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Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Cry from the Grave
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Cry from the Grave
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Cry from the Grave Psalm 88 Last night we watched a movie called Incendies about a family caught in an intracommunity conflict in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a fictional movie, but much of the story could be replicated in factual accounts of what happened to people d…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Mere Breath
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Mere Breath
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Mere Breath Psalm 144 Some years ago I did a little bit of research into tracing my ancestors. These were pre-Internet days, and the research involved poring over ancient volumes in the repository of such records in London. Sometimes I would discover another “John Goldingay” fr…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Question of Power
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Question of Power
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Question of Power Psalm 110 My wife keeps going on about power. I don’t take it personally. Actually, it works in my favor, because her fixation lies with the way contemporary Western thinking is preoccupied by questions about who has power and about how power features in the r…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Servant Leans on His Master
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Servant Leans on His Master
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Servant Leans on His Master Psalm 86 The media report that two days ago Christians in Egypt undertook a demonstration related to obstacles put in the way of building a church. The demonstration then became an expression of dissatisfaction with military rule in Egypt, so Muslims…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Acknowledgments
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Acknowledgments
by SPCK - John Goldingay
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The translation at the beginning of each chapter (and in other biblical quotations) is my own. I have already translated the Psalms in an earlier commentary (Psalms, three volumes, published by Baker Academic in 2006–2008); although I started from scratch for this…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Amen Anyway
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Amen Anyway
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Amen Anyway Psalm 89:52 There is a play by Elie Wiesel called The Trial of God, set in a concentration camp and based on something the author witnessed at the end of the trial, God is found guilty of crimes against creation and humankind. After a period of silence, a Talmudic sch…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Another Amen
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Another Amen
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Another Amen Psalm 106:48 Whereas the amen at the end of Book Three of the Psalter stands in contrast to Psalm 89 to which it is appended, this amen at the end of Book Four follows nicely on Psalm 106, though perhaps it issues a challenge in that it involves recognizing that our …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Blessings and Atrocities
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Blessings and Atrocities
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Blessings and Atrocities Psalm 128-129 On the satirical Web site The Onion, one of last week’s headlines proclaimed, “Lack of Media Interest Makes Genocide Cover-Up Unnecessary.” The “story” explained that an African warlord had declared that global disinterest in the wholesale s…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Bring Back! Come Back!
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Bring Back! Come Back!
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Bring Back! Come Back! Psalm 80 It’s nearly three hundred years since the First Great Awakening, a revival of religious life in Britain and even more in the British colonies in America a few decades before the War of Independence. This First Great Awakening was mostly a movement …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Choose Your Fate
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Choose Your Fate
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Choose Your Fate Psalm 83 Biblical scholar Michael V. Fox has what you might call a typical Jewish background. At the beginning of the twentieth century his grandfather had a narrow escape from pogroms in Russia, when hundreds of Jews were killed and thousands raped, mutilated, a…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Creation as a Reason for Hope
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Creation as a Reason for Hope
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Creation as a Reason for Hope Psalm 147 Six centuries before Christ, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, and many of its people were taken off into exile in Babylon. Not surprisingly, over time they became demoralized and found it hard to believe that God was ever going to be in…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Dance and Slaughter
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Dance and Slaughter
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Dance and Slaughter Psalm 148-149 As a teenager, I did not learn to dance or to shoot a gun for different reasons. I didn’t learn to dance because my church regarded dancing as “worldly”; it wasn’t appropriate to people who were really committed to God. I didn’t learn to shoot be…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Don’t Trust in Leaders
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Don’t Trust in Leaders
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Don’t Trust in Leaders Psalm 146 I remember the winter’s day when I announced to the students at the theological college in England where I used to be the principal that I would be leaving the coming summer. To my surprise, it aroused a feeling of anxiety among a number of studen…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Enough Punishment Already!
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Enough Punishment Already!
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Enough Punishment Already! Psalm 74 This evening, as I write, will be the beginning of the Jewish year 5772; in other words, on this reckoning the New Year will be the 5772nd year since creation. It will be followed by the Day of Atonement and the Festival of Sukkot. Thinking abo…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Facing the Other Set of Facts
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Facing the Other Set of Facts
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is Anything Stable? Psalm 89: 1-37 My wife once lived in a house on the side of a canyon in California that seemed capable of tumbling into the ocean if there was an earthquake, and after one worrying quake not far away she took to checking the weekly earthquake reports. Apparent…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Fear or Reverence
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Fear or Reverence
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Fear or Reverence Psalm 76 Last week I was lecturing on the Psalms at a college in Michigan, and I referred to the extraordinary freedom that the Psalms assume we have in our relationship with God. You can say anything to God. In relation to God, we are like children in relation …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, Zion
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, Zion
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken, Zion Psalm 87 A few weeks ago, we had a visit from friends in London who told us exciting tales about developments in their parish, where they have a rector who is full of ideas for reaching out into the community and a church that is growing. …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Glossary