Psalms for Turbulent Times - Part 11
Psalm 94
By Jim Jester
June 6, 2021
Scripture Reading: Psalm 52:1-9
1 To the chief Musician. A contemplation of David; when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, and said unto him, “David is come to the house of Ahimelech.”
“Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? The goodness of God endureth continually. 2 Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. 3 Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. 4 Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue.
5 God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah [“…and the band played on.”]. 6 The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him: 7 Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. 9 I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.”
This lament of David is different than most. It does not start out with the usual appeal to God to hear the petition for deliverance; instead, the psalmist immediately launches into an attack on the wicked man whose only commitment is to his wealth, and then sets forth the happy status of the righteous whose ultimate commitment is to God. Yes, the steadfast love of our covenant God endures “like a green olive tree.”
The historical occasion (q.v., I Samuel 22) in the title of this psalm is important to its interpretation. In verses, 1-4 is the commitment of the wicked; verses 5-7 tell of his fate (Who’s fate?); and verses 8-9 reveals the resolve of the righteous.
Who is this evil “mighty man” spoken of in the first verse of the psalm? It is Doeg, the Edomite. Smith’s Bible Dictionary says of Doeg: “An Idumean, chief of Saul’s herdsmen (B.C. 1062). He was at Nob when Ahimelech gave David the sword of Goliath, and not only gave information to Saul, but when others declined the office, he himself executed the king’s order to destroy the priests of Nob, with their families, to the number of 85 persons, together with all their property.” – Smith
David is hiding in the cave of Adullam because King Saul is trying to kill him. He went to Mizpah and then to the forest of Hereth with his men. Saul is trying to figure out where David is; and Doeg the Edomite (jew) hints (or lies) that he might be at Nob, the home of Ahimelech and all the priests. He told the story of what he had seen at Nob, adding the unfounded statement that Ahimelech had inquired of the Lord for David. Doeg’s tale was true as a statement, but false in its implication. Such is the treachery of the jew.
We pick up the story in First Samuel chapter 22:
13 “And Saul said to him [Ahimelech, the priest], ‘Why have you made designs against me with the son of Jesse, giving him [David] food and a sword and getting directions from the Lord for him, and helping him to take up arms against me, and to be on the watch to make a secret attack on me as he is doing now?’ 14 Then Ahimelech answering said to the king, ‘Who among all your servants is so true to you as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and is a captain of your armed men, and has a place of honor in your house? 15 Is this the first time I have got directions from God for him? Far be the thought! Let the king make no such statement against his servant or my father’s family, for your servant has no knowledge, great or small, of this thing.’ 16 And the king said, ‘You will certainly be put to death, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s family.’ – I Sam. 22:13-16, BBE
The Expositor’s Bible makes this observation on v. 13:
“The charge brought against Ahimelech was a very offensive one; in so far, it was a statement of facts, but of facts placed in an odious light, of facts colored with a design, which Ahimelech never entertained. Oh, how many an innocent man has suffered in this way! Even in courts of justice, by pleaders whose interest is on the other side, and sometimes by judges steeped in hatred and prejudice; how often have acts that were quite innocent been put to the account of treason, or of malice, or cunningly forged into a chain, indicating a deliberate design to injure another! It can never be too earnestly insisted, to be just to a man you must not merely ascertain the real facts of his case, but you must put the facts in their true light, and not color them with prejudices of your own or with suppositions which the man repudiates.”
Picking up the narrative again at verse 17:
17 Then the king said to the runners who were waiting near him, ‘Put the priests of the Lord to death; because they are on David’s side, and having knowledge of his flight, did not give me word of it.’ But the king’s servants would not put out their hands to make an attack on the Lord’s priests. 18 Then the king said to Doeg, ‘You are to put the priests to death.’ And Doeg the Edomite, turning on the priests and attacking them, put to death that day eighty-five men who took up the ephod. 19 And Nob, the town of the priests, he put to the sword, all the men and women, children and babies at the breast, and oxen and asses and sheep.” – I Sam. 22:17-19, BBE
Thus, it appears that Doeg the jew was lying so he could add to his wealth and position (q.v., I Sam. 22:7, Saul’s implication of rewards). Furthermore, since the servants of the king would not carry out the sentence, Doeg was given the order, which he gladly carried out. Jews joy in killing the righteous. And notice how hateful and cruel Saul had become in his own self-will. At one time, he spared Agag, but now he has no mercy for the priests of God, or their town. How spiritually dark the king had become.
The slaughter of the priests at Nob by Doeg the Edomite was one of the most gruesome and unjust events in Israel’s history. It would be the equivalent of the destruction of Christianity today. What if all Christian ministers were arrested and either killed or silenced? There is a move on today by Jews, Leftists, Democrats, and “woke” corporations – all of communist persuasion – to destroy the Christian faith. Could they succeed? No. Even if they did silence all ministers, they would not destroy the Christian faith. In fact, the persecution would make the true faith grow.
In the News
Pentagon’s War on MAGA
Analysis National Security | May 10, 2021 | Paul Crespo
Despite serious constitutional concerns, lack of evidence to justify the effort, and even top commanders’ stating that they have ‘zero extremists’ in their ranks, the Biden Pentagon continues its dangerous, shamelessly politicized, McCarthy-like witch hunt against conservatives in the U.S. military. The far left, enabled by the establishment media, has been pushing a false narrative of an ‘extremist’ threat to the nation – especially in the military.
Using that false narrative and the riot by a few hundred unarmed rioters at the Capitol on January 6 as pretext, the far-left, now firmly entrenched in the Biden Administration, is waging a full-scale war on anything, or anyone MAGA (Make America Great Again). This new definition now involves the vast majority of Republicans who voted for Trump, and any other conservatives the Pentagon deems to designate ‘extremist.’ It even has a category called ‘patriot extremism.’
This draconian Pentagon effort is far worse than you may have thought. It goes well beyond identifying ‘white supremacists,’ or ‘anarchists.’ It is simply a war on conservatives, and is now led by a West Point graduate, decorated combat veteran who is also a radical leftist.
As reported by Fox News, military veteran, Pete Hegseth explained how the Pentagon plans to “redefine extremism” with its appointment of this leftist extremist – Bishop Garrison – as senior adviser to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Hegseth calls the witch hunt a ‘Patriot Purge.’
As the new head of the U.S. military’s “Countering Extremism” task force, this Trump-hating, neo-Marxist, ‘critical race theory’ advocate, partisan hack is the man who will now separate permissible “opinion” at the Pentagon, from purgeable “extremism.” Bishop Garrison is a 1619 race project activist, who openly tweeted that he believes all Trump supporters are racist and extremists.
Please note that the U.S. Defense Department is the nation’s largest employer, overseeing 2.9 million personnel.
From Natural News
The masses walking around society today have become a death cult of lunatics who believe a long list of insane, self-destructive things:
- That being injected with experimental vaccines will “save” them.
- That America needs to be destroyed because of “systemic racism.”
- That men can have babies, women can produce sperm and children should be physically maimed as young as six years old to achieve “gender equality.”
- That nobody needs to work any longer, and that government should simply pay everyone to be consumers, not producers.
- That Big Pharma, the CDC and Fauci are all good faith operators who are trying to help humanity and save lives.
- That all fossil fuels are inherently bad and society should shut down all pipelines and refineries, plunging America into mass starvation and chaos, all in the name of “the environment.”
- That all White people are racist, and that violence and discrimination against Whites is “justice” or “equality.”
- That communism is wonderful, and America would be a much better country if it were ruled by China.
- That all police are bad, and society would be far better off if all police were eliminated and criminal gangs allowed to run free.
These are destructive ideas, yet they are being pushed so aggressively by the contrived fake news media and culture programming channels that most Americans now believe these things. – Mike Adams
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Well, both of these news stories are based on deceptions or lies. Just as we read in the Scriptures about Doeg. The first based on the false narrative of a so-called “insurrection” (the Capitol, January 6th) by Trump supporters; and the second, a whole list of destructive lies that many people have been propagandized to believe since the Covid attack.
Well, what is next? Unless our Lord delivers our nation, we can probably expect the following (Also from Mike Adams of Natural News):
The Five Phases of Vaccine Compliance
With new information provided by a contact in the federal government, I’ve been able to further refine the escalation hierarchy of vaccine compliance that’s being pursued by the Biden regime. There are five distinct phases to this escalation:
Phase 1 – Voluntary (pushed by media propaganda, paying off social media influencers, doctors, etc.). This phase ensnares those who are gullible enough to think being injected with spike protein weapons will somehow “save” them or set them free.
Phase 2 – Incentives (lottery tickets, free beer, free donuts, etc.). This phase ensnares those who are stupid enough to trade their lives for beer and donuts. There are a lot of these people, and even the globalists realize that such low IQ people have nothing to contribute to human civilization.
Phase 3 – Private sector punishments – in this stage they use corporations to deny people access to services (such as air travel, cruise ships, restaurants, sporting events, concerts, etc.). This phase hopes to make being unvaccinated extremely inconvenient. WE ARE HERE NOW.
Phase 4 – Criminal fines or jail time (government sector) – This phase will kick in after the fake news media blames the unvaxxed for continued spike protein outbreaks that are killing people. Laws will be passed in some jurisdictions that require constant vaccines and booster shots. Any who refuse to comply will be fined or jailed. You can expect this push to originate in blue states.
Phase 5) – Kinetic (military sector) – open biological and kinetic warfare on the American people, carried out by the “woke” military against the citizens. This phase will take place after the vaccine deep state works with the Biden/Obama regime to stage a massive false flag shooting tragedy that can be blamed on anti-vaxxers and gun owners. Once this event is carried out, the Democrats will call for turning the U.S. military against the citizens to carry out gun confiscation and force covid-19 vaccines at gunpoint.
As I was told by a government insider, the Biden regime has been ordered to achieve a 70% vaccination rate among adults no matter what it takes. The false flag attack being engineered by the deep state will serve to provide the “moral justification” narrative to violate any last shred of civil rights, human rights or medical ethics when it comes to assaulting innocent Americans with deadly spike protein injections (also called “vaccines”).
In essence, a vaccine holocaust is the plan. Depopulation is the desired outcome of this nefarious plan, followed by economic collapse and the destruction of the United States. The very people carrying out this plan are the same people who rigged the 2020 election and achieved a political coup to illegally seize power. Now they are using that power to turn America against itself in an act of national suicide. – Mike Adams
Psalm 94
1 “O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself. 2 Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.
3 LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? 4 How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves? 5 They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage. 6 They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
7 Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. 8 Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise? 9 He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? 10 He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? 11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.
12 Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law; 13 That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. 14 For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. 15 But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? 17 Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. 18 When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up. 19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.
20 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? 21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. 22 But the LORD is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge. 23 And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.”
First, there is no superscription to this psalm. There is no indication of its authorship, of the period in which it was written, or of the circumstances to which it refers. There are many of these anonymous hymns in the Word of God. This psalm is composed of two major parts, a lament of the community (v. 1-15), and a lament of an individual (v. 16-23); all of which carries the theme of God’s judgment upon the wicked.
The Lament of the Community (v. 1-15)
The theme of God the Judge is closely allied to that of God the King, in which His coming to judge the world is the subject of joyous praise. This psalm hymns God’s retributive sway, for which it passionately cries, and confidently trusts. Insolent rulers, who have poisoned the fountains of justice, condemned the innocent, enacted unjust laws, and making prey of the helpless, oppress Israel. These are not foreign oppressors, for they are “among the people” (v. 8); and how well Americans should understand this today – their own government is their worst enemy.
First comes an invocation to God as the Judge of the earth (Ps. 94:1-2), “…Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.” Then follow groups of four verses each, subdivided into pairs, the first of these (Ps. 94:3-6) pictures the doings of the oppressors; the second (Ps. 94:7-11) quotes their delusion that their crimes are unseen by the God of Jacob, and refutes their dream of impunity, emphatically asserting the truth that these mockers denied. The third group declares the blessedness of the men whom God teaches, and the certainty of His retribution to vindicate the cause of the righteous (Ps. 94:12-15).
Vengeance in the hands of God is not a matter of personal grudge, but the righting of wrongs and the establishment of justice. The troublemakers are guilty of arrogance, pride, cruelty, and atheism (v. 4-7). But, for them to say “The Lord does not see,” is to mark themselves as fools who are guilty of willful stupidity. How can the Almighty not be aware of their deeds? “…He that formed the eye, shall he not see” (v. 9)? He certainly does know! “To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste” (Deut. 32:35).
The Lament of the Individual (v. 16-23)
This lament is in the spirit of an affirmation of faith. “Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?” asks the unknown singer in his own need as one of the oppressed community. He remembers that he would have been killed if not for the help the Lord had given him in the past, which calms his present anxieties (v. 16-19). He is not at all in doubt about the answer. He knows the Lord rises up for him, because if He had not, his soul would have already been “settled in silence” (or “dead”, v. 17).
Verses 20-21 speak of those who “frame mischief by a law” and “condemn the innocent blood.” In other words, the wicked cause evil by drafting laws that will encourage sinful deeds. They love to turn things backwards and call evil good and good evil. They are enacting wicked laws, or propounding wicked interpretations of the law. Iniquity is never so daring as when it is supported by the sanction of law. A thing may be right legally, yet utterly wrong morally – and right morally, yet wrong legally. America is full of examples of this. Whenever I see the words “innocent blood”, I think of the “holocaust” of Abortion. They call it a “medical procedure” – God calls it murder. Furthermore, there are other crimes of shedding innocent blood in America.
There’s a big difference between what is “legal” and what is “lawful.” God defines what is lawful, and society should base their laws accordingly. Man defines what is legal, and it is irrelevant if not in accordance with God’s Law.
Conclusion
The last strophe [A structural division of a poem containing stanzas of varying line-length, especially an ode or free verse poem.], verses 20-23, weaves together a finale, much as a musician does in the last bars of his composition, the main themes of the psalm: the evil deeds of unjust rulers, the trust of the psalmist, his confidence in the annihilation of the oppressors, and the revealing of God as the God of Israel. Thus, this last part of the psalm sums up the whole.
The height of crime is reached when rulers use the forms of justice as masks for injustice, and give legal sanction to “mischief.” The ancient world groaned under such travesties against the sanctity of Law; and the modern world is not free from them, especially in the USA. The question often tortures faithful hearts, “Can such doings be sanctioned by God, or in any way be connected to Him?” To the psalmist the worst part of these rulers’ wickedness was that, in his doubting moments, it raised the terrible suspicion that God was perhaps on the side of the oppressors. However, when such thoughts came surging upon him, he fell back, as we all have to do, on personal experience and on renewed trust – “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief” (Mk. 9:24).
The psalmist remembered what God had been to him in past moments of danger, and he claimed Him for the same now, his own refuge and fortress. Strong in that individual experience and conviction, he gained confidence and faith. All God had to do with the throne of iniquity and destruction, was to overthrow it and root out the evildoers, whose own sins will be their ruin. The retribution prayed for in the first few verses will surely be meted out to the wicked. Then the Lord Jesus Christ will be known, not only as the God of the individual, but also as the refuge and salvation for the community of Israel. “…Yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off” (v. 23).
Psalm 94 (Part 1) by Isaac Watts, “I Sing the Mighty Power of God”, ELLACOMBE, 8686.
1. O God, to whom re-venge be-longs,
Pro-claim Thy wrath a-loud;
Let sov-‘reign pow’r re-dress our wrongs,
Let jus-tice smite the proud.
2. They say, “The Lord nor sees nor hears:”
When will the fools be wise?
Can He be deaf who formed their ears?
Or blind, who made their eyes?
3. He knows their im-pi-ous thoughts are vain,
And they shall feel His power;
His wrath shall pierce their souls with pain
In some sur-pris-ing hour.
4. But if Thy saints de-serve re-buke,
Thou hast a gent-ler rod;
Thy pro-vi-den-ces and Thy Book
Shall make them know their God.
5. Blest is the man Thy hands chas-tise,
And to his du-ty draw;
Thy scourg-es make Thy child-ren wise
When they for-get Thy law.
6. But God will ne’er cast off His saints,
Nor His own pro-mise break,
He par-dons His in-her-i-tance
For their Redeemer’s sake.
