Warning - KJV to follow.

Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.

Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal.

Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.

Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.

I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.

Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.

Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,

From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.

They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.

They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth;

Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.

Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword:

From men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.

As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

Which incidentally matches in the last verse the 1917 JPS Hebrew translation.

I'm no scholar of the Psalms, or of when one or the other of the Psalms was written, of which are early and which are late. However, seeing the face of God does indeed seem to my uneducated eyes to indicate a relatively early Jewish belief in, well, seeing the face of God. "When I awake" is also interesting. It can be interpreted literally - when you wake up in the morning, there is God with you. It can also be interpreted as when you awake to the reality of religion. Or when you wake up after your death.

Or who knows what else - my commentary on the Psalms, scholarly and otherwise, is sorely lacking, so I'm basically making this up as I go along. Hope I'm not a heretic.

Labels: Bible, Old Testament, religion

they who said among themselves, thinking not aright: "Brief and troublous is our lifetime; neither is there any remedy for man's dying, nor is anyone known to have come back from the nether world. For haphazard were we born, and hereafter we shall be as though we had not been; Because the breath in our nostrils is a smoke and reason is a spark at the beating of our hearts, And when this is quenched, our body will be ashes and our spirit will be poured abroad like unresisting air. Even our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will recall our deeds. So our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and will be dispersed like a mist pursued by the sun's rays and overpowered by its heat. For our lifetime is the passing of a shadow; and our dying cannot be deferred because it is fixed with a seal; and no one returns. Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are real, and use the freshness of creation avidly. Let us have our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no springtime blossom pass us by; let us crown ourselves with rosebuds ere they wither.

Labels: Old Testament, scripture

Sometimes when I can't sleep at night I read from the Bible and try to reflect on something. Last night I was flipping through Genesis and caught this interesting phrase about Noah:

When Lamech was one hundred and eighty-two years old, he begot a son and named him Noah, saying, "Out of the very ground that the LORD has put under a curse, this one shall bring us relief from our work and the toil of our hands." (Genesis 5:29)

Immediately this prophecy of Lamech about his son called to my mind messianic expectations in the reversal of the curse of labor brought on by Adam. I began to see Jesus-parallels as Noah was an intercessory figure who saved mankind from being destroyed through their sinfulness. Noah could be seen as the first of many proto-Jesus figures in the OT.

I found this explanation much more satisfying than my footnote in the New American Bible which says that Lamech's comment was in response to the fact that Noah was the first vinter.

You can also see Noah as a new-Adam figure. He is the new father of all mankind, the earth is in a sense newly created after the flood. Just as Adam had all the animals brought forth and named, Noah saved all the animals. And Noah is given the same blessing Adam was given:

Go out of the ark, together with your wife and your sons and your sons' wives. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you--all bodily creatures, be they birds or animals or creeping things of the earth-and let them abound on the earth, breeding and multiplying on it. (Genesis 8:16-17)

This is like the same "be fruitful and multiply" blessing given to Adam.

Anyways, I later realized that of course none of these reflections on Noah were ground-breaking, but the same ideas are part of our tradition in faith and the teachings of the Early Christian Fathers: See New Advent on Noah.

Like many of the great OT Fathers of our faith, we are taught that "Noah found favor with the LORD" and that he was "a good man and blameless in that age, for he walked with God." (Genesis 6:9-10) I puzzled a bit over the expression "walked with God." Isn't that same expression used with some other OT figures who "died" or left this world for the next to be with God? Noah fits the bill for being righteous, especially as he obeyed all of God's commandments to the letter without a word of protest or questioning. I love that expression "walked with God" though as term for one's proximity to God, through faith. Noah's blamelessness and his justness stem from his walking with God.

These are just some of my early AM musings. Nothing deeply profound, but it has certiainly been a while since I gave any thought to Noah.

Labels: Bible, Old Testament