Day 290: Psalms 113-115 | 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. (soft music) Family, welcome to day 290. We are looking at three Psalms today. Psalm 113, 114, and 115. If you've done the reading, then you are gonna understand everything that I'm gonna say. If you have it on the reading, you're gonna be confused. Everything I say is gonna sound like gibberish. No, I'm just joking. But for real though, you should get the reading done. Three solid Psalms. Now I will say, I will be honest, that studying these three Psalms was a little bit more fun than just reading them. So I got some empathy if you like watching the episodes before you actually do the reading. But I wanna challenge you to do the reading first and I'm gonna challenge you to leave some stuff in the comments if you saw things before I said them. All right, Psalm 113 to 118. If you have another reading, go ahead and stop the video, pause the audio and we are going to dive into these Psalms. Now, let me give context, okay? From Psalm 113 all the way to Psalm 118 is a collection of Psalms within this collection

called book five within this collection of Psalms that we know as the Psalms. So we have another Psalm section. If you've been here through the whole journey through Psalms, we've had many, many, many collections of Psalms within collections within the wider collection of the entire book of Psalms. So from Psalm 113 to Psalm 118 is another many collection. There are no titles for all, none of these Psalms have titles, okay? So the context is just gonna come from what we know from tradition, not from any title that goes above the Psalm itself, okay? Psalms 113 and 118 all have no title but are collectively known as the drum roll, please. (imitates drum roll) Egyptian Hallel, okay, Egyptian Hallel. Now, if you've been rocking with us for a while, you probably could figure out what the word Hallel means. So let's just think about it. The word Hallelujah, Hallelujah, okay? Yah, like Jehovah, like Yah is the word for God. So Hallelujah, if Hallelujah means praise the Lord, then Hallel means praise, that's right, Hallelujah. So these are Egyptian, the Egyptian Hallel. Hallels are short collections of Psalms associated with the great pilgrim festivals, okay? Or the Hagen, I'm throwing so many Hebrew words at you today. Hallel means praise and these praise Psalms are to be sung as people make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, okay?

Now, the three Hagen festivals, there are three times a year where these Psalms would have needed to be sung. The three Hagen festivals were Passover, Pentecost, Pentecost and Tabernacles, in which Jews were expected if able to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate. Hallelujah is of course the Hebrew word for praise, all right? So Hagen is a word for pilgrimage. Hallelujah is a word for praise. As the name implies, the Egyptian Hallelujah was the Hallelujah associated with Passover, right? And celebrates Yahweh saving Israel from Egypt. Hence why it's called the Egyptian Hallelujah. Psalms 113 to 114 were recited and sung before the Passover meal. And Psalms 115 to 118 are sung after the Passover meal. Psalm 114 is specifically about Yahweh in Egypt and focuses on Yahweh's help to all generations of those in need. Psalm 114 is actually gonna be like the only one of this entire collection that specifically addresses how Yahweh delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt. But they're all about Yahweh's character as it relates to his delivering power of the people of Israel out of Egypt, okay? So Psalm 114 is specifically about Yahweh in Egypt and focuses on Yahweh's help to all generations of those in need. The Egyptian Halleluh then were collectively the hymn, okay?

Sung by Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper. You can look at Mark chapter 14 verse 26. The Egyptian Halleluh, let me just give you, I'm gonna knock out all the context for this entire segment from 113 all the way to 118, okay? Okay, Psalm 113 is all about raising the downtrodden. You'll see that theme as we read today. Exodus, sorry, Psalm 114 is all about the Exodus, the event that we know of as the Exodus. Psalm 115 is a Psalm of corporate praise. Psalm 116 is a Psalm of personal Thanksgiving. Psalm 117 is a Psalm of world vision. And Psalm 118 is a phestal or phestal, sorry, phestal. Phestal procession, okay? Totally connected to the great Hageen festivals, which again are Passover Pentecost and Tabernacles, but of all the three Hageen festivals, these specific Psalms, aka the Egyptian Halal, are all connected to Passover. And that is the context. Not only is that the context for today, that'll be the context for tomorrow, 'cause we'll spend today and tomorrow working through Psalm 113 all the way to Psalm 118. Obviously today is 113, 114, and 115. Tomorrow is 116, 117, and 118. So we've got two days to dive into, read, study the Psalms that are connected to or known as the Egyptian Halal. Three today, three tomorrow, six Psalms in total for the Egyptian Halal, it's gonna be fun.

Let's dive in. Sambly, 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 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. Let's give you some nerdy nuggets, all right? Psalm 113. This psalm begins the Egyptian hello, and although the subject matter is not directly about the Exodus story, the theme of this psalm fits into the beginning of the Exodus story. Remember, Exodus tells of how Yahweh looked down and saw the oppression of his people by the Egyptians, okay? The thing that prompts God to call Moses,

the thing that prompts God to act with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, is that the cry of his people reaches him. He sees their oppression. That is definitely what this psalm reflects on. Yahweh looking down and lifting up those who are downtrodden. Let's like look at Psalm 113, obviously, it starts out with the word hallelujah 'cause it's a hallelujah, okay? And then we get some, honestly, just some good praise. You know, I've got these highlighted in my Bible from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. The name of the Lord is to be praised. Just good, like themes of praise. This is great, okay? The Lord is exalted, okay? So look at this juxtaposition. The Lord is exalted, okay? He's high above all the nations. His glory above the heavens, okay? The Lord is exalted, his glory above, okay? I want you to hear those words, exalted and above, obviously, common theme of height, exaltation. Who is like the Lord our God? The one who sits enthroned, where on high? Who stoops down, now here's the juxtaposition. Who stoops down? Like I want you to imagine someone who's like Yao Ming's height, like somebody who's seven,

five, like talking to a toddler, just like, has to stoop down to like talk to a two-year-old or like a three-year-old, okay? He stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth. So he has to stoop down to look at the heavens to let alone to look at the earth, okay? He's not just above the earth. He's above the heavens, he's exalted. You can see how the psalmist is designed to make you be in awe of the grandeur of this God. And here we go, he raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them with princes, with the princes of his people. He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy, That's actually one of the anchor verses that me and my wife stood on in faith when doctors said we would never have children. It says, "He settles the childless woman in her home "as a happy mother of children." That verse was near and dear to our hearts as we were believing God for children, and as we still are believing God for more children. All right, the contrast here is there's a God who is highly exalted, but although he is holy and separated and exalted, he is not out of touch with the reality of his people. He stoops down, and what does he do? He lifts up the poor from the dust. He lifts up the needy. He raises the poor.

So you get all of this height, elevation, exaltation, raise up, stoop down, all this language. It's just very, very poetic. And I can, it's almost like my imagination is firing away as I read Psalm 113, okay? Then Psalm 114, okay, actually gets into the Psalm. And actually, before we get to Psalm 114, Psalm 113 asks a question, who is like Yahweh, our God, who looks far down on the heavens and the, like, who is like, what kind of God is concerned with beings that are so far beneath him? Well, the answer is no one. The only being who is like this is Yahweh. High above the heavens yet, he looks down to earth and raises the poor from the dust to seats of, and seats those with princes, who makes bare and women rejoicing moms. This is the God they praise, the God that they remember as they sing walking to Jerusalem. 'Cause remember, it's a pilgrimage. You're singing this on your way to Jerusalem. The God who looked down on their ancestors in the dust of Egypt and lifted up to be a royal priesthood, his chosen people, beautiful. Psalm 114, okay? This hymn is actually the only Psalm in the Egyptian halleluh that directly focuses on the Passover and the Exodus story. In particular, it retails the crossing of the Red Sea and the miraculous provision of water in the desert. On the face, it seems a poetic retelling of the crossing

and the time in the desert, but the repetition of waters hints at a deeper meaning. And you already know, if you've been on this podcast for a long time, you already know what the deeper meaning is to bring order from chaos. That's what this Psalm is about. This is an order from chaos Psalm, a song of how Yahweh is a God of order who brings order and life out of the chaos for his people. It says this in verses three and four, the sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back, the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. So the sea and the Jordan, both bodies of water, are running away in fear, right? Chaos is scared of Yahweh. But the mountains, oh, the mountains are full of joy. Why? 'Cause the mountains represent order and the seas represent chaos. So here we have two opposite reactions, the sea look, the sea looks and the sea flees. The Jordan turns back, but the mountains skip like rams, the hills like lambs. The first is fear, the sea and the Jordan are afraid. The second is joy, the mountains and the hills dance. And they do this in the presence of Yahweh. The sea is a universal symbol of chaos in the ancient world. And here it flees from the presence of Yahweh. And in its place, there are dancing hills. Why?

Because chaos flees and it was replaced by order. Whenever order replaces chaos, there is joy. That's why the mountains and the hills are dancing. That's why there is an abundance of joy. The desert too is a place of chaos, okay? I write all about this in my book, Christian Chaos. Yet here there is a different kind of water, okay, water from the rock. Here in dryness, the presence of Yahweh brings forth water, life in the desert, water from the rock, order from chaos. It's not the sea, the literal sea that threatens the people of Israel with chaos. It is a sea of sand that threatens the people with chaos and God actually brings an abundant supply of water so they don't die in the wilderness. Again, this is their God. The God who brings order and life to the chaos and death of their world. The God who makes the mountains dance. And lastly, we got Psalm 115. Psalm 115 is a mocking psalm. It's actually a funny psalm, man. It's all about the ridiculousness of idolatry. These idols that the pagans make, they have mouths, but they don't speak. They have eyes, but they don't see. They have ears, but they don't hear, noses, but they don't smell. They have hands, but they don't feel, feet, but they don't walk. And they do not make a sound in their throat. And here's the punch line. Those who make them become like them. So do all who trust in them.

This is the problem with idolatry. That those who worship them will become like them. So what is Yahweh saying? He's saying, hey, if you want to become mute and deaf and unable to smell and unable to feel and paralyzed and no sound in your throat, keep worshiping that because you're that Thomas Truth for the day, you will become what you behold. You will always become whatever you worship. And beholding something is to worship it. Beholding something is to exalt it, adore it in your eye. So you will always, you're not what you eat. You know, fitness instructors and nutritionists are always like, you are what you eat. And you know, the spiritual part of me is like, yeah, that's cool. But really, you are what you worship. You are what you worship. And why is this so deep for the Psalmist? Well, it's because God made us humans in his image, which means he speaks, which means he feels, which means he can touch and he made us to do the same. And if we follow a leader other than the one who created us, we will lose our ability to do the things that God can do. Because if we squander the image of God in us and refuse to reflect his glory and reflect his image in the earth and be proper idols and images of the Most High God, Yahweh, then he will not allow us to keep all of our skills and all of our, the imprint of God on our life, if we're going to use it for other idols. Well, it's like, great, you want to image those idols, I'll make you in their image, they're mute, they're deaf,

they're dumb, they're blind, they can't see, they can't feel. And that's what will happen. Unless you worship your creator, the creation will atrophy. And me as a creative thing can only flourish when I worship the one that's created me. If I use any of my creative parts to serve the agenda of any other idol, I lose the power of my creativity and my creative parts. Only makes sense. So Psalm 113 is going to be a Psalm whereby God is positioned as the one who's exalted but who stoops low and who raises the poor in the needy. Psalm 114 is going to be a Psalm all about the Exodus, the actual events of the Exodus. And then last Psalm 115 is a mocking Psalm really making it very, very clear that those who practice idolatry will never flourish. And that's automas truth. It's Psalm 115 verse 8. Those who make them will be like them. And so will all who trust in them. That idolatry always leads to Yahweh saying, "Okay, great, I'll let your idols provide for you since they're so awesome." You will become what you behold. So can I ask you a question? What are you beholden? What are your eyes captivated with? Because you'll become that. It's the danger of pornography, right? You will eventually become what you behold. It's the danger of jealousy and envy. You will become what you behold. So really, if you want to focus on who you're becoming,

then you should really get a grasp on what you're beholding. And if you behold Yahweh, you'll become like him. You won't become him, but you'll become like him. It's why worship is so important. Because you will always become what you behold. And my prayer for you is that you would behold the glorious one, the king of kings, the lord of lords, the preexisting, immanent, the preexisting, infinite, imminent one who loves you so dearly, the holy one of Israel. His name is Yahweh. All right, tomorrow is God day 291. We're going to be looking at the second half of the Egyptian hello. Psalms 116, 117, and 118. So cool that we get to look at this mini collection over the course of two days together. I hope that today's episode. Hope it was helpful. Hope it added value. I'll see you right here tomorrow for day 291. Love you. 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 thebobledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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