PSALMS OF THE HEART 3

 

Art: By The Rrivers of Babylon by Gebhard Fugel 1920

Book Three (Psalms 73-89): Grapples with crisis, national pain, and the Babylonian exile.

The seizure of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 B.C. was horrific:

“The siege lasted for eighteen months, during which time the people of Jerusalem were starved to the point of cannibalism (see Lamentations 4:8-10). As the final defences broke down and the Babylonians became victorious, King Zedekiah and his army fled toward the Jordan River but were captured. He was forced to watch as his family was murdered, and then the Babylonians put out his eyes and took him captive to Babylon.

“The city was burned, Solomon’s temple was destroyed, and the kingdom of Judah came to an end. According to Jeremiah, the Babylonians took the remnant of the people captive to Babylon except for some who were left behind under Babylonian rule (see Jeremiah 39:8-10). Thus Nebuchadnezzar was able to control Judah by keeping the leaders in captivity, and some few of the people were allowed to remain behind to harvest the crops. The breakup and displacement of the Jews removed the threat of national revival. (Old Testament Student Manual Book 2: The Lasting Effects of the Fall and Captivity of Judah)

The Book of Psalms lets us experience this painful event in Judah’s history first-hand through the lamentation of Asaph:

“O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; they holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. How long, Lord? Wilt thou be angry for ever? Shall thy jealousy burn like fire? For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place. O remember not against us former iniquities; let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us; for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation for the glory of thy name; and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (Psalm 79:1,5,7,8,9; Psalm 80:7).

I literally cried reading this. There is a great lesson to be learnt in repentance and that is that even forgiveness of our sins cannot wipe away consequences. They serve a mighty purpose, the memory of suffering through them deters a return to former sins:

“The captivity had a profound effect on Judaism. Scholars almost universally agree that the Jews never returned to image worship after the captivity. The fall of Jerusalem was a great turning point in Israel’s religious life. From earliest times the sin of idolatry had existed in Israel, and the prophets of every age had combated it. After the fall, idolatry eased to be a problem for the Jews.

“The captivity seemed to impress upon the minds of the Jewish people that the God of Israel was, indeed, a jealous God. The prophets had been right in their warnings of the doom and destruction that would follow if the people did not repent and follow their God and Him only. The nation, as a whole, accepted the verdict that God’s wrath had been poured down upon them for the sin of image worship. They reached the conclusion that only the God of Israel should be worshipped. Henceforth, Israel became a very zealous nation for its God. This zeal took the form of devotion to Jehovah’s law, which led over the years to the creation of numerous rules of conduct that went beyond the law itself. This has been described as building “a hedge around the Law to render its infringement or modification impossible” (Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 2 Vols.; Old Testament Student Manual 2: The Lasting Effects of the Fall and Captivity of Judah)

The captivity of Judah was like a cleansing fire that brought the nation to its senses which purged the sin of idolatry from their very being. The Messianic Psalm 89 echoes the mercy, greatness, justice and judgment of the Holy One of Israel and Judah’s vision of the coming of Messiah to restore the throne of David through Christ, God’s Firstborn.  What hope such words must have been to the suffering of the souls of Judah’s nation in the midst of their repentance:

“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord? The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. For the Lord is our defence and the Holy One of Israel is our king.” (Psalm 89:1,6,11,14,18)

The scars of sin do not last forever. The sin is purged when sin is discarded and our hearts are turned to Him who can make us whole again. He is our Saviour, our Redeemer, our all…

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

THE SCATTERING

 

Jerusalem O Jerusalem by Greg Olsen

“In the desert of Sinai, Moses gathered the children of Israel at the foot of a mountain. There the Lord declared that he wanted to turn this group of recently liberated slaves into a mighty people. “Ye shall be unto me”, He said, “a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). He promised that they would flourish and prosper, even when surrounded by larger, more powerful enemies.

“All this would happen not because the Israelites were numerous or strong or skillful. It would happen, the Lord explained, if they would “obey [His] voice indeed, and keep [His] covenant” (Exodus 19:5). God’s power, not their own, would make them mighty.

“Yet the Israelites didn’t always obey God’s voice, and over time they stopped keeping His covenant. Many worshipped other gods and adopted the practices of the cultures around them. They rejected the very thing that made them a distinct nation – their covenant relationship with the Lord. Without God’s power protecting them, there was nothing to stop their enemies (see 2 Kings 17:6-7; 2 Chronicles 36:12-20).” (Jesus Will Say to All Israel, Come Home, Come Follow Me For Home and Church, LDS Gospel Library, month of July)

Before Israelites entered the promised land  Moses prophesied they shall turn away from the worship of Jehovah and as a consequence be utterly destroyed and scattered among all nations (Deuteronomy 4:25-31).

This prophecy was fulfilled with the first dispersion of the Ten Tribes of the Southern Kingdom of Israel in 724 B.C. The King of Assyria besieged Samaria and after 3 years of the siege he carried the Ten Tribes into captivity.  A repentant portion of the Ten Tribes were led away by God into the north countries and will return at an appointed time. They are called the Ten Lost Tribes and are spoken of in the Apocrypha (2 Esdras 13:41-46; Jeremiah 3:18; 16:15; 31:8; 1 Nephi 22:4; 3 Nephi 17:4).

The Kingdom of Judah was led into Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar in three main waves of exile: 1. 605 B.C. – all skilled and educated and less evil which included Daniel and his three friends; 2. 597 B.C. – the second and largest wave included the royal court and thousands of skilled craftsmen; 3. 586 B.C. – the third and most devastating wave, following the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple.

The fourth and final wave was the most horrific of all. In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus prophesied to his disciples of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (see Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). This prophecy was fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Roman Emperor Titus marched into Jerusalem.

And this is the interesting part. I always thought that the Romans were the aggressors and villains who destroyed Jerusalem but it would seem that Titus didn’t have such a big job to do. When he arrived, he discovered that different factions of the Jewish population were at each other’s throats, destroying their food supplies and basically killing each other.

Titus summed up the situation beautifully. A trench was dug around Jerusalem to ensure isolation and make it difficult for people to get out past the walls to search for food. Whoever escaped the city was crucified.  When the food supplies ran out, a terrible famine struck the once opulent city and turned it into a scene of carnage and plunder. Even Titus was sick at heart at the daily horrors he witnessed or heard of. As the temple became a fort, Titus attacked it as such. It wasn’t long before fire was set to it and not one stone upon another was left, as Jesus foretold. Six thousand people perished in the flames of the temple and more than a million and a half of Jews perished in this war. Many were also sold into slavery and thus ‘scattered among all nations’ (see Smith and Sjodahl, Commentary, pp 260-261)

The scattering of the 12 Tribes of Israel is the greatest tragedy of this earth’s history. To be promised so much and to reject it defies logic. The scattering is also the greatest witness, bar the Atonement, of Jehovah’s mercy. He has promised He will never break His covenant with Israel (Deut 4:31; Leviticus 26:44,46; Isaiah 49:15,16; 2 Kings 13:23).

The gathering has commenced…..now is the time when “Jesus will say to all Israel, Come home”.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN