Psalms
69 – 71
Verse 69:4 highlights one of the problems with the Jewish
nation:
My enemies despise me without any
cause;
they outnumber the hairs on my head.
They torment me with their power;
they have absolutely no reason to hate me.
Now I am set to pay for crimes
I have never committed!
Think of it, was Israel really the land flowing with milk
and honey? Did years of strife and war change that or did Israel make it that
way? If you look at how Israel started to repopulate Palestine around 1880 we
see what may have been going on with David. As they started move back into
their homeland they did some amazing things, they made a land that eventually
supported millions verse the few thousand they had before. They drained swamps,
leached salt from the land and used innovative farming techniques to support populations
much larger than their neighbors.
Was this happening to David? Did the fact God was blessing
his nation make the others jealous and envious? Instead of learning and
adopting techniques from the Israelites, as in recent times, they became mad
and fought them. If you see someone blessed by God what is your response? That
has always been the key with Israel, people get angry at the blessing God has
given them instead of embracing it with JOY and trying to emulate it.
Verse 69:24 may be part of the reason Jesus was rejected so:
Pour out Your fiery wrath
upon them!
Make a clean sweep; engulf them with Your
flaming fury.
David wanted to fight and destroy his enemies, while Jesus
said love your enemies. Israel was waiting for a savior, who like David would
crush and destroy their enemies and restore Israel to its glory. Most of
David’s writing has him completely obliterating his foes and not show mercy or
grace. Jesus turned the status quo over and taught love towards their foes,
which was foreign to them. Now in Israel today we think it is a very closed
population, but they support more Arabs with their technological advancements
than neighboring Jordan does, so maybe they have adopted a “love thy enemy”
approach?
Verse 71:20 is one that I relate to:
You have made me see hard times:
I’ve experienced many miserable days,
but You will restore me again.
You will raise me up
from the deep pit.
I feel this way today! I was laid off in November and
suffered death in May without a job and still face mounting medical debt from
that event. Our properties are becoming a burden, but may also be our saving
grace. See through all this I whine, yet we have been taken care of through the
sale of rentals. The equity in them allowed us to float for a while. I want to
be restored to a “glory” I have never obtained. Sure making good money as an
engineer and being a land baron was my vision, but it wasn’t reality. We always
were more in debt than in excess. So my prayers are very unlike David’s who is
asking for restoration, I am asking to be “restored” to a place in my head and
not reality.