The Faith of a Faithful People Under Siege

Meditations on Scripture

Psalm 89: Part II and a Portion from Ezekiel

Asterisk (*) indicates a new verse.

God makes a big promise to David and his progeny. He has chosen someone to lead his chosen people. We have a chosen leader for a chosen people who are on a special mission in the world. The promise is embellished here and intended to promote vast expansion of the influence of God-worship.

You spoke once in vision and said to your faithful people: *

“I have set the crown upon a warrior

and have exalted one chosen out of the people.

I have found David my servant; *

with my holy oil have I anointed him.

My hand will hold him fast *

and my arm will make him strong.

No enemy shall deceive him, *

nor any wicked man bring him down.

I will crush his foes before him *

and strike down those who hate him.

My faithfulness and love shall be with him, *

and he shall be victorious through my Name.

I shall make his dominion extend *

from the Great Sea to the River."

In response to the promise, David responds with a declaration of faith. He affirms his relationship with God as a son and a father.

"He will say to me, ‘You are my Father, *

my God, and the rock of my salvation.’"

God agrees regarding that relationship. God reaffirms the covenant and all that it entails. It is permanent. It is passed on from generation. The choice has been made. The instrument of declaring divine glory has been entrusted to a nation with a special leader.

It is rooted and grounded in love and God is the guarantor.

"I will make him my firstborn *

and higher than the kings of the earth.

I will keep my love for him for ever, *

and my covenant will stand firm for him.

I will establish his line for ever *

and his throne as the days of heaven.”

Yet, there is a warning. This intimate and familial relationship means that the Father may discipline the child. The old adage, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you” seems like hyperbole, but it is real.

It creates agony for God to harshly punish, but if that is what is required to bring back the straying sheep and protect them from danger, that is what will be done.

“If his children forsake my law *

and do not walk according to my judgments;

If they break my statutes *

and do not keep my commandments;

I will punish their transgressions with a rod *

and their iniquities with the lash;"

There is a limit to this judgment and chastisement, The limit is love. God’s love will never fail for God’s chosen ones. Nor will that love allow God to forget the enduring promises.

But I will not take my love from him, *

nor let my faithfulness prove false.

I will not break my covenant, *

nor change what has gone out of my lips.

Once for all I have sworn by my holiness: *

When God says David’s line will endure, then David’s line will endure. God’s people, God’s abiding witness – these are done deals.

‘I will not lie to David.

His line shall endure for ever *

and his throne as the sun before me;

It shall stand fast for evermore like the moon, *

the abiding witness in the sky.’”

If you are looking for some type of security, you have come to the right place. God has placed the integrity of eternity on the line.

But covenants are two ways. Here we find that this psalm has a place for lament. David and David’s people have broken faith with the covenant that keeps them secure. It is a mournful matter.

So, the complaint is that God, who promised to never cast off the chosen leader and chosen nation has done so.

Why, because the chosen ones have forgotten the One who chose them.

The people are singing their part and God’s part in this hymn.

They are trying to look at their plight from their perspective and from God’s perspective. It creates a point and counterpoint.

We are rejected, they feel.

You are not rejected; you are being chastised. Chastisement is often experienced as rejection. That is short-term experience only.

"But you have cast off and rejected your anointed; *

you have become enraged at him.

You have broken your covenant with your servant, *

defiled his crown, and hurled it to the ground.

You have breached all his walls *

and laid his strongholds in ruins.

All who pass by despoil him; *

he has become the scorn of his neighbors.

You have exalted the right hand of his foes *

and made all his enemies rejoice.

You have turned back the edge of his sword *

and have not sustained him in battle.

You have put an end to his splendor *

and cast his throne to the ground.

You have cut short the days of his youth *

and have covered him with shame."

Paraphrase

The people pray.

The people plead.

Life is short.

Show us your lovingkindness.

We long for the good old days of our relationship.

Stop hiding. Get over your anger. Show us your love again.

We are dying. We need you and we worship you.

Please turn the lights back on.

--------------------------------------------

"How long will you hide yourself, O LORD?

will you hide yourself for ever? *

how long will your anger burn like fire?

Remember, LORD, how short life is, *

how frail you have made all flesh.

Who can live and not see death? *

who can save himself from the power of the grave?

Where, Lord, are your loving-kindnesses of old, *

which you promised David in your faithfulness?

Remember, Lord, how your servant is mocked, *

how I carry in my bosom the taunts of many peoples,

The taunts your enemies have hurled, O LORD, *

which they hurled at the heels of your anointed."

This is the experience of a people in pain, chastised, disciplined, yet loved. They are seeking to understand present reality against the backdrop of eternal renewal.

Thus, they say and sing:

Blessed be the LORD for evermore! *

Amen, I say, Amen.

Now, here comes Ezekiel, but its centuries later. This must seem like rejection on steroids. Jerusalem is under siege. The people are going to be marched into Babylon.

The upheaval of circumstances will send their faith into spasm and God’s answer is a man laying on his side in the dirt for months and months and then, not getting up, but turning on the other side.

The God of surprises who appears to be rejecting us, but is truly preserving us, is going to do a new thing in the next seventy years.

God is going to deepen the understanding of what the covenant has been about and fashion a fresh Judaism out of the old. Every new thing is built upon something old, the religion of the desert, of the conquest, of the United Kingdom, and now, siege.

Faith under siege!

Hear the words of the prophet;

Ezekiel 4:1-17

"And you, O mortal, take a brick and set it before you. On it portray a city, Jerusalem; and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around.

Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it.

This is a sign for the house of Israel.

Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it; you shall bear their punishment for the number of the days that you lie there.

For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; and so you shall bear the punishment of the house of Israel.

When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, one day for each year.

You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and with your arm bared you shall prophesy against it.

See, I am putting cords on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread for yourself.

During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred ninety days, you shall eat it. The food that you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; at fixed times you shall eat it. And you shall drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin; at fixed times you shall drink. You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.

The LORD said, "Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will drive them."

Then I said, "Ah Lord GOD! I have never defiled myself; from my youth up until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has carrion flesh come into my mouth."

Then he said to me, "See, I will let you have cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread."

Then he said to me, Mortal, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. Lacking bread and water, they will look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment."