The morning Manna will be provided at 6am. Thanks.

Studying Psalms in the SSnet.org series Lesson 4, may the Holy Spirit be the speaker to your heart.

The Topic today is: “Psalm 121, 91, and 114 and the Heavenly Sanctuary as God’s Workspace as the Psalms say”.

The Opening Hymn will be 229 "Spirit of the Living God."

The Sabbath School Quarterly, downloadable from SSnet.org in the Teacher's Edition is on pages until page 46-49.

The SSnet.org site allows anyone, anywhere to read the lesson in their own language. Choose your own language to see God speaking also to your heart.

Why do you not click on this now?

https://www.adultbiblestudyguide.org/pdf.php?file=2024:1Q:TE:PDFs:ETQ124_04.pdf

---Psalm 121 is the focus of our lesson today. Then Psalm 91 and then Psalm 114. Thursday the author of the lesson missed the Heaven Sanctuary from which God is operating. It is the Workroom of God.

---Let us start with the Sanctuary in Heaven reality. It is not a motif.

---A motif is a rhetorical device that is not necessarily reality. It is just a symbol for something else. That is a motif.

---There is a Sanctuary in Heaven and it is on a Mountain and God built already a New Jerusalem and the site of the Heavenly Sanctuary is called [Heavenly] Zion.

---Sorry to my Jewish enthusiasts: it is not the site in current Jerusalem.

---God does not dwell in a sanctuary built with human hands. That is the principle of the Bible.

---So Psalms will not deviate from this principle.

---The distant God is the near God. That is another principle of the Bible.

---With these few principles, and there are more, we can look at Psalm 121, 91, and 114.

---Psalm 121:

Devotional Short Note on Psalm 121

Psalm 121: Contemporized as a Hospital prayer

[While I was near a high and beautiful rocky mountain and my thoughts were all wrapped up with the terrible pain in my body-

with specialists and doctors not knowing what it is-

tired of wondering,

tired of speculating what it could be-]

My eyes slowly turned upwards to the mountains

[drinking in the majestic beauty with sun-rays falling on the rocks bringing out the shadows and sharpness and whiteness of some big rock sand the sky is very blue and the trees and grass on it here and there are invitingly green]

From where shall my rescue come?

[From where can I hope to get deliverance for my pain?]

[A thought in my own voice I heard saying]

"My help is from what is completely in the Lord

From that which is in the Lord

[From the totality that is in the Lord's essence and being

From the great "I am what I am" to Moses

From the one that Moses describes to us] as making heaven and earth-

My feet will not get tired

[and all the energy that is given me is coming from Him and if there is no energy, He decided that it is not to be there]

He is carefully watching me and is not asleep

It is evident that the Keeper of believing Israel does not take a nap and sleep

[Amid nurses and doctors that come on duty and go off duty]

the Lord is my keeper

[A shadow follows me always wherever I go, so]

the Lord is my shadow on my right side

[I can look to see if my shadow is there and with the same reality and certainty know my Lord is there too!]

The sun will not affect me negatively in the day nor the moon in the night

Any evil that Satan may organize to surround me, will have no effect, because my keeper is with me

[Even if Satan succeed in killing my body],

my soul He keeps,

[my DNA He remembers, I am written in the hollow of His Hand]

[Therefore I attend church today and render my heart completely to

Him, pleading for forgiveness of all my misdeeds-]

and now, the Lord is my keeper should I walk out of that

door or if I should come in again from now until He comes again on the clouds to make it forever

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Psalm 91:

---When one reads Psalm 91 one has to wholeheartedly agree with Rabbi Rashi of the Middle Ages, that this Psalm was written by Moses as well.  

---Moses is citing form his own works: 91:4 = Deuteronomy 32:11;

91:6 = Deuteronomy 32:24;

91:11 = Genesis 24:7,40;

91:14 = Deuteronomy 7:7 and 10:5;

91:18 =Deuteronomy 30:20 and Exodus 20:12.

---Moses died in 1410 BCE just before the entry into Canaan. He was resurrected and is living since then in heaven.

---He is a type resurrection of what will happen to people after they die one day at Resurrection day.

---According to Rashi Psalms 90-100 were all written by Moses.

---Psalm 92:16 is for example also based on Deuteronomy 32:4.

---Psalm 94:2 is based on Deuteronomy 32:35.

---In Psalm 95:6 there is a connection to Deuteronomy 32:6 and 15.

---Psalm 99:3 is the same as Leviticus 19:2.

---The name of Moses appeared in this Psalm 99:6.

---Psalm 100:3 links with Deuteronomy 32:6.

---One may take Rashi seriously.

---These Psalms breathe Mosaic elements, no doubt.

---The silly thing about the Targum is that it treated Psalm 91 as of David and Solomon,

---David from 91:2ff. 2 and Solomon from 91:9ff.

---What! Impossible. Neither David nor Solomon lived in tents (91:10). Sorry Targum, better pay attention to Rabbi Rashi.

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---Psalm 114: Ever heard of an unfinished symphony? This may be called the “unfinished psalm”.

---The psalmist was still talking and suddenly the microphone stopped.

---The content matter is dealing with the presence of the Lord and what happens when God is near (114:7a-b)

“tremble earth from the presence of the Lord, from the presence of the God of Jacob”.

---It is the key theme that the psalmist wants to give example about from the date that March in 1450, when the Napoleon of Egypt, the great Thutmosis III lost his life in the Red Sea due to his typical general pride, just like he did at Megiddo-battle-years before in the pass at the eastern side of Megiddo, to walk first before his army since they were hesitant.

---That day the outcome was glorious, as the Karnak Inscriptions are telling, but this day at the Exodus was not.

---Everyone in the Levant heard about his Megiddo bravery, but everyone also heard about his fall.

---“In the leaving of Israel from Egypt” (114:1a). That day was March 1450. 

---“The house of Egypt from a people to --------“.

---That’s right.

--- No-one really knows what this word means since it is a one-timer in the Bible. ---The person who really used one-timers a lot in his writing was Moses. Is this Psalm an unfinished symphony of Joshua because it was after the entry and Moses died before the entry in 1410 BC? 

---Now let us attempt to find a solution to the meaning of the word. Arabic and Mishnaic Hebrew cannot help us solve the problem but they suggested it means “strange language”. They are too late languages to be considered for finding out the true meaning.

---Akkadian would do and also Ugaritic but there are also problems.

---The Hebrew word is l`z. There is an Akkadian word that is le’u meaning “violent”. However, the vowel in the middle is different from the Hebrew although it may sound phonologically the same. 

---At Ugarit was also this Akkadian form l’y meaning “violent”. A catholic Ugaritic scholar who wrote the Anchor Bible commentary, M. Dahood, suggested that it is the Ugaritic word “violent” here.

---The other major problem with all these suggestions are: what about the /z/ at the end?

---All these theories have to be thrown off the table.

---There is an Akkadian word ezzu or ezêzu meaning “furious/fierce” and the Hebrew word in the Old Testament used for it is “mighty” or “strong” or “fierce”.

---The /l/ in the front was a preposition meaning “belonging to might”. 

---We have to stop here and you really need to look further in my Guide online Devotional Commentary on Psalms Koot van Wyk page 531. Thanks.

---Is your car full of gas to go to church at 9h20 to take part in the Psalms Sabbath School Class? Do not miss it. Check your smartphone for navigation. When? Now.