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Exodus 8, Job 25-26, Psalm 56

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Read Exodus 8, Job 25-26, and Psalm 56.

This devotional is about Exodus 8.

In Exodus 7, we read yesterday that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened after Moses did two incredible miracles. Part of his hardening, it would seem, was related to the fact that his sorcerers were able to turn their staffs into snakes and were able to turn water into blood. Although Moses’s snake ate theirs and Moses was able to generate a whole lot more blood, in Pharaoh’s mind, perhaps, he had access to as much supernatural power as Moses did.

Today, however, as we read Exodus 8, Pharaoh’s sorcerers were able to make frogs just as Moses and Aaron did (v. 7). Still, there was something about the plague of frogs that affected Pharaoh in a different way than the previous plagues because even though “the magicians did the same things by their secret arts” (v. 7), “Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away….’” (v. 8). Maybe the plagues were having a cumulative affect but, for the first time, Pharaoh looked to the Lord for relief.

He received that relief, too, but to emphasize to Pharaoh that this really was an act of God and not a mere coincidence, Moses allowed Pharaoh to choose the time when the frogs would go away (v. 10b). I don’t know why he said, “tomorrow” (v. 10a); I would have said, “Immediately! ASAP!” Just as he asked, however, the frogs all… um… croaked the next day (v. 13). Before the sun went down, however, Pharaoh “hardened his heart” (v. 15b) and would not let God’s people go.

Why exactly did he harden his heart? Verse 15 says it happened, “when Pharaoh saw that there was relief.” We do this sometimes, too. We suffer because of our sin or just because of foolish choices we make, so we get really serious about our faith. We cry out to God for help earnestly, with tears even, maybe. As soon as there is relief, however, we return to our unbelieving ways. I’ve seen this too many times to count in the lives of people I’ve tried to help. They come to me in pain and in fear, admitting that they’ve neglected the Lord and sinned against him. I pray with them and for them and try to encourage them but as soon as the pressure is off, they return to their routines and show no more interest in walking with God than they did before.

This is a symptom of unbelief. Pharaoh was an unbeliever which is why he responded to God’s work as he did. Unbelievers around us respond to God this way, too. We believers, however, are capable of nearly every sin that unbelievers do, including this one. We treat God like a spare tire, riding unseen and unthought about in the trunk of our lives until we find ourselves in an emergency. We turn to God when we need him, then return him to the trunk when life is back on track again.

Does that describe your walk with God? If so, learn from Pharaoh the difference between true repentance, which makes you want to know and glorify God, and the kind that only looks to God in emergencies. Ask God to give you true repentance and faith and learn to cultivate your faith in bad times and good times.

Exodus 7, Job 24, Psalm 55

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Read Exodus 7, Jobs 24, and Psalm 55.

This devotional is about Exodus 7.

In verse 3, God said, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.”

In verses 13 and 22 the Bible says, “Pharaoh’s heart became hard.”

Only spiritual stubbornness would allow a man to see God’s miraculous works over and over again without believing his messengers and letting his people go. In verse 5 God said that “the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.” It is amazing, isn’t it, that they didn’t know that he is the Lord long before that. The staff-to-snake miracle (vv. 8-12) and the Nile-to-blood miracle (vv. 14-22) seem to me like very convincing proofs. Yet Pharaoh would not let God’s people go. Why? Because God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (v. 3) and because his heart became hard(er) (vv. 13, 23).

When God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart, he did not “create fresh evil” (as one of my seminary professors used to say) in Pharaoh’s heart. Instead, he allowed Pharaoh to deny the implications of what he had seen and refuse to believe that God’s hand was behind these miracles. We see that in verse 14: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go.’” The word “unyielding” helps us understand what was happening in Pharaoh’s heart in this chapter. God was showing him many convincing proofs but he would not yield to those proofs by admitting that YHWH was real and more powerful than he was. So when God “hardened” Pharaoh’s heart, he allowed Pharaoh to choose unbelief. Instead of sending the convicting power of the Spirit to soften Pharaoh’s heart, God allowed Pharaoh to respond to these miracles however Pharaoh wanted to respond to them. And, the way that sinners want to respond to God’s work is with unbelief.

This is why unbelievers can reject Jesus Christ even though they see God answer prayer or admit that they believe in life after death or realize that they have no explanation for the existence of sin. Without the convicting power of the Spirit, nobody would ever believe God and submit to his Lordship.

This is why we have no right to be proud about our faith. Your faith in Jesus is not the result of some clever insight you had to believe the gospel; it is the result of God’s gracious work in your heart by his Spirit, softening your heart to respond in faith to the gospel.

It is also why you and I must pray for God to work in the hearts of unbelievers when we sow the seeds of the gospel. Unless God softens the heart, the ears that hear his word will reject it.

Are you thankful for God’s grace that softened your heart to trust in Jesus? Are you praying for his work in the hearts of others around you so that they, too, will recieve the gospel message?

Exodus 6, Job 23, and Psalm 54

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Read Exodus 6, Job 23, and Psalm 54.

This devotional is about Job 23.

Sometimes it seems like God’s presence is real and tangible. You can’t see him or touch him, but his conviction is so powerful, or his work in your life is so undeniable, or the power of his word is so strong that you can sense his presence.

Most of the time, though, we don’t sense the presence of God, at least not that strongly. In the most discouraging moments of life, actually, it feels like God is a million miles away. That’s how Job was feeling in Job 23. He was willing to travel anywhere to have an audience with God (v. 3). His purpose in seeking that audience was to explain to God why his problems were unjust (v. 4) and then to hear God’s response (v. 5). He was confident that God would respond in his favor and reverse all the troubles he had experienced in the opening chapters of this book (vv. 6-7).

Alas, though, he couldn’t find God (vv. 8-9). There was no location on earth Job could travel to and have a direct, personal, tangible give-and-take with the Lord God.

Instead, Job realized that he had to wait for God to summon him. He couldn’t go and find God but he believed that God would find him (v. 10a). And, when God did find him, Job was confident that he would be vindicated (vv. 11-12).

But what if God didn’t vindicate Job? That was the question he considered in verses 13-17. God exists on another level from us, one that we can never approach.

  • God is creator; we are the created.
  • God is infinite; we are finite.
  • God is perfect; we are… not.
  • God has absolute power; we have very limited powers and whatever power we have was delegated from God anyway.
  • God is all-wise; we are foolish.
  • God knows all-things; compared to him, we know nothing.

We desire to know why–why bad things happen to good people, why innocent children suffer painful birth defects, why our hopes and dreams often don’t come true and why those that do come true don’t seem to be as sweet as we thought they would be.

These are common human questions and struggles and they are not necessarily sinful or disrespectful to God.

It is sinful, however, when we challenge God instead of fearing God. To challenge God, one must believe that he knows better than God does and has better moral judgment than God does.

Questions are inevitable. But can you consider them and ask them while still remembering to fear God? The fear of God is to remember that he exists on another level from us, a level we cannot even imagine much less understand. Ask your questions but remember who God is and who you are. Ask your questions in submission, fearing God for who he is. Someday, he may honor you with the answer.

Exodus 5, Job 22, Psalm 53

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Read Exodus 5, Job 22, Psalm 53.

This devotional is about Exodus 5.

With God’s direct command, some impressive miracles at his disposal, and the promise of success, you would think that getting the Israelites out of Egypt would be snap-your-fingers simple for Moses, right? It should have been like riding a bicycle downhill with the wind at your back.

Not so much.

The first attempt Moses made to persuade Pharaoh was a spectacular failure. Not only did Pharaoh say no, he punished the Israelites for asking (vv. 6-18). This caused the Jewish men and women Moses was trying to lead to turn against him. In verse 21 they said, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

Moses himself was less than thrilled with God. In verses 22-23 we read, “Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.’” Moses started out very reluctant to do what God commanded him to do and, then when he did it, God made things worse for His people, not better! You can almost hear the frustration in his voice when he said, “he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all” (v. 23).

Unfortunately for us, this is God’s typical way. God does not promise that a life of faith will be easy; he does not make all opposition fall like dominoes after our first act of obedience. Often, in fact, things get worse and harder before we see any fruit or success for our labor. But, when we persevere in faith and continue in good works, God is faithful. The trials we face for our obedience make us stronger; they also cause us to see God’s greatness and power in even more magnificent ways. So don’t quit believing in God or give up obeying him when things don’t immediately fall into place. Keep serving, keep trusting, be faithful. As Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

So don’t give up before “the proper time” of harvest arrives.

Exodus 4, Job 21, Psalm 52

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Read Exodus 4, Job 21, and Psalm 52.

This devotional is about Exodus 4.

Moses made every excuse he could think of for not obeying God and God answered every one of them. God’s answers were gracious, too, promising his presence with Moses always and giving him some incredible miracles to authenticate his claim that God had sent him.

When every objection was answered and everything Moses needed for success had been promised or provided, Moses finally spat out these words, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else” (v. 13). In other words, Moses just did not want to do it. Every reason he gave God was an excuse; not one of them was a legitimate reason why Moses couldn’t do what he was commanded to do.

God’s response was anger: “Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses…” (v. 14). His anger was not that Moses was reluctant or afraid; his anger was over Moses’s stubborn unbelief and disobedience. What God called Moses to do was difficult. It would be scary and unpleasant so it is not really surprising that Moses didn’t want to do it.

But, with God, everything Moses was supposed to do would succeed. In the process of obeying the Lord, Moses would see the Lord and know him like nobody else who has ever lived. The work would be hard on Moses but the results would be more than worth it.

We often respond the same way to the Lord, don’t we? We hear his command to make disciples and his promise that he would be with us to the very end of the age, yet we don’t speak up when opportunities arise. We don’t even want to invite someone to church. One reason your spiritual life may be stagnating is that you are making excuses and hoping that God will just send someone else.

God eventually persuaded Moses to follow him and, if you and I are genuine Christians, he’ll get to us as well. Instead of resisting the Lord’s will in areas where we don’t want to change, let’s learn from Moses by believing God’s promises and acting obediently now rather than later.

Like Moses would learn later, the challenges of discipleship also provide us with greater opportunities to know God and see him work directly through our lives. Isn’t that better than leading sheep out in the desert?

Exodus 3, Job 20, Psalm 51

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Read Exodus 3, Job 20, and Psalm 51.

This devotional is about Exodus 3.

The early years of Moses’s life were like a fairy tale. He was saved from infanticide by Pharaoh’s daughter (but really by a resourceful mother) and raised in Pharaoh’s household. That gave him insight into the politics of Egypt as well as learning that would have been inaccessible to any other Hebrew boy.

When he was old enough to be a man, he tried to become a leader for Israel. As we read yesterday in Exodus 2, Moses killed an Egyptian who was abusing a Jewish man. Instead of causing other Jewish men to rally behind him as their leader, however, they simply gossiped about what he had done and put his life in jeopardy.

Now, after years in desert obscurity, God called him to be the leader he had attempted to be many years earlier. This time, however, Moses was unwilling. In this chapter we read excuse after excuse given by Moses to God’s command to him. The next chapter gives us even more excuses. This man who was once an enthusiastic volunteer for Jewish liberation now wanted nothing more than to stay in the desert with his family and be a shepherd in obscurity.

His reluctance to lead, however, shows that he was now exactly where God wanted him to be. Instead of leading out of personal self-confidence, he needed to be personally compelled and persuaded by God himself to do this important job. For the first time in his life, he was ready to be a spiritual leader, not just a political/military leader. Moses knew that he was incapable of doing what God called him to do. If he were going to be successful, he would need to be absolutely dependent on the power of God.

This is what each of us needs to live and lead for God everyday. Knowing our own incapability to do what God commands us to do, we must look to God for power, wisdom, and results. Drawing from Israel’s lessons of failure in the desert, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:12, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Trusting God means asking for his help and strength because we understand how easily we fall.

Exodus 2, Job 19, Psalm 50

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Read Exodus 2, Job 19, and Psalm 50.

This devotional is about Job 19.

It is sometimes argued that the Old Testament does not teach an after-life. Job 19:25-27 is a clear text that contradicts that argument. This chapter continued the documentation of Job’s arguments with his friends. Although they came to him expressing a desire to comfort him in his sufferings, they made assumptions about Job and his morality and condemned him as a sinner by applying their incorrect assumptions to their simplistic theology.

Job, in this chapter, complained painfully about the words of his friends. He found their words to be “torment” (v. 2a) and begged them for “pity” (v. 21). Although Job was perplexed that God would bring this kind of suffering in his life, his faith in God’s existence and in life after death did not waver. In verse 25a, he affirmed his faith in God’s existence: “I know that my redeemer lives.” He went on in the latter half of that verse to state his confidence that, someday, God would walk this earth.

But notice verse 26: “And after my skin has been destroyed….” What destroys a person’s skin? Death. After a person’s body dies, it is buried to decompose. God created us from the dust of the ground and the earth reclaims its dust after we die. So Job here is acknowledging that his physical body will decompose. But notice that he said, “AFTER my skin has been destroyed, yet…. I will see God” (v. 26b). Job believed that there was life after this life is over and that in that life after death he would experience God personally and directly.

Notice the phrase I omitted, however, from verse 26b: “…yet IN MY FLESH I will see God.” This phrase shows that Job understood not only that he would meet God after death but that there would be a bodily resurrection that he, Job, would experience personally.

This is our hope as well. In Christ’s resurrection, we have been raised spiritually to walk a new life. But the curse of physical death is still upon us until the final resurrection. While we may fear the process of death, the pain and sadness that it causes, there is no reason to fear death itself. Because of Christ, we may have confidence that we will see God personally, in the flesh, at the final resurrection. That meeting will be a loving reunion between our Father and his children or a moment of final judgment for those who have rejected God and his word and his Son in this life. Put your hope in God, therefore, if you haven’t already. He will bring you through the process of death and safely into his kingdom for eternity.

No doubt about it.

Exodus 1, Job 18, Psalm 49

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Read Exodus 1, Job 18, and Psalm 49.

This devotional is about Exodus 1.

A few years ago, Mary Doogan of Glasgow, Scotland retired after 30 years as a midwife. During her career, she helped women deliver 5000 babies. Her retirement, however, was not something she celebrated. It was forced by the hospital where she worked which required her and other midwives to supervise abortions. The hospital did not require her to perform the abortion, but it insisted that she supervise others who aborted unborn babies. As a practicing Catholic, Mary felt like supervising abortions made her as guilty as “the driver of the getaway car in an armed robbery.” Although Mary fought legally for the right to follow her conscience, she lost. Having exhausted every means of following her conscience and keeping her job, she felt she had no choice but to retire.

When I heard about Mary’s story, I immediately thought of Exodus 1. While the midwives in Exodus were not forced to perform abortions, they were required to commit infanticide—killing Jewish baby boys after they had been delivered. While abortion happens before birth and infanticide happens after, they are no different from each other morally. Killing a baby, born or unborn, is wicked in the sight of God and worse than barbaric to any person who values human life.

Pharaoh had political and national motives for requiring the midwives to kill those boys. He was concerned that the population explosion among the Jews would cause them to overwhelm the Egyptians. (v. 10).

The midwives disobeyed Pharaoh’s orders. They “feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.” Although they were dishonest in the reason they gave Pharaoh (v. 18), verse 20 told us that “God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.”

Was it wrong for the midwives to lie to Pharaoh? No. It is never wrong to use deception to stop someone’s evil plans. God’s blessing on the midwives shows that he was pleased by their moral choices. They did not use deception to take advantage of someone else for their own gain or to avoid accountability for their sin. Their deception was a sincere attempt to obey God rather than a human authority who was living in defiance to God’s moral laws for his own selfish, sinful purposes.

I hope you and I are never put in position where we are legally ordered to do something that is wrong. But, if we are, may we have the same faith these midwives had, obeying God and trusting him, instead of allowing fear to coerce us into doing wrong.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5373943/Catholic-midwife-ousted-refusing-oversee-abortions.html

Genesis 50, Job 16-17, Psalm 48

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Read Genesis 50, Job 16-17, and Psalm 48.

This devotional is about Genesis 50.

Nothing ever prevented Joseph from exacting revenge on his brothers. From the time they first appeared in his presence to the day Jacob died, Joseph could have enslaved them or killed them if he had wanted to do that. Joseph was accountable to only one man, Pharaoh, and he was unlikely to care what Joseph did to a group of non-Egyptians.

According to verse 15, however, Joseph’s brothers had a hard time accepting Joseph’s forgiveness as genuine. They feared that Joseph was not merciful but merely long-suffering; that is, Joseph respected his father Jacob so much that he was willing to wait for Jacob’s death to pay back justice to his brothers. So they added a little something to Jacob’s last will and testament (vv. 16-17) as if Jacob himself had requested full and final forgiveness from Joseph for his other sons. They also volunteered to be Joseph’s slaves (v. 18) in hopes of staying alive.

Other than the grace of God in Joseph’s life, developing godly character in him, what led Joseph to be able to completely forgive his brothers with no hard feelings whatsoever, much less a desire for revenge? The answers are in verses 19-20 and there are two of them.

First, Joseph had a genuine sense of his accountability to God. “Am I in the place of God?” he asked rhetorically in verse 19. Humanly speaking, almost anyone could answer yes. Joseph had nearly absolute power so he was unlikely to be questioned, second-guessed, or condemned in this life no matter what he did to his brothers. Yet Joseph himself knew that God would judge him if he saw his brothers’s repentance and refused to forgive. Joseph knew that the power he had was delegated to him by God; therefore, he understood that he would be held accountable by God for how he treated his brothers.

Second, Joseph could see how the sins of his brothers and all the other painful experiences of his life had led him to this point. In verse 20 he said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” What happened to Joseph happened by God’s sovereign will. Although it was painful and stressful for years of his life, it was ultimately for Joseph’s good and for the good of his family, God’s covenant people. Since it was God’s will for Joseph to suffer first and then be exalted, how could he remain bitter? The outcome was good and the course he took to that outcome was ordained by God.

May this give you hope in the hard struggles of your life. God is sovereign over all things, so whatever happened in your life was allowed by him. Ultimately, he will work it out for your good, which may mean simply helping you learn to trust him in all circumstances, but may mean much more than that. Believing that God is sovereign will help you accept the things that have happened to you and give you grace to forgive anyone who sinned against you but is repentant.

Genesis 49, Job 15, Psalm 47

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Read Genesis 49, Job 15, Psalm 47.

This devotional is about Genesis 49.

The leadership power in Jacob’s family was about to pass from Jacob himself to his descendants in this chapter.

Remember that Jacob was selected to be the covenant heir of his father Isaac while Jacob’s twin brother, Esau, was rejected for that role. In this case, by contrast, all of Jacob’s sons would receive the covenant blessing. Each would become the leader of one of Israel’s tribes. In this chapter, Isaac conferred that blessing of tribal leadership on them and made prophecies about each one.

Although it was customary for the eldest son to to receive the greatest blessing, God had bypassed that custom with Jacob. That was based on God’s free choice alone. Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, forfeited his covenant blessing as the firstborn by having sex with one of Jacob’s wives (v. 4, cf. Gen 35:22). This was not the last time a man’s immorality caused him to lose political power.

The next two guys in line, Simeon and Levi, disqualified themselves with cruel vengeance far beyond what was justly warranted (vv. 5-7; cf. Gen 34:25). Although Reuben, Simeon, and Levi got to be tribal heads in Israel, they did not get to have a descendent become the king of Israel.

That honor fell to Judah. He had his moral problems, too (see Gen 38), but he was chosen to be the leader of the tribe that would bring Israel her king (v. 10). And, what a king he would be! Verse 10 says that, “he obedience of the nations shall be his.” This, of course, is a reference to Christ. Jesus came to be the Messiah, the king of Israel, but he has not fully assumed that role yet. When he reigns on earth in his Millennial kingdom, this prophecy will finally be fulfilled.

Verses 11-12 describe a time of massive prosperity. Vines and branches (v. 11) are fruit bearing objects; they have value. You wouldn’t tether a donkey or a colt to them because you don’t want those animals eating such valuable fruits. Unless, of course, there is so much fruit available that even the animals can enjoy it without it costing too much financially. Likewise, wine is valuable; you wouldn’t wash clothes with it unless it was so abundant that you didn’t fear “wasting” it. This is what life in the kingdom will be like when Jesus reigns. There will be no poverty, no lack. The world will be at peace under its true, perfect king and there will be prosperity like mankind has never enjoyed.

Isn’t it amazing to read such a detailed prophecy of Christ so many thousands of years ago? This prophecy has not been fulfilled, yet, but God has identified Jesus who will fulfill it and he has repeated the prophecy and given us even more information about life in his kingdom. Passages like this are one of many reasons why we know that the Bible is not just any book; it is God’s word. In it, God has told us what the future holds. The places where his prophesies have been fulfilled already give us greater confidence in one like this which we are still waiting to come to pass.

Trust the Bible; it is God’s word and he has proven it true over and over again.

Genesis 48, Job 14, Psalm 46

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Read Genesis 48, Job 14, and Psalm 46.

This devotional is about Psalm 46.

The world is a dangerous place. The same natural environment that nurtures us with air, water, and food can drown us, poison us, strike us with lightning, and kill us in any number of other ways.

The people who live in this world can be dangerous, too. Although most people have no intent to harm, there are plenty who want to rob, rape, and even kill. Some of these people become world leaders which enables them to marshal resources to kill on a massive scale through warfare. There are nations in this world, today, are at war or preparing for war. Innocent people will die because they were conscripted against their will into some man’s army or because that army will attack them and destroy their homes.

This is the world we live in. We feel secure most of the time, but that security is an illusion. If we paid attention to all the ways we could die, it would greatly increase our fears.

Psalm 46 invites us to contemplate a different world. It calls us to trust in God as “our refuge and strength” the one who is “ever-present” to help us in time of trouble (v. 1). This kind of faith gives us confidence, not fear, no matter what disasters happen around us (vv. 2-3).

But the world that the Psalmist envisions here in Psalm 46 is not a present reality yet. When God dwells in Jerusalem on earth (vv. 4-6), then we will see him protect us (vv. 7, 11), stop the natural disasters that kill (v. 8) and the wars that claim so many lives (v. 9). Instead, he will command the nations, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (v. 10).

The vision of life presented in this song won’t happen until Jesus reigns on earth in his kingdom. When his kingdom has superseded all the kingdoms of this earth, when he has defeated his enemies, then there will be peace, prosperity, joy, and eternal life. But better than all of those benefits is the opportunity to know God (v. 10a). Everyone will know him and we will all worship him in his kingdom (“I will be exalted, ” v. 10).

This is the hope that God’s word sets before us believers while we live on this earth. We are citizens of that kingdom but in exile for now until he fully establishes that kingdom on earth. While we wait, Jesus gave us to the gospel to call people all over the world to know the Lord, worship the Lord, and wait for that coming kingdom with us.

If you are harassed, feeling helpless, discouraged by the problems of this world and wondering why life has to be so hard, be encouraged. Things are a mess because the rebellion against the true Lord of this earth has not been defeated yet. But, when that kingdom comes, the joys and pleasures of worshipping the Lord in it will far outweigh the problems we lived through to get there. So don’t give up your faith; it will be rewarded when the king comes.

Genesis 47, Job 13, Psalm 45

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Read Genesis 47, Job 13, and Psalm 45.

This devotional is about Psalm 45.

This beautiful song bears the superscription, “A wedding song.” Those superscriptions are (probably) not part of the original text. We don’t really know if they are original or not, because we don’t have the originals, but scholars feel they are accurate, if not inspired. That superscription tells us the setting for this song, but we do not know if this song was written for Solomon or one of his descendants.

Regardless of which Davidic king had this written for his wedding, the Psalmist who wrote it looked beyond that human king. Verses 6-7 are quoted in Hebrews 1:8-9. There the author of Hebrews recognized that they applied to Jesus. Jesus is the only king in David’s line about whom it could accurately be written, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever…. therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions.”

So, there it is, hundreds of years before Jesus was born, a prophecy of his eternal kingdom that reco that Israel’s true king would be God but also be distinct from the person of God that we would call the Father. These two verses suggest the deity of Christ, his coming as the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, and that there are distinct persons of the Godhead.

This Psalm also suggests the idea of looking at God’s people as the bride of Christ. Like the human bride of whichever Israelite king this was written for, we as the bride of Christ must “honor him, for he is your lord” (v. 11b). But honoring Jesus is not degrading or burdensome to us; instead, when we honor Christ, love him, and are joined with him, it will mean “joy and gladness” for all of us.