Building on the Foundation

In the midst of working on several other projects, I came across something that needed a little more study. It’s perfectly demonstrated in the 8th Psalm, and since it’s time to cover that one anyway, I figured we might as well go over it while we’re at it.  The new thing I’m learning about is called a chiasm, a prominent Hebrew literary mechanism used throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. Paul, being the Hebrew of Hebrews that he was, utilized the chiastic structure quite a lot in his writings.  Psalm 8 is a perfect example of a chiasm. It’s a beautiful Psalm anyway, but with the added layer of the chiasm, it just gets even more beautiful!  Psalm 8 also corresponds quite nicely to the Last Great Day, that eighth day of the feast. In fact, out of the Psalms we have covered, this one probably lines up even more than the others do with their corresponding Holy Day, so take note of that as we go along. To start out, we’ll read through the Psalm, then, once we ha...

We have two Psalms left in this series, but that's not the end of our journey through the Psalms. We have another one hundred and forty two psalms to go once we finish with these first eight, and I fully intend to make it through them all by the time I finish. As I said in my first post on the Psalms, the Psalms are some of my favorite writings in the Bible. They are full of prophecy, poetry, pain, courage, worship, and love, with many of them being written by a man who God said was a man after His own heart. A man who loved God with everything he had and followed Him clear to the end because of that utter devotion. We are blessed that God preserved his writings for us today because there is much that we need to learn from them. I'm under no illusion that I am bringing you everything contained in these Psalms, but perhaps there will be one thing that you did not see before that is brought to light by my thoughts.  The seventh Psalm nicely corresponds to the first day of the Fea...

It's been a hot minute since I visited the Psalms, but other projects have consumed my time and attention, from the three-part study on the clean and unclean laws to my upcoming history and study of feminism and communism. There's only so much time to study and write, so some projects get more attention than others. I'm quite excited about the upcoming post about feminism, and I learned a lot while doing the research for it and writing it, so I think it will at least be thought-provoking and hopefully educational. Stay tuned for that one. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on Psalm 6! Slash! The blood gushed out of the gaping gash in the neck of the massive bull and gurgled as it splashed sparkling red into the golden bowl. The giant bull's head slumped to the ground and the priest rose to his feet. He turned toward the door of the tent, took a deep breath, and prepared to enter, a thick rope dragging along behind him.  Atonement for sin used to be quite a compl...

A t the end of the fourth Psalm, there is an exciting line, and it is far from the only place in the Bible where this idea is found. David has just finished listing out some of the blessings that the set apart of God enjoys when he says, “I will both lie down in peace and sleep.” My mind naturally went to the verse that says that to God’s beloved, He gives sleep or rest, but in the process of looking for that verse, I found several others that hadn’t immediately come to mind. It turns out that rest is mentioned quite a lot as one of the blessings that obeying God brings.  Psalm 4:8 NKJV I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. We find several different types of rest mentioned in the Bible, from death to ceasing from work to sleep, but they all point to something greater, with none of them being an end unto themselves.  Following God enables us to be able to lie down and go to sleep without fear of what will befall us in the nig...