Page 76 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

partiality to the wicked. They have taught Israel how to sin (82:2-3). The “devices” chosen by Israel
81:12) bring God’s judgment in the form of plots by foreign nations (83:5), all reflecting the vain things
imagined by nations in Psalm 2:1.

The other half of the message of Book III is the identity of the speaker in many of the Psalms. Who says,
“I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds (73:28)?” Who cries out for help
(77:1)? Who opens his mouth to teach the people (78:1-2)? Who yearns for the courts of the LORD?
Who appeals to the LORD as one poor and needy (86:1)? Who has experienced God’s salvation after
crying out to him day and night (88:1)? Who sings forever of the LORD’s great love (89:1)?

We have no reason to identify the person with the authors of the individual psalms. Neither can this
person be a righteous group in the nation. Israel had forgotten the deeds of Yahweh (78:11), so they
cannot be the one who opens his mouth collectively “with a parable…things our ancestors have told us”
(78:2-3). He is pictured as interceding to God for Israel. “He spends days and the whole night in pleading,
remembering and meditating (77:3-7, 12-13,) on the exploits of ancient days and years, narrated in the
Torah (vv. 6, 12-21). Consequently, the speaker of these Psalm fits the profile given of the man (vya) in
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Psalm 1.” He is the son, the man of God’s right hand, the son of man, whom God raises up (80:15-17).

The language of these psalms includes references to God’s careful leadership in the past. “You led your
people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron (77:20).” Yahweh leads like a shepherd, quite unlike
the gods of the nations. The same language is used of some human leader of Israel. “David shepherded
them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them (78:72).” At some future date, Israel will
again be the sheep of God’s pasture who will praise him forever (79:13). For the present they can only
appeal to the Shepherd of Israel to hear them, save and restore. They need revival (80:1-3, 18).

This righteous speaker is God’s anointed (84:9) who loves the courts of the LORD (84:2). He trusts, or
takes refuge, in the LORD Almighty (84:12). Some of our English translations blur the meaning of the
original Hebrew. The most recent NIV, for example, says in 84:5, “Blessed are those whose strength is in
you.” The original Hebrew is singular, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in you.” Verse four and verse
six are plural, making the translation difficult. Is the psalm first speaking of one specific man who is
blessed, followed by others who are then blessed in him?

122 Ibid., 62.
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