Why am I reading this book?  It’s not because I share some of the concerns that Carson has—-that the interpretation of Scripture is of eternal consequence, or that the body of Christ should become like-minded (something that Carson also appears to believe is unattainable, even if we can miraculously get rid of the hindrances of ego and emotional attachment to certain interpretations of Scripture).  That just doesn’t gel with my picture of God.  Rather, it’s because I, as a scholar in religion, feel that I need to sharpen my exegetical skills.  Why do I feel this need?  First of all, I’ve taken years of Greek, but I do not know as much as evangelical seminary students about, say, the different kinds of aorists (even though I cannot blame my professors for that, for, even though they may not go into detail about that all too often in the classroom, they do refer me to Smythe’s grammar, and it is up to me to read that book).  Second, when a scholar says that, say, evangelical pastors have false assumptions when they do word-studies, I do not know why the scholar thinks that way.  I myself do word-studies, and I wonder if I am doing them correctly or incorrectly.  Carson gets into the issue of word studies in this book.

The introduction had valuable points.  First of all, on pages 22-23, Carson addresses the timid Christian who is afraid of falling into exegetical traps and hermeneutical pitfalls and thereby misleading fellow believers.  It’s easy to ask “Why even try?” if you feel that way!  But Carson responds that it’s better to be aware of the mistakes you can make than it is to remain in the dark and to avoid the tough questions.  You can at least deal with potential mistakes if you are aware of them!  I think that’s good advice for a lot of things, especially for those of us who tend to make perfection the enemy of the good.

Second, on page 22, a danger that Carson identifies with his study of exegetical fallacies is that it focuses on the negative rather than the positive, and Carson does not want to promote spiritual one-upsmanship.  I think that’s good advice for me and for others who learn religion from an academic perspective—-either formally or informally.  It’s good when scholars can maintain a down-to-earth quality.

Third, on page 23, Carson talks about “Ernest Christian”, the typical Christian whose faith is transformed when he goes to seminary.  Before going to seminary, Ernest Christian has warm and frequent quiet times and believes that God is speaking to him directly, within the context of an intimate relationship.  When Ernest Christian goes to seminary (and Carson appears to be speaking here about conservative seminaries), however, he learns about Greek and all sorts of different scholarly interpretations of the Bible.  The Bible does not come alive to him as it once did.  My impression is that Carson wants for scholarly principles of exegesis to be able to nourish the life of faith rather than leaving students in a state of destabilization.

On a related note, on pages 16-17, Carson talks about a conversation he had in the car with a fellow believer who was telling Carson what he believed God was telling him in his morning quiet time.  Carson wondered if he should inform the fellow believer that his interpretation of Scripture was a misunderstanding of the King James Version’s archaic English, and that the KJV itself was misrepresenting the Greek in that case.  When Carson gently told him that there were other ways to understand the verse, the fellow believer responded that he received his insight from the Holy Spirit, and that spiritual things are spiritually-discerned!

Carson says that he will not get into the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical exegesis, but I appreciated his comments on this issue in his introduction because I myself have come across this issue.  There was a time when I read the Scriptures and felt that I was being led by the Holy Spirit to interpret the text in a certain way, but now, as I look back, I realize that there are other ways to interpret the text, that issues are more complex than I assumed, and that I was reading the Bible with my own evangelical or Armstrongite biases.  I have seen or read Christians, even preachers, derive some grand spiritual meaning from the order of the words in an English translation, and then I look at the Hebrew or the Greek and see that such an order is not even there!  (I watched Joel Osteen do something like this in one of his sermons.)  Nowadays, I find inspiring things in the Bible, but I am not overly dogmatic about what “the Bible says”, and, of course, I’m often impatient about others’ dogmatism about what “the Bible says”.  The problem, of course, is that I do not as often feel that rush that came on me when I thought that I was interacting with God and that the Holy Spirit was opening my eyes to the truths of Scripture and making it into a living book for me.

Finally, I liked what Carson said on page 21 in summarizing James Barr’s views on conservative Christianity: “One of the emphases on the acerbic attack on ‘fundamentalism’ by James Barr is that conservatives do not really understand the Bible, that they use critical tools inconsistently and even dishonestly.”

I identify with Barr here, especially because, as I said, I get annoyed with conservatives getting in my face about what “the Bible says”.  I differ, however, from some liberals I know who say that conservatives are ignorant about the Bible or are biblically illiterate.  (For example, I once heard a professor at Union Theological Seminary, who was giving presentations against Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, remark that Lee Strobel did not know much about the Bible.)  In my opinion, biblical literacy is being aware of the stories and laws that are in the Bible, not so much having a detailed knowledge of the Documentary Hypothesis, or Q, or Marxist criticism, or what have you.  I do wish, though, that conservatives would at least recognize that people interpret the text differently, and that their reasons for doing so often are unrelated to spiritual rebellion.

I will start with some things that Kotlowski states on pages 1-2:

“‘When the historical record of the first four years is written,’ President Richard Nixon wrote in 1973, ‘I am confident it will show that this Administration did far more in the field of civil rights and equal opportunity than its critics were willing to admit.’  There is much evidence to support that claim.  The Nixon administration implemented affirmative action and set-aside programs for minority-owned companies.  It desegregated southern schools and reformed Native American policy.  Attorney General John N. Mitchell was not jesting when he advised African-American leaders in 1969 to ‘watch what we do, rather than what we say’ in the area of civil rights.  Yet the President’s courtship of conservative southern whites and forceful denunciation of busing, labeled the ‘southern strategy’ by contemporary critics, continues to eclipse his policies in general histories of the Nixon era…Nixon’s public policies appear even more confusing when placed alongside his private remarks.  Nixon’s views on race are plain: while doubting black equality, he still opposed bias.  In the presence of aides, the president could sound as bigoted as any southern segregationist…But this self-made man parted with segregationists in believing that African-Americans deserved the opportunity to compete with whites.  ‘Praise or blame, acceptance or rejection,’ Nixon wrote one citizen, ‘should be personal matters based upon individual achievement and not the accident of color or birth.’”

This passage highlights a salient theme in what I have read so far in this book: that Nixon was a complex man.  Unlike some scholars, Kotlowski does not pass on the credit for civil rights accomplishments during the Nixon years to others, such as the Democratic Congress or bureaucrats.  Rather, Kotlowski believes that Nixon as President played a key role in effecting civil rights accomplishments.  Why did Nixon do this, when his public rhetoric and privately-expressed views were so often far from progressive on this issue?  In what I have read so far, Kotlowski proposes a variety of factors.  One factor was that Nixon was a calculating politician, and he wanted to retain the liberal wing of the Republican Party and be able to point to civil rights accomplishments against liberal and Democratic detractors.  A second factor was Nixon’s concern for the country, for he genuinely feared the eruption of race riots.  A third factor was ideological.  Nixon favored federal programs that advanced opportunity and mobility, and he also had a strong populist streak, which “championed the ‘little guy’ against people born with social advantages” (page 9).

According to Kotlowski, Nixon’s civil rights policy itself was nuanced, for Nixon acted forcefully to help minority businesses; “advanced swiftly, then retreated”, on affirmative action, “then allowed federal agencies to pursue their own fair employment remedies”; and flinched on school and residential integration (page 8).  But Nixon long had a concern about civil rights.  As Vice-President under Dwight Eisenhower, for example, “he chaired a committee to stop bias in companies with government contracts”, and he “expressed interest in school desegregation and fair employment” (pages 6, 8). 

I’ll close this post by referring to something that Kotlowski says on page 3.  Kotlowski refers to moderate or modern Republicanism, which “dated to the party’s birth and influenced Presidents such as Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower.”  This Republicanism envisioned “the small, independent producer as the bedrock of society”, and sought to use state power to “ensure economic opportunity and social mobility.”  I wish that today’s Republican Party were like that, rather than favoring the rich and being unconcerned about the plight of the middle-class.

1.  Segal maintains that Paul was an apostate because he did not feel bound by the ritual laws of the Torah, and perhaps also because he was affirming that Gentiles could enter God’s community without observing those laws.  On account of Paul’s apostate status, he was endangered by the capital punishment that Judea could have had for apostates (but Segal does not know to what extent this was practiced), or, at the very least, by flogging.

2.  Segal says that Paul’s Pharisaism was stricter in observance than was Diaspora Judaism, and also the Judaizers whom Paul criticizes in such books as Galatians.  According to Segal, when Paul became a Christian who did not consistently observe the ritual laws of Judaism, he looked down on Judaizers for not keeping those laws “right”—-for not being as rigorous as he was when he was a Pharisee.  That’s how Segal interprets Galatians 6:13, where Paul denies that the Judaizers even keep the law.

3.  Segal says that Paul converted from Pharisaism to a Gentile-Christian community.  I remember Terence Donaldson speculating that Hellenistic Christians had an outreach to the Gentiles, and that Paul was persecuting them on account of this, until he became a Christian and had his own mission.  Would this be where the Gentile-Christian community that Paul joined came from: it was a congregation founded as a result of Hellenistic Christian missionary activity?

4.  On page 274, Segal makes an interesting point about the locations of rabbinism and Christianity, and likely reasons for them: “Rabbinism…became most powerful in the smaller cities of the Galilee where Jesus preached, and Christianity spread most quickly in the large Hellenistic cities, where more anomalous and uprooted people were to be found.  The social structure of the small cities and towns favored rabbinism.”

There is much to unpack from this, so I’ll hazard my guesses as to what some of the implications are.  In Galilee, you had small cities, and that was a good place for rabbinism—-for the rabbis could govern there, people already recognized their authority, etc.  It was like a small town and perhaps a rather homogenous comminity.  Outsiders were tolerated, but not overly welcome.  In the large cities, however, there were lonely, uprooted, and anomalous people who thirsted for community and a belief-system that could give them security and meaning, and a marginal movement like Christianity could provide them with that.

5.  On page 331, Segal discusses the prominence of Mithraism in the Roman empire, especially among the Roman army.  This stood out to me because, on page 136, Segal discusses the question of whether Paul was influenced by mystery cults, with their themes of symbolic death and rebirth, immortality, union with the divine, etc.  Segal notes that the church fathers likened Christianity to a mystery cult, but he himself does not deem it necessary to posit a connection between Paul and such a cult, for union with the divine and death and rebirth were themes in the Hellenistic world and could have influenced the Hellenistic church that Paul joined.  Segal refers to Ovid (first century B.C.E.-first century C.E.) and also later mystery cults, where initiates went through symbolic death and rebirth.  Christian apologists argue that saying that Paul ripped off ideas from mystery cults is problematic, for the mystery cults came later, and there were differences between the mystery cults and Christianity.  But why should we just assume that Christianity came up with concepts such as death and rebirth on its own?  The ideas could have existed elsewhere when it was a young movement, and it could have drawn from its cultural surroundings—-even if the evidence we have for the existence of mystery cults post-dates Christianity, or Christianity departs from mystery religion in areas.

1.  This article by John Richardson on Newt Gingrich in Esquire is probably the best that I have read so far.  It goes into his human side and also his record as Speaker and thereafter—-both the positives and the negatives.  It is lengthy but it is well worth the read, from beginning to end.

2.  Ezra Klein on the Washington Post’s blog talks about the economies under the Administrations of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.  Both had recessions and implemented policies that sought to bring us out of that.  But the recessions were due to different factors, and what worked for Reagan may not work today due to our different contexts.  For example, tax cuts may not be the answer, for our taxes are already lower under Obama than they were under Reagan, plus people have a lot of debt to pay off before they can even think of freely spending money that they receive from a tax cut.

3.  Izgad is blogging, with some excellent posts critiquing Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s Kosher Jesus.  See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

First, I have long wondered: If many Jews believed that Gentiles could become righteous and enter the World to Come without becoming Israelites and keeping the entire Torah—-and, if my impression is correct, Segal does appear to believe that there were many Jews who believed this way, on the basis of references to God-fearers on inscriptions and in literature—-then why was Paul so revolutionary and provoking towards Jews when he said that Gentiles did not have to be circumcised in order to be saved?  And why did many Jews believe that being part of Israel was such an honor, if they did not even think that one had to be an Israelite in order to be saved?

On pages 194-195, Segal tackles this question.  Segal says that, according to Pharisaism, being a part of Israel was a special honor, like the priesthood.  One did not have to be a priest to be righteous, but being a priest was an honor.  And with the honor of being a part of Israel (and being a priest, for that matter) came purity rules.  According to Segal, purity rules separated Jews from Gentiles and hindered social interaction between them (particularly sharing a meal).  But Paul was coming along and saying that Jews and Gentiles could join together into a holy community and could interact with each other—-even going so far as to share meals together.  That, for Pharisaic Judaism, was quite radical.

Second, Segal offers a unique (as far as I can see) perspective on Romans 7, in which Paul appears to struggle with his sinful nature.  According to Segal, Paul is actually struggling against something else in this chapter: his desire to keep the Torah.  For Segal, Paul believes that Gentiles do not have to be circumcised and keep the ritual laws of the Torah in order to be a part of God’s people, and Paul probably doesn’t think that Jews have to do those things, either, for he, as a Jew, does not feel bound by them.  But Paul did make accommodations for the sake of church unity or to be tactful, as when he had Timothy circumcised because Timothy had a Jewish mother.  (Against those who note that Judaism at this time believed in patrilineal rather than matrilineal descent, Segal says that Acts may be getting things wrong, and also that Judaism may be more diverse on this issue than we think.)  For Segal, Paul in Romans 7 is planning to tolerate the observance of Jewish dietary laws among Christians, and even perhaps to keep them himself when he feels that the situation calls for that, but he is afraid that this will make him one who relies on the flesh rather than the Spirit.  He notes that he has a desire to keep God’s law, and so he fears that observing some Jewish rituals will draw him back into the Jewish religion, or a Jewish-Christianity that he believes promotes confidence in fleshly observances rather than the Spirit.  In the end, for Segal, Paul resolves to tolerate Jewish-Christian practice when necessary, while remembering that faith is what is important.

This morning, the pastor derived principles from the stories.  From the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth in the Gospel of Luke, the pastor derived the principle of praying and expecting God to answer our prayers according to his timetable, not ours.  From the story of Saul of Tarsus’ conversion and the thorn in the flesh, the pastor derived the lesson of God keeping us humble.  From the story of Esther, the pastor taught us about relying on God (which Esther may have done when she fasted, even though God is not mentioned in the Masoretic Text of the book) and of taking action, as well as God’s preservation of the Jewish people as a nation that glorifies him.

The thing is, I did not feel that the pastor was deriving principles in a manner that discarded the narratives.  Rather, the pastor dived deeply into the stories themselves.  When looking at Saul of Tarsus, he remarked that Saul was sure of himself before Christ appeared to him, but then he was rendered dependent on somebody else on account of his blindness.  The pastor also remarked on how amazing it was that Saul was persecuting Christians one minute, and then the next minute he was proclaiming the very Gospel that he had once persecuted.  I agree that deriving principles from the Bible can be done inappropriately, but I think that it’s good when one can do so while taking the narrative seriously—-by looking at characters, plot, etc.  That way, we feel as if we are living a story with other human beings.

I agree with Josh that Mars Hill church, broadly speaking, is probably not a cult.  It’s most likely like a lot of evangelical megachurches.  If I were to go to Seattle and to visit the services, I seriously doubt that I would be pressured to do anything—-or that people there would notice me at all.  Consequently, I should not judge people who go to Mars Hill—-and I won’t, as long as they don’t get in my face telling me what I should do.

Moreover, perhaps not every small group at Mars Hill is bad.  People can probably have rewarding experiences at Mars Hill’s small groups.  And yet, even though Josh is correct that we have only read Andrew’s side of the story (for background, see the links here), and that there’s a likelihood that a miscommunication was going on (and I’d say what tips me off to that is that Andrew feels that he repented, whereas the church officials get the impression that he has not), the controlling tone of the repentance contract and the notice to the church’s social community that Andrew is being disciplined turn me off from wanting to be a part of a church like Mars Hill, or any evangelical church that stresses small groups and accountability.  Sure, I do not have to judge the entire movement.  But I can decide for myself where I want to go when it comes to church.

Josh had good advice, both for those who are anti-Driscoll, and also for those who are pro-Driscoll (perhaps because they go to his church).  The post is worth the read.

In a recent post, Why Our Definition of “Successful Ministry” Is Problematic, Leslie takes aim at some remarks that Mark Driscoll made in an interview with Justin Brierley. Here are some excerpts from her post:

“At one point in the interview with Bierley, Driscoll berates the UK church for being cowards. As proof of this cowardice, Driscoll demands that the Brierley ‘name one, good Bible teacher that is know across Britain. You don’t have one, that is the problem.’ Then, later in the interview when Brierley revealed that his wife pastors a church, Driscoll responds by asking about the size of the church ‘You look at your results,’ he says ‘and you look at my results and look at the variable that is the most obvious.’

I quoted conservative columnist Ann Coulter, who was talking about Romney’s 1994 run against Ted Kennedy for the U.S. Senate, when Romney was attempting to convince Massachusetts voters that he was pro-choice.  Coulter said the following:

“Nearly two decades ago, when Romney was trying to defeat champion desecrator of life Sen. Teddy Kennedy, he sought to remove abortion as a campaign issue by declaring that he, too, supported Roe v. Wade. (Nonetheless, Kennedy ran a campaign commercial against him featuring a Mormon woman complaining that Romney, as a Mormon elder, had pressured her not to have an abortion, but to give the child up for adoption. Are you getting the idea that Massachusetts is different from the rest of America, readers?)”

When I first read this, I was puzzled.  Would Ted Kennedy and the liberals in Massachusetts really criticize Mitt Romney for encouraging a woman to have her baby and to give the child up for adoption rather than having an abortion?  I suppose that there are some liberals who would be appalled by a woman not choosing abortion.  They may see the fetus as a mere blob of tissue and think that the woman is holding herself back and giving in to religious extremists by having the child, and so they’d encourage her to have the abortion.  But my impression (based upon the liberals I know and have read or seen on TV) is that many liberals would not be rooting for the woman to have the abortion.  They’d want for her to make her own choice, based on what she thinks.  And, while they most likely would not want for Mitt Romney or the government to pressure the woman to have the baby, I doubt that they’d see Romney as evil for doing so as a private citizen.  But that’s my impression, and I could be wrong.

It turns out that there may be more to the issue, though.  This article by Charles Johnson on Romney and abortion is worth reading.  Johnson says: “In 2007, Judy Dushku recalled a published anonymous article in her feminist Mormon magazine, Exponents II, by a Mormon woman who wanted to have an abortion in 1990 when Mitt Romney was a stake president. (The article did not mention Mitt Romney by name, but Dushku later identified him.) The woman, Carrel Hilton Sheldon, has since come forward. Sheldon claims that Romney worked very hard to prevent her from having an abortion, even though her doctor (also a Mormon and past stake president) said her pregnancy might take her life. The woman ultimately had the abortion.”

The article to which Johnson links says the following, quoting from a New York Times article:

“In 1990, Exponent II, a Mormon feminist magazine that Ms. Dushku, the Suffolk University professor, helped found, published an article by a married mother of four who recounted her own experience after doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy when she was being treated for a potentially dangerous blood clot.  Her bishop got wind of the situation, she wrote, and showed up unannounced at the hospital, warning her sternly not to go forward. The article did not identify Mr. Romney as the bishop, but Ms. Dushku later did.  Now the woman has come forward, identifying herself in Mr. Scott’s book as Carrel Hilton Sheldon. (Through Ms. Dushku, she declined to be interviewed.) ‘Mitt has many, many winning qualities,” she is quoted as saying, “but at the time he was blind to me as a human being.’”

See here and here.

I do not know if that was the case that Kennedy was talking about (for Romney encouraged women not to abort more than once), but it would make sense to me if it was.  I doubt that Massachusetts liberals would see Romney as evil for thinking that abortion was wrong and for gently seeking to persuade a woman to have her baby and to put the child up for adoption rather than choosing abortion.  But they would have serious problems with Romney doing so in an arrogant manner that callously disregarded the life and health of the woman, especially when giving birth could cost her life.  (And I say this while remembering that the Mormon church allows abortion to save the life of the mother, and that Romney’s current pro-life position contains a “life of the mother” exception.  Perhaps Romney the elder did not feel that the woman’s life was at risk.)

But I not only give Massachusetts liberals the benefit of a doubt (as opposed to seeing them as monstrous fanatics rooting for women to have abortions).  I do the same for Republicans, too.  For example, I read an article yesterday on a liberal site, New Hampshire GOP Introduce Bills To Roll Back Domestic Violence Laws.  These bills may very well undermine domestic violence laws (and there is discussion in the comments section about whether they will do so).  But I seriously doubt that the Republicans introducing these bills actually support domestic violence.  Why?  Because I don’t think that people are thoroughly evil.  Proud?  Yes.  Selfish?  Yes.  Greedy?  Yes.  But actively rooting for people to be hurt?  I don’t think so. 

To the chief Musician upon Neginah, [A Psalm] of David.

¹Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.

 ²From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

According to Marvin Tate, the end of the earth refers to a distant place (Psalm 19:5; 46:10; 135:7; Deuteronomy 13:7; 28:49, 64; Isaiah 5:26; etc.).  What is the setting for the Psalmist crying out to God from a distant place?  One view is that Psalm 61 is about David’s flight from Absalom: David (as king) is away from his home and from God’s sanctuary in Jerusalem because he is fleeing from Absalom, and so David cries out to God from where he is—-a distant place—-with the hope that God will lead him back to Mount Zion, the rock that is higher than David.  A second view is that Psalm 61 is about a king who is at war, away from his home.  The king either is sacrificing at Jerusalem in anticipation of his time away from home, or he is crying to God at the battle site.  Tate notes that the Egyptian king Rameses II prayed to a god while he was on a distant campaign in Kadesh, and Sigmund Mowinckel appeals to I Samuel 14:33ff.—-in which Saul builds an altar during a battle—-to demonstrate that a king could call out to God in a cultic fashion even when he was far away from the official sanctuary.  A third view is that Psalm 61 is by Jewish exiles, who are distant from their homeland and who want for God to restore them to the land of Israel as well as re-establish the Davidic monarchy.  A fourth view is that the “end of the earth” is metaphorical for distance from God: the Psalmist cries out to God even when he feels far away from God.  And a fifth view is that the “end of the earth” relates to the netherworld, and that the Psalmist is crying out to God while he is on the brink of death.  Mitchell Dahood holds to the netherworld interpretation.

What is the “rock that is higher than I”?  One view is that the Psalmist is asking for God to help him to overcome obstacles that are impossible for him to surmount by himself, which means that the higher rock is an obstacle.  Another view is that the higher rock refers to God, who is called a rock throughout the Psalms (Psalm 18; 28:1; 42:9; etc.), and that the Psalmist here is expressing his faith that God is higher and stronger than he is, which is why the Psalmist is depending on God.  A third view is that the Psalmist is saying that he is drowning and that he needs a rock that is higher than he is—-since a higher rock is where he can be safe from the waters.  The Septuagint has something different: in the rock you did lift me up.  According to Tate, the Septuagint’s understanding of that verse lacks mimmenni (“than I”).

 ³For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.

 ⁴I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Selah.

 ⁵For thou, O God, hast heard my vows: thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name.

 ⁶Thou wilt prolong the king’s life: and his years as many generations.

The Hebrew that the KJV translates as “as many generations” is kemo dor va-dor, which literally means “as generation and generation”.  As Tate notes, dor va-dor often means “a succession of generations with no defined end” (Psalm 10:6; 45:18; Joel 2:2; 4:20).  So is the Psalmist asking God that the king might live forever?  But the Davidic king was a mere mortal, so how could he live forever?  Different explanations have been proposed.  One explanation is that the ancient Near East used larger-than-life language about kings.  Kings were told to live forever (I Kings 1:31; Nehemiah 2:3; etc.), for example.  Marc Brettler in the Jewish Study Bible states that the description of the king’s life as perpetual may reflect the notion that the king was close to being divine (Psalm 45:7).  A second explanation is that the king is hoping that his dynasty might last forever, meaning that v 6 is about the king’s dynasty rather than the king himself.  The fourth century Christian exegete Theodore of Mopsuestia goes with this solution, and he relates this verse to the hope of the Jewish exiles that God will re-establish the Davidic dynasty such that it is perpetual, so that they would no longer have to fear or experience captivity.  A third explanation is that David is conflating himself with his descendant, Jesus Christ, who lives eternally. A fourth explanation is that David is asking that his example might be known for many generations, even after he dies.  And a fifth explanation is that v 6 concerns David’s hope for an afterlife.

The Targum for Psalm 61 maintains that v 6 is asking God to give a king a life that lasts for many generations.  Because it does not believe that God is redundant in repeating the word “generation” in the phrase “as generation and generation”, it maintains that the two generations are referring to different things.  According to the Targum, the Psalmist is saying that the Messiah’s years will be like the generations of this age and the generations of the age to come, meaning (it seems) that the Messiah will live for a very long time.  The Jewish exegete Rashi, however, goes a different route, for Rashi says that David is hoping that his years will be as long as a generation, seventy years, meaning that Rashi believes that David is asking here, not for an unrealistically long life, but rather for God to rescue him from pre-mature death so that he can live a full life—-a life that is as long as a generation.  At the same time, in his interpretation of v 4 (“I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever”), Rashi says that David is hoping to praise God in this world and in the World to Come, meaning that Rashi is bringing the afterlife into his discussion of v 4.

I’ll discuss briefly a relevant point: Did Judaism believe that the Messiah would live forever?  The Targum appears to say so, and, in John 12:34, some Jews tell Christ that the law says that the Christ abides forever, which is why they are baffled by Jesus’ statement that he will be lifted up.  The Book of Jeremiah, however, does not seem to envision a single Davidic monarch who will live forever, but rather it envisions the restoration of the dynasty itself, which will have more than one king (Jeremiah 33:26).  At some point, a belief in a restored and perpetual Davidic dynasty was replaced by a belief in a restored and perpetual Davidic individual.  (Or things may have been more complex than that, since perhaps different people had different ideas.)

Because the king is referred to in the third person in Psalm 61:6, interpreters have wondered if the king is saying this Psalm about himself, or if other Israelites are speaking about the king.  Tate says that the king could speak about himself in the third person, for we see that in Jeremiah 38:5 and in fifth century B.C.E. Phoenician inscriptions.  But Tate is open to the possibility that other Judahites are asking God to prolong the king’s life.  A possible setting for that would be the events right before the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E., when people of Judah asked God to protect their king—-Zedekiah, and Jehoiachin, the king in exile.

 ⁷He shall abide before God for ever: O prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him.

The Septuagint has something different for the second clause, namely, “Who will seek out his mercy and truth?” (Brenton’s translation).  According to Tate, the Septuagint is taking the word translated in the KJV as “prepare” (man, from m-n-h) as the Aramaic particle man, which can mean “who?” or “what?”.  My guess is that the Septuagint may be understanding the word that the KJV translates as “may preserve him” (which is from the root n-ts-r) to refer to seeking out because n-ts-r can mean watching, or observing.  According to Theodore of Mopsuestia, the Psalmist is asking who will seek out God’s mercy and truth that the Israelites might be restored to their land.  The MT, however, may be saying that mercy and truth uphold the king’s throne, either because God’s mercy and solidity keep the king reigning, or because the king’s reign is rooted in upholding goodness and truth, or perhaps both.

 ⁸So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, that I may daily perform my vows.

In Charles Spurgeon’s Treasury of David, William Gurnall says that prayers without vows are blank, for we should praise God for his mercy that he shows us, or serve God (in some manner) with what he grants us.  I personally do not make vows before God, for I hope that he will help me out of his love and pity for me, not because I make promises.  Moreover, I would not tell God to (say) give me an academic position in religion and offer in return to defend God’s truth of conservative Christianity because I don’t believe that conservative Christianity is the full truth—-or, more accurately, I prefer for scholarship to be open rather than forced into a conservative Christian mold.  But I can see Gurnall’s point that we should somehow honor God in our prayers—-that we should do more than ask God for stuff.