08/11/2022 – Day 165 – Psalms 69 – 71 / Psalm 71 Title: “God’s Help in Old Age” – Yes indeed, praying the psalms!
I am going to share with y’all some footnotes in my Evidence Bible that I found personally to be very helpful to a more throrough understanding. I enourage y’all to do the same, here or other daily readings. Again, I feel as if why should I paraphrase those who have reserached and articulate better than I could anyway. So, I share quoted excerpts. But first I have two verses I would like to comment on
Psalm 71: 15: “My mouth will tell about your righteousness and Your salvation all day long, though I cannot sum them up.“
John Gill’s online commentary notes on that last phrase: “an attempt to set these forth in the best way he could, though in a feeble and imperfect manner.”
Psalm 72:17 – “… May all nations be blessed by him and call him blessed.”
John GIll notes: “They shall be blessed in Him all creatures, angels and men, subject to Him, the fountain of all blessedness.”
On the surface, I read it as if all nations gave Him the glory. We know that many nations faced God’s wrath and judgment.
Ok, now quotes from my footnotes, with the associated verses noted:
69: 2-9: “Deep waters (‘flood waters,’ v. 15) and the other images here are metaphors for trouble. Because the psalms were generalized for the use of the community’s worship, the psalmist’s particular trouble is difficult to gauge. It appears that he was persecuted by faithless people; including family members (v. 8) because of his zeal for the worship of the Lord (v. 9). The psalmist had a burning passion for the Lord’s cause. In the New Testament, zeal for the house of the Lord consumed Christ, for like the psalmist, He desired to please God above all else (John 2:17; Romans 15:3)
70:5 “The terms ‘afflicted (or ‘poor’)and ‘needy’ have both economic and spiritual connotations. Economically poor people will normally be humbled by their condition and more likely to acknowledged their dependence on the Lord. In the psalms, the ‘poor’ were often those most devoted to the Lord, who were therefore despised by the less faithful segments of the community . Similarly in the New Testament, Paul’s mention of ‘the poor’ (Galations 2:10) referred to the persecuted Christians of Jerusalem, for whom he was collecting an offering (Romans 15:26; 1 Corinthians 16:1).
Soli Deo Gloria!