Make Them Pay! (Psalm 5:1-12) Series

Today, we get to work through Psalm 5. This will be a treat :)

(5:1) Of/for the director. With flutes. A song of/for David.

(2) I have said,

"My words, hear, O Yahweh.

Understand my sighing/groaning.

When things are really bad in life, you lose your ability to form words. All that can come out, is groans, and sighs. If someone hears those noises, they have to interpret them, to understand them. And depending on how it came out, they might hear lots of things-- frustration, anger, despair, exhaustion, defeat.

[Apologies for using Hebrew numbering-- everything is off by one.]

The psalmist opens here by calling on God to hear his groans and sighs, and understand them. These groans are like a foreign language that only the psalmist knows-- but he prays that God would be able to translate.

He then continues, verse 3:

(3) Pay attention to the sound of my voice, my King and my God/Elohim,

because to you I pray.

The psalmist knows that there are many elohim he could choose to pray toward. Lots of different gods, and choices he could make. But He has chosen to pray to Yahweh, his King, and his God. And so he points out to God, that this is the choice he has made. "Yahweh, to you, I'm praying. So please, pay attention to my voice.

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Goldingay, Psalms 1-41, 128:

"Declaring simply that Yhwh is king makes an objective affirmation about Yhwh's sovereignty; declaring that Yhwh is "my king" makes an affirmation about the application of that sovereignty on my behalf. It is correlative to my being Yhwh's servant, which implies a commitment on my part but also a commitment on Yhwh's part."

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Verse 4-8:

(4) Yahweh, [in the] morning, you hear my voice;

in the morning I arrange [my prayer] to/before you,

and I keep watch,

(5) for not a God (El) who delights in wickedness, you are.

Evil does not dwell with you.

(6) They shall not stand-- the boastful/foolish-- before your eyes.

You have hated all the ones doing villainy.

(7) You destroy the ones speaking a lie.

The man of bloodshed and deceit, He detests -- Yahweh,

(8) while I, through the greatness of your loyalty, I shall enter your house.

I shall bow down toward your holy temple in fear/reverence of you.

One of things that makes kids, kids, is that they have a strong sense of justice, and right and wrong. If their sibling-- or some neighborhood kid-- hits them, or says something terrible about them, or threatens them, they take that situation, and they come to their parents. This past fall, there were two boys who came over to our house-- kids who had just moved in to a house a block over. These kids came over, and one of them was swearing, using language so bad that most of my kids didn't even understand it. Two of my kids rushed into the house, and it all came pouring out of their mouths. The whole situation, in 30 seconds. What they were doing, was arranging their problem before us. Laying it all out, carefully ordered, in front of us. When they finished talking, they waited for a response. They "kept watch." They knew, that this wasn't something that we'd let slide, because they knew that we have rules for the neighborhood kids, for what is and isn't appropriate in our yard and in our house.

This, basically, is what the psalmist is doing. He knows the kind of people, and the kind of action, that Yahweh hates. He knows what God does to people who are deceitful and violent. And so he dumps the whole situation before God in prayer, and then he waits. He knows that God will act against his enemies.

And then, at the same time, the psalmist knows something else. Let's reread verse 8:

(8) while I, through the greatness of your loyalty, I shall enter your house.

I shall bow down toward your holy temple in fear/reverence of you.

Yahweh is a loyal God. He's reliable. He's faithful. He's the kind of God who, when you go to him with your problem, will help you. And so the psalmist expresses confidence here, that this will end well for him. He will enter God's house. He will bow down toward God's temple, in reverence.

Verse 9-10:

(9) Yahweh, lead me by your righteousness because of my enemies.

Make straight before me your road/way,

(10) because there isn't his mouth reliability;

their inward parts are destruction/ruin/wickedness;

open graves, their throats [are].

Their tongues speak deceit.

There is a road that Yahweh walks in the world. It's the way of light, and truth, and righteousness. This is the road that God uses, and this is the road that He wants others to walk.