Psalms 105 – 107

Before I start, forgive me since my mind is not in this today. We had a very contentious zoning meeting last night were things were misrepresented and did not go our way. So emotionally I am a bit of a wreck since this was something that God’s hand seemed to be on. I can’t tell if this was God saying slow down for me or if it was him teaching me to control my emotions or if it was not a God thing to begin with. Fortunately the Psalms were really only a history lesson and were not deep theologically.

Verse 105:40 caught my attention since we just read the story:

They asked, and He sent them coveys of quail,
    satisfying their hunger with the food of heaven.

Since we just read this in Numbers I love that the word “covey” is used. Covey is defined as a “small party or flock of birds” which is laughable in this instance. Go back to the story in Numbers and see the difference. Psalms makes it sound all nice and rosy, where the actually story had so many birds the people had them “coming out their noses”. This is far from a “covey” and more like an infestation.

The reason I pick on this is we see this so often throughout history. The truth is embellished. Here the Psalmist made it seem like God blessed them with quail for a plea. In reality this was far from the original story where the people complained over what God provided to the point where God gave them excess to prove a point.

Verse 106:23 sometime makes me wonder if God is “unchanging”:

Therefore, He declared in His anger that He would wipe them away.
    If Moses, His chosen one,
Had not pleaded for the people,
    His anger would have destroyed them.

Think about what the people did then and what they are doing today. Many of the churches have built a golden calf in a prosperity gospel. We tend to focus on glitz and not God. Our belief structure is being manipulated away from God today I wonder when the proverbial hammer will fall. Granted the people just witnessed God demolish the Egyptian gods with the 10 plagues and part the Red Sea, I don’t see it as much different today.

The key is Moses was the “stopgap” to God destroying his people. This happened more than once trough the wilderness to the point Moses could not handle it and asked to die. Think about the immense responsibility one must have to protect 600,000+ people. This with being the only conduit to God, Moses must have been beside himself.