Terms of Heart

Reflections on the Psalms and the Great Psalmist,

Shepherd of Israel and Poet King David,
the man after God's own heart.

The Heart of Psalm 119 (Part 2)

In the first part of this series I mentioned the “acrostic pattern” and “intricate architecture” of this magnificent poem. Those passing references were insufficient to convey the importance of structure, however. Understanding it, and the purposeful complexity of design within it, is absolutely critical, I believe, to fully apprehending David’s purpose in this psalm.

First, and most fundamental, is the fact that the psalmist-poet himself was utterly dedicated to conforming his expression to a particular and stringent “architecture.” Serious poets and students and readers of literature, even in this postmodern age, acknowledge that form in poetry supports its meaning. [Read more…]

The Heart of Blessing (Part Two)

In this Part Two of the Heart of Blessing we begin looking at the second of the alls Psalm 103 presents, namely the all of the character and nature of the God of Israel. Surely David understood as well as any man that no language can fully convey what the human mind can only partially perceive. He also seemed to realize that the various formal aspects of poetry could provide him the best tool through which to intertwine verbal expression with nonverbal or spiritual thought, so he drew on that skill in the intricate crafting of this psalm. Within that framework, we now begin to look for the heart of this praise song by mining the mother lode of verses two through five. [Read more…]

The Heart of Blessing (Part One)

Psalm 103 is surely one of the most familiar of all the psalms and its opening line often quoted or adapted in prayer, sermon and song. The majority of the standard English texts over the centuries– from the King James to the recent English Standard Version and numerous others as well– render its opening line with exactly the same words:  “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and everything that is within me, bless His Holy name.”  I have loved that verse (Ps 103:1a) for as long as I can remember knowing it. But my study of the holy poem in its original Hebrew has opened my appreciation to scholar Robert Alter’s translation of those critical first words: “Bless, O my being, the Lord, and everything in me, His holy name.” [Read more…]

Finding Faith among the Foxes

What might foxes have to do with faith? I have been contemplating that strange question lately, and I believe the answer is “quite a bit.” All last week, no matter where I turned, it seemed that I was encountering foxes. For the most part, they were those “little foxes that spoil the vines,” as David’s son Solomon described them in verse 15 of the 2nd chapter the Song of Solomon. [Read more…]

The Heart of Liberty

Yesterday I awoke with the opening line of Randall Thompson’s great choral work The Testament of Freedom playing in my head. It begins “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” The words of that hymn were not Thompson’s. He lifted them from A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774); and as great composers do, he placed them in a setting that gave them a new life, which both honors and marvelously transcends the original text. From a document that was a decidedly American one, Thompson uncovered and then enshrined in music a universal and enduring truth. Just as the psalmist’s words do – which were also first uttered in a particular circumstance and historical context — these too belong equally to all people and every nation and generation.  [Read more…]

The Heart of Confidence

My May 25 post ended by suggesting we should regard the psalms as a worship (and prayer and praise) guide. So let’s return to Psalm 27 for direction. We looked briefly at that psalm in Knowing God by Heart as we examined the significance of David’s use of the name Lord when he addresses Him. We also considered some of the metaphors, each using the first person possessive pronoun – like my light — by which the psalmist describes the Lord and his relationship to Him. Then in The Sorrowing Heart we touched briefly on the question of when and how lament can be praise. [Read more…]

When Vision Fails

After my last post several people commented that thinking of David as “a seer after God’s own sight”  was a new concept. One noted that she loved learning that “beautiful eyes” can mean the way we see things, and that it would change the way she and others, she believed, viewed David.

When we examined the phrase “he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome,” that’s what we were doing — glimpsing how David’s kinsmen viewed him. But not everyone saw him that way. The enemies of Israel certainly did not. And when we look at their reactions to him, there is even more evidence of a strong scriptural connection between beautiful eyes and spiritual insight. [Read more…]

The Character of David: Heart and Vision

God’s selection of the shepherd boy David to replace Saul and to become King of Israel seems to have surprised his father Jesse. He had, after all, neglected to consider David initially as he paraded his other sons before Samuel. Even after the prophet had determined “The Lord has not chosen these,” Jesse apparently gave no thought to David. Samuel had to ask, “Are all your sons here?”

[Read more…]