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.