Devotional Short Note to Psalm 135:
People guess that the Psalm was written after the Exile and thus late. Judaism
thought that it speaks of the use in the Temple of actions suggested here.
However, in vain does one look for the word temple. The closest is the “house
of the Lord” and “courts of the house of God” (135:2a-b). The tabernacle was
also called “house of the Lord”. And that was a tent-like dwelling-place. The
word for “tabernacle” is miškan and remove the “place element/affix m-“ in
front of this root and one ends with the word šakan = dwell. It was used also
in Akkadian as maškanu “dwelling place” so it is an old word long before the
exile. This psalmist is happy about the Lord because He šakan = “dwell in
Jerusalem” (135:21b). In John 1:14 he used the same word to say that Jesus
became flesh and he eskenosen among us, which is language from the book of
Exodus as Adventist Frank Holbrook pointed out. This word in Greek was used by
Xenophon in Classical Greek to mean “to erect a tent”. Also Euripides used it
to mean sometimes a dwelling place, a house, and a temple. Plato used it before
them as a reference to the wooden structure that they put on the stage for
actors with three levels: top floor, the dwelling of the gods, middle floor,
the dwelling of the earthly beings and below the underworld or problem-makers. We
cannot miss the same root skn in John can we? In Psalm 15:1 the psalmist asked:
“Who may ‘tent’ (yiskan) on Your Holy Mountain?” referring to heavenly Zion or
the dwelling place of God in heaven. This psalm speaks to the functionaries
in the worship space, tabernacle, which is the house of the Lord or house of
God. Statements are made about God/Lord and why with examples: (135:3
statement) answered with (135:4-5 examples); (135:6 statement) answered with
(135:7-12 examples); (135:13 statement) answered with (135:14 examples). The
idols are then mocked with a genre in the Bible that is known as the “mock the
idols-genre” (135:15-18). Finally classes of people known in his society was
asked to bless the Lord but with the qualification that “those who fear the
Lord bless the Lord” (135:20b). Fearing the Lord (135:20b) is the Leitmotif
of the whole psalm. One cannot worship God without fearing Him. To bless the
Lord one has to fear God. Statement one was that the name of the
Lord is pleasant (135:3a-b) therefore they have to sing praises to Him. God’s
character is pleasant. Many people not Christians coming to church, sit in the
church at a funeral with jeopardy and fear for they expect God any moment to
hit them with a fly-stick. They do not know that He is pleasant in nature if
you fear Him and follow Him. The benefits are more in your favor when you
follow Him than when you do not. Why are the Lord pleasant? The psalmist
explains with a reason by using “for” twice. Firstly, He chose Jacob for
Himself. He chose Jacob after the night-wrestling and gave him a new name,
Israel. The remnant of God are those chosen by Him when they choose God. Why
must they choose God? He forces no one to choose and although treating everyone
as chosen with blessings, there is a time when He cannot choose the one any
longer who does not choose Him. At death. “(Spiritual) Israel for His own
treasure” (135:4b). How do we know that it is not ethnic Israel per se? See
135:20b, only those who fear Him properly. In 135:4a the word for Lord is
shortened as just Lo or Yah instead of Yahweh. Secondly, the Lord is above all gods on
earth that people create for themselves using their own passions and
understandings of what dark and light, white and black, evil and good is to
design gods for themselves. Then the second statement says that the
Lord made all things in heaven and earth that pleased Him referring to Genesis
where God pronounced every time that He is satisfied with His creation. The miracle of creation (135:6) is also
given examples: process of rainmaking and God’s laws built in to make that
happen as opposed to Mars and the Moon where such homeostasis does not exist to
make it happen (135:7). The miracle of the death of the
firstborn child of the pharaoh and other Egyptians that night in March 1450
when Thutmosis III’s oldest son died, 35 years old and now in the place of his
drowned father in the Oriental Museum in Chicago in the sarcophagi of his
father Thutmosis III. X-rays by Wente et al. confirmed the mummy to be no older
than 35 years old (135:8). There are the miracles of the plaques in
series upon them the weeks before the Exodus (135:9). With the example of the Eisodus a list
is provided that was used by the psalmist of Psalm 136 as well, namely
135:10-12. The entry into Canaan happened between 1410-1405 BCE during the days
of Thutmosis IV. The early corpus of the Amarna letters are about this period
calling on the pharaoh to come and help them since the habiru were attacking
them and causing problems. The Amarna corpus had a problem with the SA.GAZ
peoples which is the same as habiru. The intensity of the struggle went from
hostility, rumors, endangering, burning to takeover and loyalty to the SA.GAZ
by Canaanites under Egyptian jurisdiction. The geographical direction of the
struggle was from Transjordan including Edom, North-eastern territories
(including Hazor), Eastern territories (Jerusalem), Western territories
(Gezer), to the South-western territories (Ashkelon). The Amarna corpus is
divided into two periods: early texts and later texts. The later texts are in
the times of Amenhotep III and Ikhnaton. The early texts are the conflict in
Canaan texts: Kassite-Hurrian suspicion; fall of cities: Sumuru, Gubla, Lakish,
Gazri; death of individuals: Labaya, Zimrida; Labaya’s loyalty and rebellion;
Tagi’s loyalty and rebellion; Milkili’s loyalty and rebellion; Abdi-Heba’s
loyalty and rebellion; Udumu a problem in the early phase; quartet and quintet
of cities; SA.GAZ or Habiru burnt the cities (EA 305 and EA 307) said the
SA.GAZ “burnt all the cities of the king” and all the cities of the Hittites
(in Lebanon). There are the dog-statements and the name of Caleb that means “dog”.
In EA 71; 76; 88 Rib-Addi refers to Abdi-Asirta as “the dog”. This is in Canaan
during the same time as when the Israelites and Caleb invaded Canaan. These
Akkadian tablets came from Canaan and went to Egypt to the capital city of
El-Amarna where they were kept and found and translated. Some tablets came to
El-Amarna but originated before the building of the city’s archive. The
Egyptians had a system of forced labor in the country EA 365, also EA 268. “I
alone am cultivating in the city of Shunuma and . . . provide forced labor” (EA
248a). Joshua 9:16-20 said that certain places were placed under forced labor. This
is a reality check on the veracity of the Word of God by cuneiform tablets. EA
86 said that during the war years the fauna and flora were destructed by the SA.GAZ
or Habiru. Habiru in our estimation are the Hebrews. The pharaoh was
non-communicative and so the land was lost to the Hebrews. In EA 106 it is
stated that there was a fifth year of hostility at Sumura and it was the start of
the Hittite phobia. God smote many nations in Canaan and
evidence of it is in the El-Amarna corpus (EA) mentioned above. “All the
kingdoms of Canaan” (135:11c). He gave their land for a heritage unto
Israel His people (135:12). Said Rib-Addi after five years in EA 88: “If the
king. . . does not listen to the words of his servant, then Gubla will be
joined to him, and all the lands of the king as far as Egypt, will be joined to
the Apiru”. This cuneiform tablet is indeed confirming what this text in Psalm
is saying. Is that not so? A statement is made in 135:13 that the
name of the Lord will be a memorial through all generations. The reason is “for”
that the Lord will have an Investigative Judgment (yadin) for His people
(135:14a) . Daniel 7:22 said the same: “until the Ancient of Days came, and
judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Most High”. During this
judgment, God will not punish His saints but “and upon His servants He will be
kind Himself” (hithpael) (135:14b). God the Father sees the Righteousness of
Christ [God] as substitute for the fallen humanity and saints, and this
kindness is atonement or cleansing of the Sanctuary after 2300 days of years (Daniel
8:14) starting in 457 BCE and ending in 1844, thus beginning the Investigative
Judgment here mentioned in Psalm 135:14 in that time. The idol mockery is between 135:15-18.
They are made of metals, is made by people, have mouths but do not speak, eyes
but cannot see, ears but cannot hear and in their noses there are no breath. The house of [spiritual] Israel should
bless the Lord (135:19a). The house of Aaron, the house of Levi
(priestly) (135:19-20). The main point is: “The fearing ones of the Lord bless
the Lord” (135:20b). Lastly the space where this blessing
from the Lord is originating is heaven and not earth. “The One dwelling [heavenly]
Jerusalem”.