Interview 4: Christopher Ash on the Psalms, Part 2

In this episode, Tony continues his conversation with writer-in-residence, Christopher Ash, on his new four-volume commentary on the Psalms. They discuss how Christ would have prayed the Psalms during his earthly life, the structure of the 5 books of the Psalms, and how we approach different genres of psalms such as imprecatory psalms. 

This is part 2 of the interview and you can catch up on part 1 wherever you get your podcasts from.


Editing by Tyndale House. 
Music: Acoustic Happy Background used via Adobe Stock with a standard license.

Transcript

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Hello and

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welcome to another episode of the Tyndale House podcast.

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And today we are carrying on our conversation with Christopher

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Ash, talking about his wonderful four-volume commentary on Psalms, published

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by Crossway, which is such a gift to any pastors, I think, today.

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So, again, as we said last time, thank you very much for doing

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that, Christopher, putting in a few years of very hard work on that. So we, we talked about,

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the, the centrality of Christ in the Psalms and how the New Testament

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sees that and how we’ve lost, lost sight of that in particular

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in the, in the modern world.

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You've commented on Christ as the sufferer,

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and Christ as the king and Christ as the teacher.

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All very key in the Psalms.

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How else do we see?

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What are other ways do we see Christ in the Psalms?

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We see Christ as the one

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who is the man who's going to judge the world in righteousness.

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I forget the Psalm numbers.

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There are two Psalms where we read that the Lord is going to judge

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the world in righteousness, which is clearly echoed in Acts 17. 

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Right.

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This is the man who's going to judge the world in righteousness. 

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And given the clarity of the echo, you think.

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Yeah, you know, this is, this is … he is the,

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the man with divine authority to judge the world.

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I mean, Psalm 45, where the king is addressed as God

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and Hebrews 1quotes

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this of Jesus,

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is one of the most striking examples –

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that he comes with the authority of, of, of God.

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There's also the … this is, I suppose, a sort of sub-

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motif really, that

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Jesus is the King in David's line,

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the anointed King, the leader of God's people. But

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it also makes

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sense of the times when the psalmists, and particularly David,

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speak as though his enemies are God's enemies.

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And there’s a sort of one-to-one equivalence.

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And for most of us, you're thinking,

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you know, as I'm reading a Psalm, just as a believer, I'm thinking,

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I'm not sure I can simply say that people who are against me are against God.

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It's not quite as simple as that. There are plenty of good reasons

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somebody might be against me.

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Yeah, right.

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but there is one man for whom his enemies are precisely God’s enemies.

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So that was a, that was another way. I'm trying to

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remember if there were others, but those were some of the major ways.

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Yeah.

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And also the … a number of the themes of salvation

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that Jesus Christ is the … God's ‘Yes’ to all

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the covenant promises – 2 Corinthians 1.

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Right.

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And that's a really big thing because there's so much

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covenantal language in the Psalms.

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And if we take it that Paul is right in 2 Corinthians 1,

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that the Lord Jesus Christ is God's, ‘Yes’ to all the promises of the covenant,

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then suddenly all that covenantal language becomes

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in foreshadowing Christ

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T: Yeah. Right. C: focused in, in some way.

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And I guess that the Psalm 8, that he's the last Adam.

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He's the manna.

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He's the, he's the one who brings Exodus redemption.

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He's the one who brings us back from exile.

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He's the temple and Zion, the ‘greater than the temple’,

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the one whose body will be destroyed and and rebuilt in three days.

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He's the one who brings his people into the promised land,

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the inheritance, which will be the new heavens and the new earth.

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All these themes.

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It's such a richness, really. Right. It's

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It is sounding rather like all of the major biblical theological

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themes that, that one would trace through Scripture

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C: Yes T: mostly through the historical

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T: and prophetic books, not through the poetic books. C: Yes.

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T: but they’re here too. C: Yes, yes.

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T: What a surprise.

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C: What a surprise.

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And we and we,

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we read them in the light of the whole of the Scriptures and we think, oh, yes,

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I can see. You know, here's a Psalm talking about return from exile or praying for return from exile.

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How's that going to happen?

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And and it’s, so it's profoundly unoriginal.

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Yes. What about the structure of the the Psalter?

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So we have the five books of the Psalms that most of us, most of the time, pay

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no attention to.

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And yet there is clearly this

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fivefold division.

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Is it

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at the end of the, Book two where it says, ‘This is the end of the Psalms of David’? 

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Yes. It is.

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Yes. The end of Psalm 72. And then we have two books where there aren’t many David Psalms, 

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But there are some. But as you say.  And there are more in book five

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Yeah. So what about that fivefold structure?

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How is, how have we got that?

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Why does it matter?

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How has that played into your thinking?

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Yes, I think quite a lot.

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I mean there's been a lot of thinking done on that in recent decades,

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much of it really good as far as I can make out.

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And the signals that the five books … at the end of each book there’s a benediction.

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Then the end of book five, there's a whopping great benediction on steroids.

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146 to 150.

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Um, and the benedictions seem to come out of nowhere.

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I mean, the end of Psalm 89, which is lamenting the dis…,

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the breaking of the covenant, really, with the King.

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Suddenly – I forget the words at the end of Psalm 89 –

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but there's a benediction, rather a strong one.

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Er, yes. Suddenly: ‘Blessed be the Lord forever.

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Amen and amen.’

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Yes, yes. You think

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where did that come from? Yes.

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Because when you've been reading through the Psalm by that stage, you're thinking …

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you're not thinking of saying that at all.

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Have we missed a bit? Have we missed something?

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So these benedictions are kind of punctuation marks at the end of the books.

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I … it's interesting,

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I mean, the end of Psalm 72, you've got the benediction,

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but you've also ‘the prayers of David are ended’

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and that I … is usually taken

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to indicate that Books 1 and 2 were put together probably first,

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and they are overwhelmingly Davidish. Right.

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Not entirely.

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but, you know, Book 1 is overwhelmingly Davidish;

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Book 2 significantly.

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And in one sense, they're not ended because there are some later on.

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But it seems to be an indication this is, this is the earliest collection.

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Book 3 kind of smells of exile.

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It’s not that every Psalm is necessarily from the exile

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but you read Psalm 74 or 79 and then, of course, 89 at the end

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and, you’re thinking the exile sets

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the tone of the atmosphere for Book 3.

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I find that really helpful because then I think, okay, this Psalm’s in Book 3

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I need to keep the exile in my mind. Yes, that is very helpful.

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And then Book 4 … I mean, it’s interesting at the end of Book 4,

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in Psalm 106, you've got a prayer: ‘Gather us from the nations’.

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And then in Psalm 107 at the beginning of Book 5,

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‘Let those who've been gathered from north and south and east and west …’

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So you're thinking, oh, well that's probably not an accident.

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There's something going on there about coming back from exile.

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Right.

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So Book 4 is probably still sort of exile-ish,

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but not quite so painful.

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Right, right.

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And then Book 5, presumably

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after the … put together after the exile. I just find it helpful because it helps us

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to think what historical context,

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what in the history of Israel

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at least shaped the putting together of the book.

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It doesn't mean that all the Psalms in the book

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came from, were written in that time. 

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No. But, but they … the Spirit-inspired editors have put them together

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probably at that sort of time. Yes.

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So, so some … in Book 3, somebody in the exile, presumably,

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is, is gathering those Psalms and saying, these speak to our situation. 

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Yes. These feel like, okay, we've got the first two books

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of David’s Psalms, but we've got a whole bunch of others.

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Yes. Or, or not David Psalms, but other Psalms by other people …

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Yeah, yeah.

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er … maybe now’s a good time to bring some of these together

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Yes. because it fits with where we're at now. 

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Yes, yes.

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And that helps us in reading or singing or speaking them today.

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Yes it does. because we're, we're thinking we are …

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there's a sense in which we are exiles.

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We're away from our home.

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And something of the pain of that

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is, is … fits with, with us.

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One of the things I'd like to talk about is that there are different kinds

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of Psalm. So

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the, the royal Psalms or the enthronement Psalms, it's

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very easy to see for a Christian how they point to Christ.

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So Psalm 2, you know, is a gift of … well, they’re all gifts aren’t they?

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But Psalm 2 at the beginning, very early in the Psalter.

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Oh, yes, I can, I can see Jesus here.

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So, okay, so there are those kinds of Psalms.

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There are, there are laments.

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To what extent do we have to see the, see the laments in Christ?

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Because, you know, Jesus is the Son of God.

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Does he need to lament? And what about imprecatory Psalms?

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So Yes. Yeah. 

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Tell us about the different types of Psalm and whether those categories

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are even really meaningful for you

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in some ways. Yes. It’s been a fashion in scholarship

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for quite a long time to classify

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Psalms and so you read a number of commentaries

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where the commentator feels duty bound to tell you,

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this is a hymn, or this is a communal psalm of lament or something.

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The trouble is, the categories seem to morph and T: Right

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C: I've never found it tremendously helpful, but there clearly are different kinds of psalms.

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There are Psalms where an individual speaks.

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There are Psalms where the people speak corporately.

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There are Psalms where you get a bit of both.

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There are Psalms where you … it's predominantly

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lament, Psalms where it’s predominantly praise,

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sometimes overwhelmingly lament or overwhelmingly praise.

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There clearly are different Psalms … Psalms feel different.

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If you were setting them to music, you’d set them to different kinds of,

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of, of music. That’s undoubtedly true.

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But your point, Tony, about,

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in a sense, the

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so far as Christ is concerned, the easy ones

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– you know, Psalm 2 or Psalm 110 where they're like sort of hyperlinks,

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they just kind of bounce around the New Testament and you think,

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I don't need to be a

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biblical genius to work out

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that this is to do with Jesus. Yeah.

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And then you get others where there doesn't seem to be any …

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certainly no quotation and maybe no clear echo.

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And, and some like Psalm 74, which is a corporate

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prayer of lament,

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pretty, pretty clearly triggered by exile,

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by the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.

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And you're thinking, so what has this got to do

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with Christ?

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I think I've found it very helpful to,

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to remember that,

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even when you've got a corporate voice,

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the whole psalm is we, us, our … 

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there's always

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implicitly some sort of leadership.

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You know, the, the  Old Testament people

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never just spoke … Always in the background

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there was a king, or the hopes for a king, or a covenant head, or leader,

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or a prophet who was leading the people or …implicitly.

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And so it’s, it's not sort of fanciful to think,

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um, this is people with a leader rather than just a random group of people who got together. T: That's a good point.

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So that, I found that helpful … \ The Psalms were not written by committee.

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No, Psalms not written by committee, which is a good thing.

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Yeah. Okay.

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Yeah.

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So the laments presumably

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are...particularly relate to,

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to the suffering of, of Jesus and his … the …

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So the humanity of Jesus seems to be,

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an essential thing to keep in mind as we, as we read the Psalms.

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That? Really, really important. Right.

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And, and I wonder if in some of our churches,

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you know, a child in a Christian home often is taught

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Jesus is God and sort of assumes that God is Jesus.

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And Jesus is

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God incarnate or God the Son incarnate,

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so it’s, it's … that can get lost.

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And, and sometimes I wonder if in some of our circles, we, we've become

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carelessly docetic

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and we just speak of Jesus

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as if he didn't have human feelings.

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And I mean, that's …

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we’re on holy ground, aren’t we?

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But there's a sense in which the Psalms give us a window into the human

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nature of Jesus in the … and, you know, you ask the question,

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what did it feel like to be Jesus of Nazareth?

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And, you know, we have to be prepared to be told

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you don't know and you can't know.

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But it may be that the Psalms, if … because they they give us a real sense

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of what it's like, what it feels like to be a believer, and

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therefore, I don't think we should discount the idea

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that the Psalms might be a window into what it felt like

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to be Jesus in his incarnate …

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That's very interesting C: state on earth.

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and if that’s so, there's something very precious about that.

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Very precious about that. 

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Yeah, yeah.

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But then what about,

00:14:41:05 - 00:14:43:04
er, penitential psalms?

00:14:43:04 - 00:14:45:15
So I mean, the, the classic example, of course, is

00:14:45:22 - 00:14:48:11
Psalm 51, isn't it?

00:14:48:11 - 00:14:49:22
Yes, yes, yes.

00:14:49:22 - 00:14:53:24
Where this…the Superscription tells us that it's

00:14:54:22 - 00:14:58:22
a Psalm of David after Nathan the prophet went to him after he gone into Bathsheba.

00:14:58:22 - 00:15:02:16
So here is, here is David the rapist and the murderer

00:15:04:22 - 00:15:07:22
being penitent in this Psalm,

00:15:07:22 - 00:15:11:19
but Jesus never needed to be penitent.

00:15:11:19 - 00:15:14:18
So what … how do you … What do we do with that?

00:15:14:18 - 00:15:15:18
How do you wiggle around that

00:15:15:18 - 00:15:19:18
one, Christopher? I think, I think we we need to recognize that,

00:15:19:22 - 00:15:23:19
er, prayers of acknowledgment of sinfulness

00:15:23:19 - 00:15:27:09
are sort of woven into the Psalms,

00:15:27:22 - 00:15:29:22
and it's a bit like trying to…

00:15:29:22 - 00:15:34:22
like the 19th century liberals trying to get rid of miracles in the Gospels:

00:15:34:22 - 00:15:39:18
once you start chopping them out, you tear the whole fabric to shreds.

00:15:39:22 - 00:15:43:19
It's a little bit like that in the Psalms, and it's just interesting,

00:15:43:22 - 00:15:45:22
I've jotted down

00:15:45:22 - 00:15:49:18
a couple where part of a psalm

00:15:49:18 - 00:15:52:14
may be quoted of or by Jesus.

00:15:52:22 - 00:15:57:22
So Psalm 31: ‘into your hands I commit my spirit’,

00:15:57:22 - 00:15:59:22
Psalm 31, verse 5.

00:15:59:22 - 00:16:02:22
And the same psalm includes verse 10:

00:16:02:22 - 00:16:07:15
‘My strength fails because of my iniquity.’ So…

00:16:07:22 - 00:16:09:19
you've got two alternatives.

00:16:09:19 - 00:16:14:01
You can say, well, Jesus says one bit, but he doesn't say the other bit

00:16:14:01 - 00:16:16:22
because he had no iniquity.

00:16:16:22 - 00:16:19:22
And then the New Testament writers cherry pick the best…

00:16:19:22 - 00:16:24:16
Yes, that’s it. Or Psalm 40, where verses 4 to 6 are

00:16:24:22 - 00:16:29:04
quoted of Christ in Hebrews 10,

00:16:29:22 - 00:16:33:10
verses 5 to 7, offering himself,

00:16:33:10 - 00:16:37:12
bringing himself, his body, as an offering to God.

00:16:37:22 - 00:16:42:22
But later in the Psalm, in verse 12, my iniquities have overtaken me.

00:16:42:22 - 00:16:44:20
So you have the same problem.

00:16:44:20 - 00:16:46:22
Yeah. And,

00:16:46:22 - 00:16:51:01
it's possible that we’re to imagine

00:16:51:01 - 00:16:55:13
Jesus saying or singing the Psalm, or whatever they did in the synagogue,

00:16:55:13 - 00:17:00:22
but just shutting his mouth at the, at those moments. Right. 

00:17:00:22 - 00:17:03:22
I think that's a little bit difficult.

00:17:03:22 - 00:17:07:14
And the reason, the reason I'm inclined to think that Jesus

00:17:07:14 - 00:17:12:20
does say that is, is partly when he came for his baptism.

00:17:12:20 - 00:17:14:22
I was just about to ask about this.

00:17:14:22 - 00:17:16:13
It’s very striking, isn't it?

00:17:16:13 - 00:17:20:10
He comes for a baptism which signifies repentance. Yes.

00:17:20:10 - 00:17:25:04
And John the Baptist understandably says, you don’t need this.

00:17:25:04 - 00:17:27:02
And he says, no, no, I'm going to do this.

00:17:27:02 - 00:17:29:14
This fulfils all righteousness. Yeah.

00:17:29:14 - 00:17:34:20
And there's some sense in which the shadow of our sin fell on him,

00:17:35:22 - 00:17:39:07
not just in those terrible hours on the cross,

00:17:39:13 - 00:17:42:13
and, and that he …

00:17:42:22 - 00:17:43:22
our sins were

00:17:43:22 - 00:17:49:08
counted to him so that he became sin for us.

00:17:49:08 - 00:17:51:22
Right. And therefore

00:17:51:22 - 00:17:54:22
there was a sense in which he

00:17:54:22 - 00:17:57:22
could lead his people in

00:17:57:22 - 00:17:59:22
repentance. Not that he repents

00:17:59:22 - 00:18:04:05
C: instead of us repenting T: No, No. C: we do need to be a bit careful about that

00:18:04:05 - 00:18:04:22
Yeah.

00:18:04:22 - 00:18:07:22
But that's, that's sort of persuaded me that actually it's more

00:18:07:22 - 00:18:10:22
natural to, to read

00:18:10:22 - 00:18:15:04
Jesus as the one who is paying the penalty of a sinner

00:18:15:22 - 00:18:18:22
because he is

00:18:18:22 - 00:18:22:06
a sinner by imputation.

00:18:22:06 - 00:18:25:22
Our sin has been imputed to him.

00:18:25:22 - 00:18:29:10
And therefore, when he's punished, it's right

00:18:29:10 - 00:18:33:05
that he should be punished because of that. I mean, it's a very deep thing.

00:18:33:05 - 00:18:36:17
Just on Psalm 51, I mean, Psalm

00:18:36:17 - 00:18:40:00
51 is, as you rightly say, the most…

00:18:40:22 - 00:18:42:22
the strongest of those

00:18:42:22 - 00:18:47:16
because we're told that it's after David has gone into Bathsheba.

00:18:47:16 - 00:18:51:09
And, you know, all of that in 1 Samuel 11 and

00:18:52:22 - 00:18:54:14
the, the, the acute problem

00:18:54:14 - 00:18:57:14
with Psalm 51 is that David seems to

00:18:57:22 - 00:19:01:23
acknowledge what we would call, what I think

00:19:01:23 - 00:19:05:12
we'd probably call original sin. sin in his origins.

00:19:05:22 - 00:19:09:15
And I had … when I was working on this, I had a fascinating correspondence

00:19:09:15 - 00:19:11:22
with two friends,

00:19:11:22 - 00:19:15:01
– both people I trust,

00:19:15:22 - 00:19:17:22
both good scholars,

00:19:17:22 - 00:19:22:11
who've … one’s written on Psalms; the other’s a systematic theologian.

00:19:22:11 - 00:19:27:07
One of them said, I don't think Jesus could say Psalm 51

00:19:27:07 - 00:19:31:13
C: because he had no original sin T: Right C: to confess.

00:19:31:13 - 00:19:36:22
The other said, no, I think the becoming sin for us includes that.

00:19:36:22 - 00:19:39:22
And he could.

00:19:39:22 - 00:19:43:07
I came down on the side of the latter, but cautiously,

00:19:43:07 - 00:19:46:14
C: just aware that T: Yeah C: this is really difficult.

00:19:46:22 - 00:19:49:22
yeah, yeah, indeed.

00:19:49:22 - 00:19:53:17
But yes. But the, the, the basic thing

00:19:53:17 - 00:19:58:15
that, that he bears sins

00:19:58:22 - 00:20:01:22
and therefore

00:20:02:05 - 00:20:04:05
iniquities become his iniquities

00:20:04:05 - 00:20:05:05
T: Yeah. C: in a sense.

00:20:05:05 - 00:20:08:05
Yeah. We, we talk about him identifying with sinners,

00:20:08:05 - 00:20:09:05
but, but it is …

00:20:09:05 - 00:20:13:05
but bearing our sin is is an extraordinary degree of identification with us

00:20:13:05 - 00:20:14:23
sinners. It really is.

00:20:14:23 - 00:20:17:12
‘God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us,

00:20:17:12 - 00:20:20:05
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’

00:20:20:05 - 00:20:22:10
That’s, that's a staggering concept.

00:20:22:10 - 00:20:25:13
I read a … I read a really profound meditation,

00:20:25:13 - 00:20:30:05
on Gethsemane by 19th century Scottish writer called Hugh Martin,

00:20:30:05 - 00:20:35:05
and he, he, he says that we tend to assume that

00:20:35:05 - 00:20:37:05
although Jesus bore the punishment, at least

00:20:37:05 - 00:20:41:18
he had the benefit of a clear conscience, that he knew that he didn't deserve it.

00:20:42:05 - 00:20:43:05
And Hugh Martin

00:20:43:05 - 00:20:47:17
is saying, well, I wonder if that's right. Was it not that actually he

00:20:48:05 - 00:20:52:24
he knew everything about that awful feeling in some sense?

00:20:53:05 - 00:20:56:05
And I, I don't know the answer,

00:20:56:05 - 00:21:01:19
but it made me think, I may have read his sufferings rather superficially.

00:21:02:05 - 00:21:04:05
Yeah.

00:21:04:05 - 00:21:05:05
Wow.

00:21:05:05 - 00:21:07:05
Another tricky chara …

00:21:07:05 - 00:21:10:05
category of Psalm or category of Psalm material,

00:21:10:05 - 00:21:13:12
not necessarily whole Psalms, is, is the imprecatory stuff.

00:21:14:05 - 00:21:16:05
So we love Psalm 139,

00:21:16:05 - 00:21:21:05
but often public readings of Psalm 139 stop before the end because C: Yes.

00:21:21:07 - 00:21:24:07
T: Aargh, I don't want to talk about that last bit

00:21:24:07 - 00:21:26:05
C: Please destroy the wicked. Yes.

00:21:26:05 - 00:21:27:05
Okay.

00:21:27:05 - 00:21:29:05
What do we do there? How do we handle those? 

00:21:29:05 - 00:21:32:05
And I’ve …

00:21:33:04 - 00:21:36:05
I’ve worked quite hard on this,

00:21:36:05 - 00:21:40:13
and I've got a sort of a chapter in volume one trying to outline this.

00:21:41:05 - 00:21:43:05
The solution that’s often been offered

00:21:43:24 - 00:21:47:14
is that these expressions of ‘O Lord, 

00:21:47:14 - 00:21:51:07
please destroy the wicked, please defeat the wicked, 

00:21:52:11 - 00:21:54:20
please give judgment against the wicked’, 

00:21:54:20 - 00:21:57:23
that these things are entirely understandable

00:21:58:19 - 00:22:01:19
and the comfortable westerners don't understand it,

00:22:01:19 - 00:22:04:13
but people in persecuted churches really get it. 

00:22:04:13 - 00:22:05:24
Yeah.

00:22:05:24 - 00:22:07:19
In countries where wickedness

00:22:07:19 - 00:22:10:19
is just written large, they really get that.

00:22:10:19 - 00:22:11:06
Yeah.

00:22:11:06 - 00:22:16:04
So … T: I’ve heard Ukrainians say that the imprecatory Psalms have come alive for them.

00:22:16:04 - 00:22:18:08
Yes, yes yes, yes.

00:22:18:08 - 00:22:22:07
And and so the argument has been it's entirely understandable.

00:22:23:06 - 00:22:25:09
Derek Kidner, I think,

00:22:25:09 - 00:22:28:09
says it has the immediacy of a scream.

00:22:29:21 - 00:22:32:10
But they usually go on to say

00:22:32:10 - 00:22:35:04
it's nonetheless wrong.

00:22:35:04 - 00:22:40:03
And one of the most well-known voices who say that they're wrong is C.S.

00:22:40:03 - 00:22:41:07
C: Lewis. T: Yes.

00:22:41:07 - 00:22:44:12
C: in his ‘Reflections on the Psalms’, which personally I think is

00:22:45:01 - 00:22:46:08
perhaps his least good book.

00:22:46:08 - 00:22:47:14
Yes, absolutely. I …

00:22:47:14 - 00:22:50:00
It's a very mixed bag.

00:22:51:05 - 00:22:53:13
I love Lewis, but not ‘Reflections on the Psalms’. 

00:22:53:13 - 00:22:55:01
There's some good things in it but …

00:22:55:01 - 00:22:56:07
Yes, but quite influential

00:22:56:07 - 00:22:59:10
Because he's rightly so well known.

00:23:00:20 - 00:23:03:20
And I think that that ‘it's understandable

00:23:03:20 - 00:23:08:09
but wrong’ is problematical for a variety of reasons,

00:23:08:13 - 00:23:14:09
one of which is that the New Testament … I mean, in Acts 1, speaking of Judas 

00:23:14:09 - 00:23:18:02
Iscariot, quotes from two of the strongest of those Psalms –

00:23:18:02 - 00:23:21:23
from Psalm 69 and Psalm 109 – with no sense of, 

00:23:22:24 - 00:23:25:17
you know … Luke doesn't say, this is a bit awkward, but 

00:23:25:17 - 00:23:30:23
I think maybe you, you know, should get … He just he just cheerfully quotes

00:23:31:04 - 00:23:31:12
Yeah.

00:23:31:12 - 00:23:34:12
from these very strong Psalms

00:23:35:06 - 00:23:38:06
and says, this is, this is this is right,

00:23:38:06 - 00:23:41:24
and this is how it is, and this is a fulfilment of prophecy and so on.

00:23:42:13 - 00:23:45:24
So I'm not sure we can get away with just saying these bits …

00:23:46:05 - 00:23:49:10
it also puts us in the position of judge and jury.

00:23:49:10 - 00:23:50:04
Right.

00:23:50:04 - 00:23:53:11
We read a psalm, we think, this bit's good, this bits good.

00:23:53:15 - 00:23:56:05
This bit – ooh, this bit isn't so good.

00:23:56:05 - 00:24:01:02
And that's a dangerous position to be in when reading Scripture.

00:24:02:02 - 00:24:04:14
I found it very helpful to

00:24:04:14 - 00:24:07:14
reflect that the,

00:24:09:13 - 00:24:10:13
they're not, 

00:24:10:13 - 00:24:13:13
properly speaking, imprecations,

00:24:13:16 - 00:24:17:15
because an imprecation is a curse which is given

00:24:18:03 - 00:24:21:06
from one person to another.

00:24:21:06 - 00:24:22:13
Ignore God.

00:24:22:22 - 00:24:25:01
So Bernard Anderson, one of the...Old Testament

00:24:25:01 - 00:24:29:10
scholars, points out that it's actually a misapplication, of the word.

00:24:30:02 - 00:24:32:22
So I do use the word imprecation, imprecatory, 

00:24:32:22 - 00:24:35:23
but I put it in, in, scare quotes

00:24:35:23 - 00:24:38:18
Because I don't much like that.

00:24:38:18 - 00:24:40:18
Right.

00:24:40:18 - 00:24:44:06
But it's the fact that they’re prayers

00:24:44:16 - 00:24:47:23
rather than curses is important.

00:24:48:09 - 00:24:51:17
And also that they’re prayers for God to do

00:24:51:17 - 00:24:54:17
what God has promised to do.

00:24:54:23 - 00:24:56:23
So they’re prayers that God will do what

00:24:56:23 - 00:25:00:20
in the covenant he has committed himself to do.

00:25:00:20 - 00:25:01:10
Yeah, right.

00:25:01:10 - 00:25:06:11
They’re not, let me think of the most vindictive things I can …

00:25:06:23 - 00:25:08:18
think out of my nasty mind.

00:25:08:18 - 00:25:11:02
T: Yeah, right. C: And pray for God to do those.

00:25:11:21 - 00:25:15:17
So in Oracle against Babylon in Isaiah,

00:25:16:02 - 00:25:21:10
the echo of Psalm 137 – children being dashed against the rocks...

00:25:21:10 - 00:25:22:22
Yeah, yeah. It's there.

00:25:22:22 - 00:25:27:08
So it's not, it's not, it's not that the Psalmists are praying for something 

00:25:28:10 - 00:25:31:02
out of the top of their heads, out of their meanness. They’re praying 

00:25:31:02 - 00:25:34:02
God will do something that he's committed to doing.

00:25:34:02 - 00:25:37:09
But I do find that the er, the ....

00:25:39:20 - 00:25:43:16
seeing the Psalms as often, 

00:25:44:03 - 00:25:47:00
if not always, the words of Jesus helps,

00:25:47:00 - 00:25:50:06
because if I, as an individual pray, 

00:25:51:05 - 00:25:55:00
Lord, please punish the wicked, I'm praying for my own destruction.

00:25:55:00 - 00:25:58:00
T: Yeah, right. Yeah.

00:25:58:07 - 00:26:02:08
Whereas Jesus can pray that, while at the same time

00:26:02:08 - 00:26:05:09
praying for the salvation of those who are going to be saved.

00:26:05:22 - 00:26:06:12
So

00:26:06:12 - 00:26:09:14
does that...that relates also to the individualism

00:26:09:14 - 00:26:13:05
that we read the Psalms with, again, doesn't it, that that

00:26:13:20 - 00:26:16:22
that the, the imprecatories so called imprecatory things

00:26:17:05 - 00:26:20:14
they are problematic for us when we read them individualistically

00:26:20:19 - 00:26:22:08
because it looks like us against the world.

00:26:22:08 - 00:26:26:14
But what you're saying is you know, this is this is part of the bigger picture.

00:26:26:14 - 00:26:29:03
God is opposed to evil. C: Yes.

00:26:29:03 - 00:26:34:11
T: And therefore we can pray those kinds of things with C: with great humility

00:26:35:10 - 00:26:36:08
and with trembling.

00:26:36:08 - 00:26:39:02
Really. And in

00:26:39:02 - 00:26:41:23
Christ, I guess there's a sense in which

00:26:41:23 - 00:26:45:16
when we pray the Lord's Prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done.

00:26:45:18 - 00:26:47:12
on earth as it is in heaven.

00:26:47:12 - 00:26:49:03
We're praying for the final judgment

00:26:49:03 - 00:26:50:17
really. T: Yeah.

00:26:50:17 - 00:26:53:09
C: And that will be a good thing.

00:26:53:09 - 00:26:54:17
Yeah,

00:26:54:17 - 00:26:57:01
well, it will indeed be a good thing.

00:26:57:01 - 00:26:59:15
But a sobering thing too. So

00:26:59:15 - 00:27:01:20
Christopher, thank you so much for these conversations.

00:27:01:20 - 00:27:03:08
It's been, it's been great.

00:27:03:08 - 00:27:05:11
We've we've just scratched the surface.

00:27:05:11 - 00:27:08:11
There's a, there's a lot of psalms, aren’t there? C: There’s a lot of psalms

00:27:08:12 - 00:27:11:12
Yeah. And, I think you've had,

00:27:11:13 - 00:27:15:03
well some frustrations, but I think you've had a lot of great enjoyment writing these.

00:27:15:13 - 00:27:18:23
I get the sense from the conversations we've had over coffee time

00:27:18:23 - 00:27:22:21
here, that you've had to scratch your head and dig deep,

00:27:24:01 - 00:27:26:05
but also have found, found great joy.

00:27:26:05 - 00:27:29:21
And that just oozes out of, of of what I've read so far

00:27:29:21 - 00:27:32:08
in the first volume, so thank you.

00:27:32:08 - 00:27:34:06
Thank you Tony and thank you for your encouragement.

00:27:34:06 - 00:27:35:06
Thanks very much.

00:27:35:06 - 00:27:36:02
Thank you for joining us.

00:27:36:02 - 00:27:39:02
Please do join us for more interviews and,

00:27:39:16 - 00:27:41:22
other things coming up in the Tyndale House podcast.

00:27:41:22 - 00:27:45:16
We've got a series coming up soon on manuscripts,

00:27:45:16 - 00:27:49:03
New Testament manuscripts, so watch out for that coming soon.

00:27:49:11 - 00:27:52:22
There's a second series of names which you may have seen already,

00:27:53:02 - 00:27:55:24
or you may still be waiting for it.

00:27:55:24 - 00:27:57:23
It depends when you watch this or listen to it.

00:27:57:23 - 00:27:58:05
But thanks for joining us. Bye bye.