Devotional Short Note to Psalm 28: As
William Shea indicated in a class on Psalms, the Psalmist starts with an appeal
in vv. 1-2, describes the wicked enemies in vv. 3-5, moves to confidence in vv.
6-7 and close with a benediction in vv. 8-9. His lectures were an unforgettable
experience.
As far as my own analysis is concerned,
is that David prays that the Lord does not turn a deaf ear to him since the
greatest loneliness is to be shut out from God’s dealing with us. The
loneliness is agony of the greatest kind. David asks that if he talks to the
Lord that the Lord listens and not be deaf about his pleas. If the Lord stays
silent, it is a bad signal: David will be counted with the evil dead “I become
like them that go down into the pit”. The pit is the grave. They do not hear
the Lord nor is there any communication with the Lord there. They sleep and are
non-existentially waiting for their destiny, saved or unsaved.
He repeated that the Lord please listen
to him (28:2a) especially when he “cries out” to the Lord. “When I lift up mine
hands toward the *Shrine of Your Sanctuary”. *The Shrine rendering from Late
Egyptian db3r meaning “shrine” is for the Hebrew word debîr used here. Some
indicate that according to Exodus 25:22 it means the most holy part of the
Sanctuary, thus where the ark stood and where the Book of Deuteronomy was and
the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments is a proliferation in words of the
character of God. It is the requirement to be close to Him and communicate with
Him. David do not seem to have one enemy in mind here but rather evil as an
umbrella term for everything that went wrong on this earth. All of them
including Satan will be extinguished in Hell and he came to the Sanctuary’s
innermost ‘Most Holy’ to find an answer as to their destiny. The answers were
given and he prays that God will not let him be partaking with the evil at that
time.
What will happen to the evil in the
eschaton or end-time is described with a rare word that had all scholars
guessing. Of course they resorted to Arabic since Arabic in the Middle-Ages was
the lingua franca. However, David did not speak Arabic and neither did Moses,
because Moses also used this word in Job 24:22. The word timshekeni in Hebrew
with a root mšk was the nutcracker. The Syriac translation read “possession”,
others “to draw”; “to snatch”, “to lengthen”; “to prolong”; “to determine” (Le
Hir); “to support” (Renan, Loisy). The Arabic word was “hold, seize, catch”. So
where can one find the meaning for this word besides late-post-Christ Arabic?
The Late Egyptian for msk3 meant “skin of a bull that was wrapped around the
body of the dead with the intention that it will help their resurrection”.
Thus, skins around unbelievers in Egypt were msk. David says: “Skin-wrap me not
with the wicked” (Psalm 28:3a). This root in Egyptian was common with funerals
and the bark that took the dead on the river of heaven through their journey
after death was also called a msktt and a chamber in a tomb was called mskt.
Funeral is what David had in mind in 28:1e. Funeral in 28:3a is not out of
place then.
The “workers of iniquity” are defined by
David as those who speak peace with their neighbors but evil is in their
hearts. Two-faced and unreliable. With the mouth they talk one thing facing the
person but walking away they undo everything they have said. Such evil people
reveal through time their true character. David was trapped many times by such
con-artists and it is not just one incident but a lifestyle for them. David
wishes that they will receive from God what they deserve. He wants God to give
them to be punished according to their deeds. Scholars in the Victorian Age
have complained that God is asked to use the ius talionis or revenge principle
to kill enemies. This is not the intent of this verse. David is talking about
people who rejected all attempts of God, and there were many, to be saved. They
chose evil and all their deeds are evidence of it. They basically kill
themselves even rejecting God in the last minute of their lives. “Because they
give no heed to the works of the Lord” (25:5a). God will in future break the
evil down and not build them up (in the Hell event after the millennium)
(25:5c).
After understanding what will happen to
the evil getting answers from the Most Holy of the Sanctuary, just like Asaph
in Psalm 73, David started to praise and thank the Lord. God heard his request
(28:6b). Also in verse 7 David talks about his personal life which received and
applied successful and joyful living with God: “the Lord is my strength”, “in Him
my heart trusted”, “I am helped”, “my heart rejoiced”, and this led David to
sing praises to God.
Some scholars went on with David’s personal
experience in the following verses 8-9 but that is not correct. There is a
switch here of pronouns from “I” and “my” to “them” and “they”. The move is from
David to the people of God (28:9a) “save Your people”. It is non-Davidic since
verse 8a reads that “the Lord is a strength unto them”.
The next verse may be Messianic referring
to the actions of Christ the Messiah. “And a stronghold [heavenly sanctuary] of
salvation of His [Trinity = God] Messiah [Christ], is He [hw’ pronoun used]
(28:8b rendered very literally). It cannot be “to His anointed” because the
preposition “to” is not used in the Hebrew original. Judaism thought it was David
the king here who is the Anointed. The context is no longer I and my of David
but they and them of the remnant. Yet the anointed is singular He is a bulwark
of salvation, which neither David nor the remnant church or believers could be.
David pray for the remnant of God in
28:9a that the Lord will bless them since they are His inheritance (compare
Deuteronomy 9:29 “They are Your people and Your inheritance”). He wants God to
feed them (28:9b) and “lift them high” “until the eternity” starts.