Yahweh Makes Himself Known By The Justice He Makes – Psalm 9

Many consider Psalm 9 and 10 to be one Psalm, or at least a two parter. Both, at least, have similar themes and verbiage, and perhaps a loose acrostic structure. However, the focus in 9 is thanking God for righteous judgement, whereas 10 is a prayer against wicked rulers.

So onto Psalm 9. It sort of picks up where 7 left off. Once again, God is the judge of the world who will vindicate his people by punishing evil. And we see here how David speaks of past judgements made to show the basis of his trust for future judgements. As opposed to many of David’s psalms, this one focuses more on Israel’s national enemies, it seems, than David’s personal ones. And any attempt to drive Israel from their land was an attack on God’s plan, and therefore an attack against God. This Psalm reminds me of the end of Moses’ song in Deuteronomy 32:40-43, or Romans 12:19 and Revelation 19:2. Revenge or repayment from a just and fair God is not evil. In fact, it reflects his holiness because he can’t leave sin unpunished.

But as for me, because of the greatness of your mercy I will come to your house - Psalms 5 & 6

This struck me with I began delving into this Psalm, God wants to empathize with us, and he CAN! He wants us to go to him with our struggles, our groans, our cries for help when no solutions or answers are in sight.

And this is especially interesting considering God’s holiness presented here. Holy in the Bible means, “set apart for a special purpose.” God is holy, so he can’t be around evil (5:4). This is why it’s only because of his mercy (5:7), that is, his undeserved favor that we can approach him (a love fully revealed in Jesus). And it’s in view of this mercy that God leads us to in turn lead a holy life (5:8)

It’s such a paradox. “God hates sinners, but he loves sinners.” And I love paradoxes (and things that are the same), and the Bible has a lot of them. This paradox is what Lutheran`s distinguish as “Law and Gospel” and is central to Lutheran theology (the picture in this post is a Cranach painting depicting Law and Gospel. You got to love medieval German art sometimes...).