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Preoccupied with the Eternal
“I will contemplate the path that is perfect;
When will you come to me?
I will go about with purity of heart in the midst of my house.”
(Psalm 102:2)
So how does the believer live? What does he love and what does he hate? David begins with the profound statement that he will contemplate the path that is perfect. The Hebrew word used in this context is שָׂכַל (sakal), which means to ponder something, to meditate upon an idea, or to gain insight from it. Whose way is perfect? Indeed, that belongs to God and to God alone. And thus, he is saying to us much the same as is Paul in Romans 12:2, when he speaks of learning to discern the will of God: “What is good and acceptable and perfect.”
That may sound good to our ears, but the real question is as to whether we really strive to do this as Christians. We are bombarded by the thoughts of the world and our attention is often drawn to things earthly rather than to eternal things. Indeed, we do have obligations and responsibilities in this world, but it is very easy for us to let priority be given to the temporal. David is saying “no” to this kind of thinking. Instead of going about life thinking on worldly responsibilities (and David had many), we should be going about life thinking about eternal matters. Instead of taking a break from worldly things to think about God (worship, Bible study, etc…), we should spend the majority of our energy thinking about the Eternal One.
That does not mean that we shirk our temporal and physical responsibilities. What it does mean is that when we are laboring to fulfill our earthly duties, we always do so from an eternal perspective. And, when we have time to rest, rest in thoughts of the eternal. We should have an eternal preoccupation that governs our work, our pleasure, our rest, our worship — that governs the entirety of our lives. Too often people come to church expecting the service to meet their needs; but church is not about our needs. It is about God’s glory (for He needs nothing). Church is only properly understood when we approach it as one preoccupied with God and His will. Yet, such is also true for the entirety of our existence. It only makes sense from a Divine perspective, not from a human one. So, contemplate the path that is perfect and, as the psalmist concludes this verse, strive to live it out in all that you do.
The language of this verse is designed to take your mind back to Deuteronomy 6:4-9. How are we to express the reality that we belong to God? We are to love Him with the totality of our being? What does this look like? We talk of God when we are in the house and when we are on our way, when we are at work and when we are at rest, we write his Word down and set it before our eyes so that we might not forget it and we order our steps so that we may obey His commands. We contemplate it in our hearts in the midst of our homes (with the implication that such contemplations will guide and affect all who dwell in our homes.
There is one little clause in this verse that causes consternation amongst some of the commentators. What does David mean when he writes: “When will you come to me?” It seems somewhat out of place when it comes to the line of thought in the first and last portion of this verse. Commonly, commentators connect these words with a plea for deliverance from his enemies. While there is great truth in that, I think that remembering that this psalm was written by David helps us to understand more deeply what he is crying out with these words.
Theologians often like to use the Latin phrase Athanasius Contra Mundum (Athanasius against the world) to describe the period of time when Athanasius stood alone defending the divinity of Christ against the Arians who had taken power in the church. At one point, Athenasius wrote: “If the world be against the truth then I will be against the world.” It was a period of time when he could only have found solace in the words of our Lord: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18).
If one could speak of Athenasius as being against the world, one certainly can apply that phrase to David. The surrounding nations opposed him; the descendants of Saul opposed him, members of his own family opposed him. He spent much of his life on the run in fear for his life. He penned numerous psalms during these times of crisis, trusting in God to deliver him. Yet, it is not just deliverance that David sought from God. It was comfort. And we see this in psalm after psalm, but the words of Psalm 27:4 drive the notion home in a familiar way:
“One thing I have asked from Yahweh —
This I continually seek:
That I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life
And to gaze with pleasure on the kindness of Yahweh
And to study his temple.”
Remember, David was not a priest and the physical temple had yet to be built. Thus these are not words of a hope found in the physical world, but in the presence of God eternally.
David’s understood that without the nearness of God we cannot cope in this world and we cannot stand against the waves of foes that our enemies will launch in our direction. He understood that God’s closeness is our only source of strength and hope for tomorrow. David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14) because he was truly a man preoccupied with God. Shall we not do the same?
Singing of the Mercy and Justice of God
“A Psalm of David.
Of mercy and justice I will sing;
To you, Yahweh,
I will continually sing praises.”
(Psalm 101:1)
While singing is not the only way we praise our God, it is an essential aspect of our praise. God not only provides us resources for our singing in the psalms, but he commands that we use them for His glory and honor. In fact, Hebrew contains a wide variety of words that reflect different aspects of our sung praises, two of which are contained in this verse.
In the first phrase, we have the Hebrew word שׁיר (syr), which simply refers to singing a song — or a spiritual song (see Colossians 3:16). This is one of the major divisions of psalmody, with thirty-two psalms being classified as שׁיר (syr) within their superscriptions. In the latter clause, the word זמר (zamar) is used, which typically means to sing music that is accompanied by an instrument, for God has done gloriously (Isaiah 12:5). We should also note that זמר (zamar) is found here in the “Piel” stem, which indicates that this is to be a repeated and continual action. Just as we are to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and the Apostle Paul sets before us a model of praying for the church without ceasing (Romans 1:9-10), the psalmist is instructing us that he sings praises without ceasing.
Of what does the psalmist sing? He tells us that he sings about the mercy and the justice of God. The word we translate here as mercy is the Hebrew term חסד (chesed), which refers to the covenant faithfulness of God despite our covenant unfaithfulness in return. The term we translate as justice is the Hebrew term מִשְׁפָּת (mishpat), which is a legal term that refers to the commandments, judgments, rules, or laws of God. In Hebrew, מִשְׁפָּת (mishpat) provides the essential standards by which the life of the faithful was to be measured (in light of this, even what we would call the blueprints for a building in Hebrew were called mishpat).
So, why has the psalmist joined these two ideas in psalm? The most natural reading of this text is that when we spend time reflecting on the judgments and commands of God, our natural response should be to think about how merciful God has been to us. Indeed, we deserve to be struck down immediately for the wide range of sins we pursue in life, yet God does not do so. We deserve to be condemned to Hell for our actions and for the wicked nature of our heart; but God redeems us from the pit. And thus, these two ideas, mercy and justice, go hand in hand. One will never understand how deep the mercy of God is until they come face to face with the condemnable nature of their own sin.
In the verses that follow, the psalmist holds out the contrast between mercy and justice while also setting before us a model for how we are to think about the unjust things that take place all around us. Indeed, we commonly dismiss certain sins. Sometimes it is because these are pet sins that we hold to; sometimes it is because these sins have not affected us or our families directly. Regardless of the reason, the David reminds us that we are to look upon sin as God looks upon sin while also singing praise for the mercies and the laws of God.
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