“I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High…You sat on the throne, judging in righteousness…He shall judge the world in righteousness, And He shall administer judgment for the peoples in uprightness. The Lord is known by the judgment He executes.” (Psalm 9:1-2, 4b, 8, 16a. NKJV) [Read Psalm 9]For the season of Thanksgiving, from now until the end of November, we will consider portions of the Thanksgiving hymns. Scholars have noted that the 150 Psalms are divided into five sections or books, and each of the five sections concludes with a doxology (see 41:13; 72:18-19; 89:52; 106:48; and 150). The five books or divisions of Psalms are representative of the five books of the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Scholars have also agreed that there are eleven types of psalms, namely: lamentations, thanksgiving, hymns, wisdom psalms, kingship psalms, entrance ceremonies, enthronement psalms, songs of Zion, confidence psalms, prophetic psalms and liturgical psalms. Those categorized as Thanksgiving Psalms are 9-10, 18, 30, 31, 32, 34, 66, 92, 107, 116, 118, 120, 124, 129, 138 and 139. These psalms describe situations of distress and how the psalmist was delivered. These psalms make us aware of God’s work in the affairs of life and invite us to give thanks to God for helping us through the distress.
Psalm 9 and 10 were once, so scholars believe, written together. The words of the longer psalm originally began each paragraph with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. But in later rearrangement and canonization, some of this systematic format was lost. Authorship is attributed to David. In this and Psalm 10 he thanks God for victory over enemies, but at the same time, while giving thanks, the psalmist laments his condition. A lament addresses God, states the complaint, expresses trust in God for help, seeks God’s help, and repeats trust in God. Directions given before the psalm indicate that it is to “the director of music” in Hebrew worship and is to be sung to the tune of “The Death of a Son.”
Imagine the gathered congregation in a Jewish synagogue or at the Temple singing the words of verses 1 and 2! It is a joyful paean of praise to God, an exuberant expression of worship. And when the worship leader announced the tune, the gathered worshipers would all join in a mighty chorus, much as we sing “The Doxology” in our churches. They entered into worship with voice, heart, mind, strength. God is worthy to be praised! With the testimony in song of the worshipers, they became witnesses and bearers of the revelation of God. Worship was (and is) a community praising and giving thanks.
In Psalm 9, God is shown as a righteous judge. Enemies were on every hand, arrogant, doubting that God would punish them. While the enemy surrounded them and before they were defeated, even then was the expectation: “The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, A refuge in times of trouble” (v. 9). The psalm ends on a high note of anticipation: “Arise, O Lord, Do not let man prevail; Let the nations be judged in Your sight. Put them in fear, O Lord, That the nations may know themselves to be but men” (v. 19, 20).
As I read and studied this psalm, I thought about the country church where I grew up. During World War II, we kept on the wall a banner with the names of those from our community who were serving in the war. Each time we met, we prayed publicly for our servicemen. We kept prayer lists in our Bibles and prayed for them in our personal devotional times. Our pastor also asked us to pray for our country and even our enemies. It seems strange to think of giving thanks during wartime, for it is a trying time when any nation is defending itself against enemies. We need to take a lesson from Psalm 9 and think how it begins with a doxology of praise and then seeks to lay the situation of distress and protection against enemies before the Lord, seeking His righteous judgment. Our nation is again at war, and many in our military are beset daily with danger. Do we pray enough? Do we thank and praise God in the midst of such conflict? Do we beseech God for righteous judgment of enemies? These are probing questions that we need to answer soberly and honestly.
c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Sunday, November 14, 2010
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