Read the Bible in 2023 ◊ Week 25: Wednesday

Wednesday’s Bible reading is Psalms 72–74. Psalm 72 is the last psalm in the second book of Psalms (see The Five Books of Psalms) and is one of the only two psalms written by Solomon (Psalms 72, 127).

As you read Psalm 72, notice that it ends with a doxology.

Each of the five books of Psalms ends with praise to God (cf: 41:13; 72:18, 19; 89:52; 106:48; Ps. 150).

Notice also that the very last verse says the prayers of David are completed. You may be wondering why it says that when the superscription of Psalm 72 says it was written by Solomon. Derek Kidner has this explanation.

“There is no strong reason against Solomon’s authorship: the final verse is rounding off a book or books of the Psalter, in which David is the chief but not the only author.”¹

As you continue reading the psalms, you’ll come across more psalms by David. Kidner writes:

“This at once raises the question why eighteen further psalms of David should be found after this point, and a dozen other psalms by other authors before it; to which the most likely answer is that a self-contained compilation once ended here, to which other psalm-books, with their own selections of material, were later added.”²

Psalm 73 begins the third book of psalms and is one of twelve psalms ascribed to Asaph (Psalms 50; 73–83).³ Kidner explains that in this next book of Psalms:

“The eleven psalms 73–83, which make up the bulk of this third ‘book’ [Psalms 73–89], bear the name of Asaph, founder of one of the temple choirs (I Ch. 25:1). Psalm 50 is their isolated forerunner in Book II. Four of the remaining psalms belong to the Sons of Korah (84f., 87f., supple­menting the group in Book II (42–49); the rest are divided between David (86), Heman (who shares with the Korahites the heading to Ps. 88) and Ethan (89).⁴

“In the headings, his name evidently stands for his choir in at least some instances, since such laments as 74 and 79 tell of disasters witnessed by no contemporary of David.”⁵

Asaph himself was a contemporary of King David. When David had the ark brought to Jerusalem, he chose Asaph as the chief musician to minister before it.

You’ll also find Asaph mentioned in 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, and Nehemiah 12:46. In reading the psalms of Asaph, I think David surely found in him a kindred spirit. Asaph’s psalms share the same intensity of emotion, inner conflict in affliction, love of God, and turning to Him for help that you find in the psalms of David.

Psalm 73 is one I’ve returned to again and again because Asaph’s reac­tions to the peace, pros­perity, and pride of the wicked in com­parison to his own circum­stances have held up a mirror to my own.

The psalm begins with Asaph’s con­clusion after his under­standing of the comparisons he made changed.

Kidner titles Psalm 73, “Beyond Compare.” It is truly a psalm of comparison; it begins with Asaph’s bitter comparisons and goes on to Asaph’s realization that what he has is beyond compare. Kidner writes:

“This great psalm is the story of a bitter and despairing search, which has now been rewarded beyond all expec­tations. It recalls the kind of ques­tions that distracted Job and Jeremiah; but at the end they no longer seem unanswer­able, and the psalmist has a confession and a supreme discovery to share.”⁶

As you read watch for his discovery which leads to his confession.

Heart is a key word in this psalm. Asaph uses heart once to describe the wicked, The delusions of their heart overflow, but the other five times he uses heart is it is about himself or those who are pure in heart. Its occurences in verses 1, 7, 13, 21, and 26 trace the shift in his under­standing of the lives of the wicked and his own life. Remember “The heart is the very basis of character, including mind and will, in the Old Testament.”⁷ A. F. Walls writes:

“Heart has a wider meaning in Hebrew than in English as it relates to the intellectual and moral faculties as well as to the emotional.

“…the heart [is], the focus of the mind and will and the fountain of action.”⁸

Kidner comments on heart in Psalm 73:

“As for heart, its occurence six times in the psalm empha­sizes, as Martin Buber has pointed out, that ‘the state of the heart deter­mines whether a man lives in the truth, in which God’s goodness is experienced, or in the semblance of truth, where the fact that it “goes ill” with him is confused with the illusion that God is not good to him’.”⁹

In verse 2 Asaph shifts back to what almost happened to him before he takes us through what he saw and what he thought about the lives of the wicked compared with his own.

Notice in verse 3 Asaph tells us why he almost stumbled and slipped: I was envious of the boastful. In verses 4–12 he tells us what he saw of their lives: how they were at peace and prospered, and in their pride scorned and mocked God. He tells us he contrasted their lives with his own, that even though he honored God, he was continually striken and reproved. He tells us his thoughts:

Have you ever struggled with making a bitter conclusion about the unfairness of life? I know I have. We don’t know the specifics of Asaph’s life as we do with Job, but he tells us enough for us to know it wasn’t a one time even, but he was worn down by a cascade of continuing hardships. As he takes us through his change of heart from bitterness to trust, Asaph teaches us how to trust God with our griefs and losses whatever they many be.

He realizes that while he may feel this way, he knows how others will be affected if he speaks of his thoughts.

He does not to spew his bitterness at large; he brings his troubled thoughts to God, and there he makes his discovery about the wicked.

Circle until. Notice his thoughts were troubled until he came into the sanctuary of God. Kidner comments:

“The transformation of his outlook had its decisive moment, pinpointed by the until of verse 17, but there was heart-searching before it, and much to explore beyond it.”¹⁰

From God Asaph sees the reality of the lives the wicked: that rather than being secure, their lives instead are precarious. They are in slippery places and will fall to destruction.

Asaph is moved to confess his sin:

Kidner comments:

“…nothing is so blinding (and his terms are still stronger, 22) as envy or grievance. This was the nerve the serpent touched in Eden, to make even Paradise seem an insult. Now the true values come to light, in a passage which must be unsurpassed, brief as it is, in the record of man’s response to God.”¹¹

Bitterness is a terrible condition of the heart. Asaph’s bitterness began when he was envious of the boastful. In 1 Corinthians 3–4: Jealousy & Strife, I wrote about jealousy, envy, and coveting and pointed out Alexander Strauch’s observation that in the New Testament, “jealousy (or envy) is prominent in all the vice lists.”¹³ F. F. Bruce conjectures, “it could be argued that covetousness is the quintessential sin.”¹⁴ Francis Schaeffer also zeros in on coveting. He calls it, “the hub of the wheel,” for it “is an entirely inward thing…never an outward thing,” and writes, “we break this last commandment, not to covet, before we break any of the others.”¹⁵

Asaph saw the many unfair, wrong, and disheartening things he had experienced in contrast to the ease of the wicked, and his heart became embittered. He brought his troubling thoughts to God, and when Asaph went to God, he realized how little he understood from what he had seen.

We shouldn’t think of this as getting God’s perspective as if we could compare and contrast our perspective with God’s as we might do with the perspective of another person. God is God. God showed Asaph reality. This is what is truly occurred. It occurs for us as well when we bring our troubling thoughts to God, spend time in His Word, asking him to sort us out and help us. Through His Word God teaches us reality.

The nevertheless in verse 23 points to what God taught him about his life.

Through all that had happed to Asaph, he was continually with God; God had not abandoned him. Kidner enriches our understanding by explaining the Hebrew:

“The tenses, while they are not always as sharply temporal in Hebrew as in English, seem designed here to bring out the long span of the phrase, continually with thee. The sequence can be read…

‘You took hold of my right hand,
You guide me with your counsel,
And in the end you will receive me in glory.’

“The word afterward, or ‘in the end’, makes it clear that the last line looks beyond the steady progress of the middle sentence, to the climax of the whole…the thrust of the present paragraph is to God alone, from its opening theme, ‘continually with thee’, to its supreme confession in 25f., ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee?’ This mounting experience of salvation, “grasped, guided, glorified’, is a humble counterpart to the great theological sequence of Romans 8:29f., which spans the work of God from its hidden beginning, ‘whom he foreknew’, to the same consummation as here, ‘he also glorified’.”¹⁶

Asaph comes to God and confesses:

Asaph has come to the conclusion he summarized in the very first verse. He realizes God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever.¹⁷ Instead of, and better than, the prosperity of the wicked, he knows the nearness of God is my good. And so now he tells us:

Kidner writes:

“So, whereas at one point the best thing he could do was to keep his thoughts to himself (15), now his lips are open. In the light of his discovery we turn back to his first exclamation with new understanding: ‘Truly God is good . . . to those who are pure in heart.'”¹⁸

The last psalm for today, Psalm 74, is ascribed to Asaph, and as I quoted Kidner above, he believes the reference here is to Asaph’s choir. Kidner thinks:

“This tormented psalm has the marks of the national disaster that produced Psalms 79 and 137 and the book of Lamentations: i.e., the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587 BC. Perhaps the closest parallel is in Lamentations 2:5–9, where the silencing of prophecy is, as here (verse 9), one of the most disorienting blows of all.”¹⁹

“The complete change of tone in verses 12–17, not unlike the triumphant interlude in Psalm 60, suggests a new voice breaking in (note the singular, ‘my’, after the ‘us’ and ‘our’)…The tragic note will return, but at least the discipline of offering praise and of facing other facts will have made the plea more confident, if no less urgent.”²⁰

Read those middle verses in Psalm 74. May they comfort you, remind you, and ground you in who God is whether you feel like Asaph in Psalm 73, or whether you’re facing a crisis as in Psalm 74.

I want to end with one of Paul’s prayers in Ephesians. As we struggle with comparisons or crises, remember that God is our King, sovereign over His creation, and He is also our Father, the best of all fathers. May He root us and ground us in His all surpassing love beyond compare.

Like Asaph, may we set Lord Yahweh as our refuge, that we may recount all His works. May God be the rock of our hearts.

---

For a brief overview of the structure and poetry of Psalms see my post, The Five Books of Psalms.
Silvesterzug Laterne: Bk muc. (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Initial for Psalm 72 (Psalm 73 in Hebrew numbering): Quam bonus Israhel Deus his qui recto sunt corde (How good is the God of Israel to those who are upright in heart). From the Psalterium Aureum, St. Gallen: Public Domain.
¹Leslie S. M’Caw, J. A. Motyer, “Psalms,” The New Bible Commentary: Revised, D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer, eds., A. M. Stibbs, D. J. Wiseman, contributing eds. (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1970) 447.
^1,2,3,5Derek Kidner, Psalm 1–72 (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1973) 254, 5, 35, 35.
^{4,6,9,10,11,12,16,17,18,19,20}Derek Kidner, Psalm 73–150 (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1973) 259; 259; 259–260; 261; 262; 262; 262–263; 264 Kidner points out, “As a Levite, furthermore, he [Asaph] had an explicit assurance that God was his portion (Nu. 18:10), an assurance which David could claim only by analogy.”; 264, 264–265; 265.
⁷The New Bible Commentary: Revised, D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer, eds., A. M. Stibbs, D. J. Wiseman, contributing eds., (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1970). I have this written out on a slip of paper, but I failed to write down the page or the article in which I found it! Since TNBC is over a 1000 pages, I’ve yet to track it down.
⁸A. F. Walls, “Proverbs,” The New Bible Commentary: Revised, D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer, eds., A. M. Stibbs, D. J. Wiseman, contributing eds., (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1970) 552, 554.
¹³Alexander Strauch, If You Bite & Devour One Another: Biblical Principles for Handling Conflict (Lewis and Roth Publishers, Littleton CO: 2011) 17.
¹⁴F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids MI: 1977) 195.
¹⁵Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1971) 7.

I’m using Michael Coley’s Bible reading plan (one page PDF to print) to read through the Bible in 2023. Each day my posts are on different books because he divides Bible readings into seven categories, one for each day of the week: Epistles, The Law, History, Psalms, Poetry, Prophecy and Gospels. There’s more information on his plan and other ones at Read the Bible in 2023.

Copyright ©2011–2023 Iwana Carpenter