Day 136

Psalm 65: Read here – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2065&version=NASB

The title of this Song is literally; ‘A Lyrical Poem.’  While we don’t know the occasion, it would appear to be connected to the Feast of Tabernacles (the harvest festival.) David described a wonderful picture of praise that was waiting to be given to God in Jerusalem. (How inadequate are all mortal songs to proclaim divine goodness.)

V3 shows us that David had a proper understanding of the sacrificial system. He also looked beyond that system to a perfect sacrifice that God Himself would provide through the Messiah and His atoning work on the cross; thus fulfilling the promise, ‘You will provide atonement for them’(NKJV). Without this, our sins would, but for grace, prevail against us in the court of divine justice, in the court of conscience, and in the battle of life.

In reflecting on V5 I am reminded that ‘stormy and noisy seas’ put forth enormous energy; an average hurricane releases energy equivalent to 6×1014 watts of electricity. In its lifetime an average hurricane can release as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs. Yet God can and does still the roaring of the seas, the noise of their waves V7. Knowing this great power of God should build our faith when we see the ‘tumult of the peoples’ and are concerned for God’s salvation to reach ‘the ends of the earth.’

Philosophers of the forget-God school are too much engrossed with their laws of upheaval to think of the Upheaver. Their theories of volcanic action and tectonic movement, are frequently used as barricades to shut the Lord out of his own world. Our poet is of another mind and sees God’s hand settling Alps and Andes on their bases, and therefore he sings His praise.

The Last stanza (v9-13) is a beautiful description of God’s part in the fruitfulness of the earth. Man’s toil is not described. It is taken for granted. It would be hard to surpass this evocative description of the fertile earth, observed with loving exactness at one moment and poetic freedom at the next, culminating in the fantasy of hills and fields putting on their finest clothes and making merry together.