2005-08-20 - Opportunity

Psalm 9, Part 2

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

In this praise must also be the testimony of God's righteousness and justice. Men must be given the opportunity to know that God does judge and will bring destruction on the unrighteous, to learn to "Fear the Lord!"

Let's first take a look at the form of this psalm. Dr. McGee felt there is a direct relationship between this psalm and the next.

"There is a certain alphabetical structure, an acrostic, that is not seen in our translation, but which can be seen in the original. As a result, you will find that the Septuagint and the Vulgate put these two psalms together and consider them as one."²

And while some hold this view, others don't see as strong a relationship between the two. So here, we will only examine Psalm 9. The unity question is unclear and won't be resolved by us. But 9 clearly can stand alone.

As with the last psalm we examined, there seems to be no serious doubt that David is the author. Having said this, once again the text cannot be tied to a specific incident in his life, and so it must be studied outside of any external grounding.

² McGee, J. Vernon, Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee, Thomas Nelson, Publishers, 1982, Vol. 2, p. 682

Comments or Questions?
Geoff

GKragen@aol.com
http://www.cfdevotionals.org