Testament, this psalm would have been used during the coronation or during any kind of, any of the formal ceremonies involving a succession from one king to the next, all right? This is an enthronement psalm given to a new king as he succeeded his father. Its importance, however, has been elevated to do its use in the New Testament. Now I want you to write these down. In the gospels, this psalm is gonna get quoted four times. Mark chapter 12 verse 36, Matthew chapter 22 verse 44, Luke chapter 20, verses 42 to 43, and then in the book of Acts, okay? Peter's actually gonna quote it on Pentecost, on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter two, verses 34 to 35. Verse one is quoted first by Jesus, but then later by Peter at Pentecost, the quote is used to show the kingship of Jesus, the Messiah, and as appropriate for a royal psalm, has an abundance of kings involved. And I'm going to actually read some of these words in Hebrew just so that we actually get clear on what's being said. Okay. So Psalm 110, the Lord. Okay. Anytime you see the Lord L O R D all caps, that means that the Hebrew word Yahweh is being used. The Lord says to my Lord. So that second

Lord is lowercase. It's not capitalized L O R D, which means we know that it's not Yahweh. Okay. So the Lord says to my Lord. And so I'll read it for you in Hebrew. Yahweh says to my Adonai. Okay. Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your foots do that Psalm 110 verse one. So David is probably writing this for his son Solomon in preparation for his son Solomon to succeed him. David the king of Israel writes a Psalm for the king that will succeed him. He opens the Psalm by talking about the true king of Israel. That would be Yahweh speaking to someone that David calls Adonai. Now we got to admit this is straight up strange because who does David consider to be his Adonai? Okay. Adonai was a name sometimes used for Yahweh. In fact, centuries later, it will literally replace Yahweh, but that's a whole other conversation for another time, which is why Yahweh becomes capital L O R D as that is what Adonai means. Adonai means Lord. Okay. Here Yahweh is speaking to Adonai. It's kind of weird. Not only that David refers to Adonai as my Adonai. So Yahweh considers this Adonai figure to be a Lord. And David definitely considers this Adonai figure to be his Lord. Whoever this is, he is David's Lord. Yet he is not David's king as that is Yahweh who is here distinct from this Adonai figure. So this is what becomes really, really cool is that the word Adonai can be used of Yahweh, but it's being used of someone who's not Yahweh, which means whoever this Adonai figure is shares a name with Yahweh. Yahweh is Yahweh, Christ is Christ, but both Yahweh and Jesus Christ are Adonai, which reveals Trinitarian theology right here in the book of Psalms. Okay. The use of Yahweh and Adonai and David's submission to them both actually long confused Jewish scholars prior to Jesus being born. Eventually this Adonai became associated with the future Messiah, the Messiah that would come. Jesus and Peter then use this quote with its baggage of confusion to identify who Jesus was and how the Messiah was greater than their earthly human perception of him. The question asked is how can the son of David be greater than David as David clearly calls him Lord. This question shows they did not realize who the Messiah actually was to be. The connection with Adonai, the name they then called Yahweh, makes the statement even greater. The Messiah is not only Lord over David, but he also shares a name with Yahweh. I've already said that, but I just wanted to read it straight for my notes. His name is Yahweh's name. His title is Yahweh's title. His nature is Yahweh's nature, but he is distinct from Yahweh. He is not Yahweh, yet he shares his name and nature. The son of David is also the son of God. What a profound mystery. So unbeknownst to him as he wrote,

David a thousand years before Jesus laid the foundation stone of what we now call the Trinity, the simple line at the start of a psalm designed by a king for his son revealed the truth of the greatest mystery of all, the nature of God himself. That God is three. That God is a holy communion of three individual parts, yet an indivisible whole. All right, so that's all the nerdy nuggets we got for Psalm 110. I got a couple minutes left, and I'm going to try to give you as many nerdy nuggets as I can for Psalm 111 and Psalm 112. 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. 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. These are seen as a pair. Again, they are both full of cross sticks and both wisdom focus and wisdom is seen primarily in the verses that connects them. The final verse of Psalm 111 and the first verse of Psalm 112. Okay, and what is the connection, the fear of Yahweh, connects these two Psalms. The fear of Yahweh as the beginning of wisdom is one of the central themes of wisdom literature within scripture. It is the idea that fearing Yahweh, having all about who he is and how insignificant humanity is in comparison. I'm not saying humans are insignificant. I'm saying we're insignificant in comparison to an infinite Almighty God. That is the starting place of all wisdom. Why? Because when we acknowledge who God truly is, and we also acknowledge the gap that exists between Yahweh, the infinite one and humanity, who is finite, humility is the response. Humility and all then are the starting places of wisdom. It is impossible to be wise if you don't have humility. It is impossible to be wise if you don't walk in awe and wonder of who God is. Impossible. Wisdom starts when you know your human limitations and when you know the boundless power of who God is. All is what causes us to worship, and our lifestyles can only be lifestyles of worship when we are in awe of God is what causes us to trust him and obey him. Also, we have to understand who we really are. I am not God.

I am not the Creator. I am a created being. Humility and awe are the starting places of wisdom, a firm footing to begin the journey of a wise life in harmony with Yahweh and his creation. These Psalms show this. Psalm 11 focuses more on the holiness and awesomeness of Yahweh, where Psalm 112 focuses on the man who fears Yahweh. So I've kind of got this highlighted in my Bible. If you just go through Psalm 111, it says a lot of things about God. First of all, in the counsel of the upright and in the assembly is where we're going to extol him. So first, verse three, he's great. Next, verse, sorry, verse two, he's great. Second, verse three, he's glorious and majestic. Verse four, he's caused his wonders to be remembered. Ooh, that means he's wonderful. Verse five, he provides food. That means he's a provider. Just think about it. In five verses, we have five things about God, okay? That God is great, that he's glorious, that he's majestic, that he's wonderful, that he's gracious, that he's compassionate, and that he's a provider. Sorry, we've got more than five things about God in just five verses. Let's actually count them, okay? He's great, he's glorious, he's majestic, he's wonderful, he's gracious, he's compassionate, he's a provider. Seven things about God in just five verses. So for people who say like, I don't know what to say when I pray, it's like then you don't know God. I run out of words when I pray. Then you don't know God because he's awesome, he's majestic, he's wonderful, he's glorious, he's a provider, he's great. Like in order to praise God, you are going to have to have a vocabulary to describe this great God that we're talking about. Ooh, that's a time of truth, that in order to properly praise God, your vocabulary to describe this God is going to have to expand, which means you're going to have to actually study the Bible to figure out what does the Bible say about the character nature of God so that you can use that vocabulary in action and actually use those words to describe him, to talk to him. We're not even, we're, verse six, he has shown his people the power of his works, this means he's powerful. That's the eighth thing we hear about God. The works of his hands are faithful and just more words to describe God. Everything he does is enacted with faithfulness and uprightness. He provided redemption. He ordained his covenant. Okay. And then it gets to the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom. So we get down to fear the Lord once the psalmist makes it clear. Hey, get this. He's great. He's glorious. He's majestic. He's wonderful. He's gracious. Then the works of his hands are faithful and just. I mean, the psalmist is just on a barrage

of how to describe God to do what? To get you to the point of awe, of wonder, of fear, of an acknowledgement of, oh God, he's great, I'm not. He's glorious, I'm not. He's majestic, I'm not. He's a provider, I'm not. He's compassionate, I'm not. He's gracious, I'm not. He's powerful and I'm not. I'm just immortal. Man, I have moments where I'm compassionate. I have moments where I'm gracious. I've got moments where I'm great, but God, I have so many other moments where I'm not great. I'm really average, where I'm definitely not glorious, where I'm definitely not majestic, where I'm definitely not wonderful, where I'm not gracious. I'm petty sometimes. I'm not compassionate. I'm pretty merciless at times. I can be vengeful sometimes. I can be spiteful. Man, I'm not the perfect provider for my son and for my wife and for my family. I want to be, but I'm not. Praise should get you to the place of God. I'm so in awe of you. I'm inspired by you. And I just want to be like you, but I know I'll never be you. I want to be like you, but I know I'll never be you, which then leads to Psalm 112. What does Psalm 112 say? "That blessed are those who fear the Lord "and find great delight in His commands." Well, guess what? There's now that blessing of fearing God,

it gets teased out in detail. Said their children will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in their house and their righteousness endures forever. What else happens when I operate from a posture of Psalm 111? Well, I get all the promises of Psalm 112. It says, "Even in the darkness like dawns for the upright, "for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous, "good will come to those who are generous and lend freely." So when I decide I'm going to act like God, even though I'm not God, I begin to lend to the poor. I begin to be generous to the poor. And God says, "Ah, I'm going to bestow my blessing on you. "The righteous will never be shaken. "They'll be remembered forever." And here's what I really love. Physical blessings are great. Wealth is great. My children, being established as mighty inhabitants and heirs of promise, that's awesome. But here's what, this is everything right here. They will have no fear of bad news. That the righteous will have no fear of bad news. I don't have to walk around with my head on a swivel. I have no fear of bad news. Why? Their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Their hearts are secure.

They will have no fear. In the end, they will look in the triumph on their foes. They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor. Their righteousness endures forever. Their horn will be lifted high in honor. And that's that, that's the pair. Psalm 111 is all about how awesome God is. Psalm 112 is all about how awesome he is towards his people who actually acknowledge his awesomeness. So Psalm 111 and Psalm 112 are a pair. And that moves us seamlessly into our Thomas truth for the day. And that's this. I just want you to get a sheet of paper out. I've been doing this a lot lately. And just start to get a working vocabulary for how you describe God, okay? What are the top five words that come to your mind when you describe God? What are the top 10 words? What are the top 15 words? And maybe you're like, I don't have 15 words to describe God. Well, let me challenge you. I want you to begin to build a vocabulary for how you describe God because it is on the foundation of that vocabulary that you can actually praise him. So if you're in moments of prayer and you run out of things to say, that means you just don't have enough words to describe him.

Which means you have to grow your vocabulary. He's glorious, he's majestic, he's awesome, he's wonderful. He's powerful, he's a provider. What are the first five words that come to your mind as you begin to dwell on the character nature of God? What are the top 10 words? What about 15, what about 20, what about 25? How many words can you get to before you run out of words to describe the indescribable God that we know as Yahweh? I hope that's a helpful, timeless truth. I want to expand my vocabulary of who God is. And I want my son to hear me describe God and learn words about God based on how I talk about him. I want my son to know of God's reputation based on how his father describes him. Isn't that cool? That that's the legacy of Psalm 110. That as David wrote a psalm as Jesus understanding that that is how his father described him. Man, I wanna be the kind of dad that leads my son into timeless truth. And I hope if you're a parent, if you're a father, then your desire is the same. All right, I'll see you tomorrow for day 290. Tomorrow we're gonna be diving into three more psalms. Psalm 113, 114 and 115. I'm so proud of you, especially if you're on a streak. Love you so much.

I'll see you tomorrow, same time, same place. 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) [BLANK_AUDIO]