Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Medieval Psalmbook Dug Out of Irish Bog

A very interesting item from the Fox News site: Medieval Psalmbook Dug Out of Irish Bog What I find interesting about this find is the page that the Psalm book was found open to:
The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.
How very interesting! Here is modern day Israel in a bloody fight with Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that simply wants to kill as many Jews as possible and wipe Israel off the face of the earth; and now we find an ancient pslam book dug out of an Irish bog being "randomly" open to a Pslam that describes that very same situation back when David was king of Israel! But David, unlike the limp-wristed, spineless left-wing politicians of modern day Israel (and those of the rest of the Western World), wanted nothing less than total victory over his foes, and asked God to bring it about. No "cease fire" or "peace accords" for King David, nothing less that total victory would do. Amazingly, one of the verses of Plsam 83 mentions 'Tyre' as one of the agressors, which still exists in modern day Lebanon. Most of the other peoples mentioned in this Psalm have, in fact, gone the way of the dinosaur...so I guess God answered David's prayer after all.

Here is the complete text of Psalm 83:

Psalm 83

O God, Do Not Keep Silence

A Song. A Psalm of Asaph.


O God, do not keep silence;
do not hold your peace or be still, O God!
For behold, your enemies make an uproar;
those who hate you have raised their heads.
They lay crafty plans against your people;
they consult together against your treasured ones.
They say, "Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
let the name of Israel be remembered no more!"
For they conspire with one accord;
against you they make a covenant--
the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites,
Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
Asshur also has joined them;
they are the strong arm of the children of Lot.

Selah

Do to them as you did to Midian,
as to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon,
who were destroyed at En-dor,
who became dung for the ground.
Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
who said, "Let us take possession for ourselves
of the pastures of God."

O my God, make them like whirling dust,
like chaff before the wind.
As fire consumes the forest,
as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
so may you pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your hurricane!
Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek your name, O LORD.
Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
let them perish in disgrace,
that they may know that you alone,
whose name is the LORD,
are the Most High over all the earth.

Psalm 83 ESV

Amen.

That's what I love about the Psalms: the pslamists weren't afraid to ask God for exactly what they wanted. They didn't care about world opinion, they didn't care about apeasement, they just opened their hearts in honest complaint to God, and asked him to take care of their situations.

Of course Israel often found itself on the wrong side of God throughout history, and eventually the nation of Israel was destroyed, along with the Temple in Jerusalem, back in 70 AD.

Yet in what is truly one of the most amazing miralces since Moses parted the Red Sea, in 1948, Israel, as a nation, literally came back from the dead. But it's enemies are none too happy about the resurection, and have been trying to put Israel back in the grave ever since, to increasing levels of humility and destruction--for the foes.

For those of you who think this current battle is all about politics, think again. This is no political struggle happening in the south of Lebanon, but a spiritual struggle as old as history itself.

May God grant Israel the request of Pslam 83: total victory over it's enemies. And may all other governments on earth go find something else to focus their attention on, like global warming for instance...

<>< TM

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