Heart of a Psalmist - Worshipping Christ Through The Psalms

was heavily outnumbered as he braced himself for the greatest battle of his military career. “When David heard about this, he sent Joab and all his warriors to fight them.” Joab attacked the Ammonite army while his brother Abishai attacked the Aramaens and God gave them a mighty victory. The Edomites from the southeast side of the Jordan assumed that David could not possibly defeat the Ammonites and Aramaens in battle and took advantage of his absence and attacked and plundered Israel. After David won the great battle with the Confederacy, he sent Joab and Abishai to fight the Edomites in the Valley of Salt located in southern Judah. Psalm 60 was composed between David’s victory over the Ammonite/Aramaens and the invasion of Israel by the Edomites. David eventually pursued them into Petra, their impregnable capitol city and defeated their mur- derous army. This psalm became the military training anthem for all the young soldiers in the nation of Israel. Spurgeon says of this passage: ‘Even though I have to shout in the battle I will also sing in my soul, and if my fingers must needs be engaged with the bow, yet shall they also touch the ten stringed instrument and show forth thy praise 2 .’ When Psalm 60 was originally composed David was anticipating the coming battle with the Edomites. In this medley version, we are looking back upon the great victory and extracting the prophetic promise and the confident prayer sections from the psalm. The distress of the opening verses of Psalm 60 is not carried over to the medley; previous triumphs give us strength for our present trials. • “I will divide up Shechem with joy.”(6) This was a city on the west side of the Jordan river. God enjoys giving possessions to his people. • “I will measure out the valley of Succoth.” (6) This is a fruitful valley east of Jordan river. • “Gilead is mine,…” (7) Gilead is the mountainous region on the east side of Jordan between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. He is God over the mountains as well as the low places. • “…and Manasseh is mine.” (7) Manasseh inherited the northern regions on both sides of the Jor- dan river. • “Ephraim will produce my warriors,…” (7) Ephraim was the most populous of the 12 tribes in- habiting the north, central part of Israel. The largest armies in Israel came from this group. • “…and Judah will produce my kings.” (7) Judah’s portion of Israel was the central and south- ern part of the land. David and all the godly kings as well as Jesus, the king of kings were all from this tribe. • “Moab will become my lowly servant,” (8) Moab was directly east of Judah on the opposite side of the Dead Sea. Other translations of this verse say: “Moab is my washbasin…” (NIV) a very offensive description. • “…and Edom will be my slave.” (8) This must have been comforting to David to hear that the proud nation that had just conquered the land was soon to become a lowly slave. • “I will shout in triumph over the Philistines.” (8) Philistia, located on the southwestern seashore of Israel, was a perpetual enemy of God’s beloved nation. God will triumph over all of his enemies! The “fortified city” is referring to Petra, the capitol of Edom that was the most naturally defended city of the ancient world. Boice describes: ‘It is approached through a narrow cut in the limestone cliffs that winds inward for about two miles and is called a siq. The cliffs rise upward for thousands of feet on both sides, and in places the passage is so narrow that no more than two horses can pass abreast 3 .’ In English, ‘who’ and ‘how’ both use the same letters of the alphabet but are arranged in different order. A successful spiritual life puts the ‘who’ ahead of ‘how’, when God is the ‘who’, the ‘how’ becomes a sec- ondary issue. “Who will bring me into the fortified city? Who will bring me victory over Edom?”(9) “Use your strong right arm to save me, and rescue your beloved people. God has promised this by his holiness:” (6, 7)

“Have you rejected us, O God? will you no longer march with our armies?”(10)

After settling the ‘who’ question, David must empty himself of negative fears that will cancel his abil- ity to believe. He must overcome his feelings of rejection and abandonment by replacing them with the promises of God.

271