Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
Yesterday’s Journey Study connects with today’s!
Check out Hope In The Should Have!
The Questions
1) What are the circumstances for this psalm of David?
2) What is the significance of all the location names in verses 7-10?
3) What is the central anchor for David’s hope?
Psalm 108
My heart is confident, God;
I will sing; I will sing praises
with the whole of my being.
2 Wake up, harp and lyre!
I will wake up the dawn.
3 I will praise you, Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
4 For your faithful love is higher than the heavens,
and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
5 God, be exalted above the heavens,
and let your glory be over the whole earth.
6 Save with your right hand and answer me
so that those you love may be rescued.
7 God has spoken in his sanctuary:
“I will celebrate!
I will divide up Shechem.
I will apportion the Valley of Succoth.
8 Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine,
and Ephraim is my helmet;
Judah is my scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin;
I throw my sandal on Edom.
I shout in triumph over Philistia.”
10 Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
11 God, haven’t you rejected us?
God, you do not march out with our armies.
12 Give us aid against the foe,
for human help is worthless.
13 With God we will perform valiantly;
he will trample our foes.
Original Intent
1) What are the circumstances for this psalm of David?
This psalm is a historic “mashup” of two other psalms David had previously penned during two distinctly difficult times in his life. Verses 1-5 were first written in Psalm 57:7-11 where David, the anointed king of Israel, found himself hiding in the cold depths of a cave to save his life as the current King Saul chased him down to kill him. If ever David was in need of hope, it was in that dark cave. Verses 6-13 are first found in Psalm 60:5-12 as David, now King, but having experienced significant defeat at the hands of Edom (descendants of Esau) on Judah in the south. David was surrounded by defeat within his own land and Israel was left reeling like a drunkard with the beating blow of her enemy’s victory. The “mashup song” then was combined by David as a firm reminder of these two turning point instances in his life. The purpose was to quickly call to his mind how the dark the past had been and how victorious the Lord had proven to be. Now, having survived both the depths of depressing darkness and resounding defeat, David urges Israel to look forward and take new ground for, with the Lord as their help, nothing else matters.
2) What is the significance of all the location names in verses 7-10?
Moses had led the budding nation of Israel out of the chains of slavery in Egypt and forward into all God had promised them in Canaan (the Promised Land). After Moses’ death, Joshua led them across the Jordan River to literally take new ground the Lord had given as an inheritance to His people. Shechem and the Valley of Succoth (Genesis 33:17-18) were the first territories Israel would have encountered when crossing the Jordan. The other names are locations farther into Canaan that were all part of Israel’s inheritance from the Lord. Here, the David calls to mind the Lord’s words in speaking over David, “I will divide up Shechem. I will apportion the Valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine.” (verses 7-8) This was the Lord’s reminder that the inheritance was the LORD’S. He owned it, He ruled it, and whatever circumstances were happening, the Lord was the final victor and King.
3) What is the central anchor for David’s hope?
David’s words speak of victory already won and real reason to celebrate. “My heart is confident, God. I will sing; I will sing praises with the whole of my being!” (verse 1) His reason to rejoice is so sure and solid that he boasts of “wake(ing) up the dawn” with his loud rejoicing. (verse 2) But remember, these words were written as David sat in the back of a cold, musty, cave with little supplies and a sinking morale among his men. Clearly, defeat appeared ready to swallow him alive, yet he sang. He rejoiced so boldly he “awakened the dawn”. He declared the Lord’s goodness to all, he praised God for His faithful love and His magnificent glory. David praised God’s character when his circumstances gave him nothing to praise Him for. I doubt David felt like worshipping while he crouched there with his life hanging in the balance. But David made a very intentional choice to praise God’s good character because his anchor for life was found in the Lord Almighty and nothing less.
Everyday Application
1) What are the circumstances for this psalm of David?
This is a great time to grab a journal, pen, and Bible. Read through Psalm 108 again with the understanding that it represents two very dark times for David, then write your own psalm with the same format. What have been shadow grounds for you in your past, how has the Lord proven His victory? Speak of His great hope that displayed itself in the middle of your night! Or maybe you’re exploring the Lord and the claims of the Bible. Perhaps you’ve never experienced that victory or known His hope as it settled into the core of who you are. Give time to consider your current dark places, the areas of your life you’d rather run from than walk into. What if, like David, you decided to trust the Lord in the midst of mayhem? What if you asked Him to make Himself known to you like He did to Israel? It’s one prayer the Bible says the Lord will absolutely answer in the affirmative every single time! Call to Him, ask Him to show you Who He Is! (Jeremiah 33:3, Ephesians 1:17-18)
2) What is the significance of all the location names in verses 7-10?
As believers today, we aren’t given specific plots of land to call our own from the hand of God, but we are given incredible inheritance, one that lasts for eternity. An inheritance where the boundary lines have fallen in wide, open spaces because the Lord Himself is our inheritance. (Psalm 16:5-6) We are co-heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, all He has access to is ours in Him. His is an inheritance of faith, joy, peace, grace, un-ending love, incorruptible hope, and treasure that neither rusts nor fades! Like David, whatever the circumstances of your journey right now, you can claim the Lord’s victory over it. If you are His, having been washed in His blood shed at the cross as He took the punishment deserved for us upon Himself, His righteousness is yours as you are made eternally right in your standing with God. You are His, purchased by His sacrifice. Just as the Lord reminded David that his inheritance of the land and kingdom was really the Lord’s and owned and ruled by Him and His heart of love, so are we, our lives, and our circumstances. There is nothing we experience, walk through, grieve, or worry about that He is not intimately familiar with. Because He is our victor, living within us by His Spirit, we can confidently shout with David, “My heart is confident!”. (verse 1) Hear this, the Lord Himself is celebrating over you because while He is our inheritance, we are His! And He celebrates that! (verse 7)
3) What is the central anchor for David’s hope?
In yesterday’s Journey, we saw Israel stuck in a cycle of sin, consequence, repentance, and return. Israel stubbornly chose to live perpetually below the inheritance they had received as God’s chosen ones, yet the Lord pursued and loved because He is a God whose heart loves unconditionally. Sit With That. How often we run, shoving back the embrace of the Lord who loves us. How often we find ourselves focused on dark circumstances, our woeful feelings, our shaking fears, and our incessant worries, but we have a choice, just like David did and just like the Israel did. We can return, we can still our hearts before the Almighty and chose to worship Him for Who He Is, the Great Bringer of Hope. Hope glimmered for Israel every time the Lord disciplined them, drawing them back. They hadn’t gone ‘too far’ for His love to reach because there is no such thing. Hope glimmered in the back of a cave and on a defeated, bloody battlefield for David, not because his surroundings were ‘up and to the right’, but because His God Was GOOD. Sister, the same is true for you and me. Hope does more than glimmer for us, it shines brilliantly, piercing our ugly parts because the baby in the manger is God on the cross and Final Victor over death and sin. Hope Lives. Praise Him for being HIM!
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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!
1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God
in your everyday!
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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