Prayer in the Apcrypha 1: Tobit and Sarah Cry in the Dark Night

 “The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds, and it will not rest until it reaches its goal; it will not desist until the Most High responds and does justice for the righteous and executes judgment” (Sirach 35.21, NRSV)

Jesus, the son of Mary, was born to a faithful Jewish family.  The Gospel of Luke opens a window into the kind of piety that Jesus was immersed in as he grew in “wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor” (2.52). The vignette of the young Jesus in the temple is something that is presented as typical not extraordinary for his Jewish family (2.41). Jesus would continue as an adult to participate in the pilgrimages to Jerusalem to worship the God of his ancestors (John 5-12). The Gospels are peppered with prayer from the lips of Jesus. 

But it was not just Jesus and his family that were devoted to prayer.  The Jewish people were serious about prayer. When the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11.1) they are not implying they were not, or that Jews were not, people of devoted prayer. In fact we often gravely distort, not only Jesus’ mission & message, but the entire NT when we take him and the NT church out of their Jewish context. Caricatures of Judaism’s faith and practice as legalistic, formalistic, harsh, etc, etc. has been a cottage industry among Western Christians for far to long [1]. Even though the evidence is blaring like neon lights in our face we still sometimes turn Jesus not only into a gentile but a European gentile! Thus it is important to remind ourselves of his immersion in Jewish faith and practice. But what was that “faith and practice?” We will look at a few select prayers in the Apocrypha (or Middle Testament) to learn of the “heart and soul” of the prayers Jesus heard and possibly even prayed himself. In the process we will be edified and come closer to the Lord who remains among his people leading us in prayer and singing praises to our Abba (cf. Heb 2.12f).

Prayer in the Apocrypha: Tobit & Sarah

Prayer in the Apocrypha covers every conceivable area of life from war, travel, food,

procreation, to safety, and much more [2]. I have dealt with Tobit rather broadly previously (Here: Tobit: Triumph of Faith in Adversity) and in relation to Jewish worship previously (Here: The Worship of God; Insight from the Apocrypha) so I am not going rehash that material. I offer this brief structural outline of the book for contextual purposes

I. Shame and Depression of Tobit and Sarah (ch's 1-3)

II. Raphael Sent by Grace to Journey with Tobias incognito  (ch's 4-6)

III. Deliverance of Sarah and her Marriage to tobias (ch's 7-10)

IV.  Raphael escorts the newly weds back and Delievers Tobit (ch's 11-12)

V. Tobit's Prayer of thanksgiving and Testament to Tobias (ch's 13-14

The book of Tobit is rich in prayer.  Indeed prayer is one of the most pervasive themes.  The prayers of Tobit and Sarah make up the bulk of chapter three. The prayer on the night of the wedding of Tobias and Sarah in chapter 8 and the prayer of praise by Tobit in chapter 13 are profound. 

Setting the Scene

Tobit, along with his wife Anna and son Tobias, are among the faithful Israelites that are hauled off with the rest of Israel by the Assyrians to Exile after the collapse of Samaria in 722 B.C. Unlike his fellows, he had journeyed to Jerusalem to worship the one true God according to the covenant of Moses. He delighted in temple worship (we easily hear him singing joyfully the Songs of Ascent). In Exile worship at the temple is no longer possible, so he finds other ways of being faithful to Yahweh.  He gave his food to the hungry and poor, clothed the naked and buried the dead (2.17).  Leaving the bodies exposed was an intended insult by the Assyrians, but Tobit in acts of “civil disobedience” buried them earning the wrath of the overlords. Tobit went into hiding but after the death of the tyrant he returns.  He resumes his ways of helping the poor by telling his Tobias (sounding much like a parable of Jesus btw) to go out and find any poor person he can find so he/she can enjoy the provisions of Pentecost too. He would not eat till the poor come sit and dine at his table. Tobias, however, finds a dead Israelite to whom Tobit immediately goes to bury.  Sleeping outside because of his ritual uncleaness Tobit becomes the victim of bird droppings in his eyes and looses his sight. Four years later his wife, Anna, is having to earn food for the family.  She brings home a goat that had been given her for her wages. The blind, and humiliated, Tobit lashes out (wrongfully) at his wife.  True to any genuine relationship, she, stung by his accusation, shouts “Now I see what you are really like! … Where is all that concern of yours for others?” (2.14, TEV). [3]. Crushed by his suffering, in Exile, blinded while doing kingdom work, alienated from his wife, and now even unable to do works for Yahweh he prays that God would take his life.

Meanwhile, Sarah's life is even worse (!) than Tobit’s.  She is the only child of Raguel, a Jew exiled to Ecbatana in Media (cf 2 Kings 17.5-6) hundreds of miles away. She is attacked by her father’s maid because she had been married seven times but “the worst of demons” Asmodeus (3.8, NJB) had killed each bridegroom before they could consummate the marriage.  We learn later in the story that each of these were killed in the bridal chamber itself (6.14). The maid accuses Sarah of actually murdering her own husbands bringing dishonor to her and her family. Now she believes that there is no hope and intends to commit suicide (3.10). But she realizes that doing so would further dishonor her father so she also prays that the Lord take her life or to do as he pleases.

The Prayers: Ad Dominum cum tribularer

The narrator brilliantly, and inspiringly, conveys how the lives of Tobit and Sarah are parallel and that the Lord, even though far from the “holy land,” cares and knows about what is happening to both. Both cry out to the Lord in the midst of their troubles. Quotations come from John Kohlenberger III’s The Parallel Apocrypha with Greek, KJV, Douay, Know, TEV, NRSV, NAB and NJB in parallel columns.  I follow the more literal NRSV here. Tobit prayed

“Then with much grief and anguish of heart I wept, and with groaning began to pray:

‘You are righteous, O Lord,

and all your deeds are just;

all your ways are mercy and truth;

you judge the world.

And now, O Lord, remember me

and look favorably upon me.

Do not punish me for my sins

and for my unwitting offenses

and those of my ancestors committed before you.

They sinned against you,

and disobeyed your commandments.

So you gave us over to plunder, exile, and death,

to become the talk, the byword, and an object of reproach

among all the nations among whom you have

dispersed us.

And now your judgments are true

in exacting penalty from me for my sins.

For we have not kept your commandments

and have not walked in accordance with truth before you.

So now deal with me as you will;

and command my spirit to be taken from me,

so that I may be released from the face of the earth

and become dust.

For it is better for me to die than to live,

because I have had to listen to understand insults,

and great is the sorrow within me.

Command, O Lord, that I be released from this distress;

release me to go to the eternal home,

and do not, O Lord, turn your face away from me.

For it is better for me to die

than to see so much distress in my life

and to listen to insults.” (Tobit 3.1-6, NRSV)

And Sarah prayed …

“At that same time, with hands outstretched toward the window, she prayed and said,

‘Blessed are you, merciful god!

Blessed is your name forever;

let all your works praise you forever.

And now, Lord, I turn my face to you,

and raise my eyes toward you.

Command that I be released from the earth

and not listen to such reproaches any more.

You know, O Master, that I am innocent

of any defilement with a man,

and that I have not disgrace my name

or the name of my father in the land of my exile.

I am my father’s only child {uses monogenes here just as in Jn 3.16}

he has no child to be his heir;

and he has no close relative or other kindred

for whom I should keep myself as wife.

Already seven husbands of mine have died.

Why should I still live?

But if it is not pleasing to you, O Lord, to take my life,

hear me in my disgrace” (Tobit 3.11-15, NRSV)

Praying Out on the Limb

Not only can I, but I do, identify with both Tobit and Sarah.  Twice in my life I have felt the world simply crashing in on me.  The first time was being fired for teaching that racism is absolute sin before God almighty – and this before Christmas! I thought I was going to get a pay raise but instead got two days to “get your books out of the office.” Did I ever feel wronged and confused. The other was when I was divorced by my wife of 17 years - left on a Sunday morning!! (No joke!) Oh how I felt like less than zero.

Many of us, just as Tobit had literally gone above and beyond the “letter of the law” in trying to show he was on the Lord’s side only to have a bird literally poop in his eyes.  In his “eyes” he was shamed, of no count. Less than Zero. And now he has wrongfully accused his wife. Shame upon shame! Sarah whose problem was not being barren like the ancient Matriarch, rather it was that her husbands keep dying before they can even have sexual intercourse.  She is the talk of the town and the maid voices what the whole town thinks – she is really murdering her men! Her father is shamed because of her and he has no heir because of her!  She, like Tobit, see no light at the end of the tunnel.  They are out on a limb that has just been cut off.

In the Scriptures that Jesus drank from childhood he encountered numerous prayers from the Pit. I believe the Gospels make it clear that Tobit is one story he knew.  At any rate the Psalms are littered with lamentations where the people are overwhelmed by the “odds.” “In my trouble I cried to the Lord, and he heard me. Lord, deliver my soul from liars and from deceitful people” (Ps 120). “Out of the depths I have cried to you, Lord” Lord, hear my voice.” (Ps 130).  Space does not allow quoting Psalm 88 in full but clearly Tobit and Sarah would feel at home in that psalm. When was the last time you took the time to read the book of Lamentations?

Other prayers in Scripture even reveal a desire for death.  Job clearly hates the day he was born and desires to be set free from his misery (Job 3).  Jonah twice tells Yahweh he would rather be dead than live in a world where he lets scum off like he did the Assyrians (Jonah 4).  But Jonah’s death wish is motivated out of anger at God.  Tobit’s and Sarah’s is motivated by anguish at the present and no hope for the future [4]. With such prayers being replayed in his head (like Ps 22), Jesus himself, like Tobit, released his spirit, to die (Tob 3.6)

Tobit’s prayer has three parts. First it has a doxology (3.2).  Second is Tobit’s recognition of his own sin and his identification with the failures of the entire people of God. He neither blames them nor denies his sharing in their guilt (3.3-5). Third his fervent petition to be released from his shame and blindness.

Sarah’s prayer is presented as just as important to God (and the narrative) as Tobit’s. She is in different circumstances but the same turmoil.  God cares for both men and women. He listens to both. He responds to both. He is Sovereign over all the world even the Assyrian Empire to bring about his will in the lives of his people.

Unlike Tobit, Sarah has no qualms about asserting her innocence before the Lord. She has been faithful and remains even a virgin despite being in an alien land where her virtue could easily have been compromised by slavers. She lives with the horrid memory of being wed only to literally watch seven husbands destroyed by Asmodeus. But who knew the truth but her?

Wrapping Up

Tobit and Sarah’s prayers reveal faith in a God who is not only powerful but who is merciful and full of truth (or “grace and truth” in NJB in 3.2 much like in John). They believe that God is the only one who can address their problem. Tobit seems to only see death as the only option but Sarah leaves open the door for “your will to be done” [5]. Both reveal an unshakable faith that God is to be praised regardless of the circumstances and that his justice is flawless even in their less than favorable circumstances.

Finally the author of Tobit reminds us that even though those seeking God’s favor are far from the Temple that “at that very moment, the prayers of both of them were heard in the glorious presence of God” (3.16). God sent his angel Raphael not to take the lives of Tobit and Sarah but to deliver him from his blindness so he could “see the glory of the Lord” and to save Sarah from her shame and set her free from the tormenting demon.  The rest of the story is God fulfilling the prayer of two very different people separated by many miles, with very different problems and yet God mysteriously linked them together.

Stories and prayers like these showed Jesus and the early church that God was every present and mysteriously and deeply involved in the world. Faith in him is the victory. These prayers are powerful and show us the kind of prayer Jesus and his followers heard and prayed ...

The Art Work ...

Tobit, like much of the Apocrypha, was treated as canonical Scripture by artists.  There are stunning works of art on themes from the Middle Testament.  The sculpture at the top is by Giovanni Baratta (1670-1747).  The illuminated page is the title page of Tobit in the Gutenberg Bible. And the tapestry is by Neri di Bicci dating to 1471. 

Notes

1] The sad sordid tale of Christian anti-Semitism is chronicled ad nauseum by Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1992).

2] See Norman B. Johnson’s, Prayer in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1948), 7-37. Johnson’s work is both valuable and frustrating. He arranges his brief study topically with little attention to the context in which the prayers occur. His study is also tainted with a not so subtle condescending attitude toward Second Temple Judaism that colors more than one of his interpretations. Nevertheless with that said it is still a good entre into the field of prayer in the Apocrypha.

3] Amy-Jill Levine, a wonderful Jewish scholar has called attention to the domestic relations   between Tobit and Anna in a very insightful article, “Tobit: Teaching Jews How to Live in the Diaspora,” Bible Review 8.4 (August 1992), 42-51, 64.  Where I disagree with her, is her conclusion that the Book of Tobit is concerned with keeping in Anna and Sarah “in their place.”  I really think this is a major imposition upon the text.

4] See the oh so brief discussion in Cary A Moore,Tobit, Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday 1996), 139-140.

5] David deSilva correctly, in my judgment, sees Sarah’s prayer as a “model” for praying, as James will direct, “according to God’s will.” See Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2002), 78.

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The Psalms, The Reign of God, and Jesus the Messiah

"O precious reading of the psalter, which for this alone deserves to be called the book of life!" (Richard de Bury, The Philobiblon, p. 24)

Wading into the Deep Waters

Jesus is a Jew. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was born to an impoverished but faithful, and full of faith, Jewish family.  His mother, Mary, was obviously a gifted singer and prayer warrior as we see in her Magnificant (1.46-55).  From the time of his birth, he was so deeply immersed in the Jewish faith that his family made the arduous journey "every year" to Jerusalem for the Passover (Lk 3.41).  The stories of God with his people were constantly with him. The worship of his Jewish family would mold him inside and out. One part of his prayer life and worship was immersion in the book of Psalms. His family knew how to pray, his people knew how to pray and those prayers, those cries of faith, those longings he heard and sang as a child became part of the fabric of his mind.

Since the Psalms were so deeply enmeshed in his family life, it is not surprising to find that the ministry of Jesus in so many ways is sort of a mirror of the concerns, theology, and often the very words of the Psalms [1]. Communion with God. Importance of truth. Anger at injustice. Disgust at hypocrisy. Celebrating the flood of God's gifts. Trust that leads to freedom. Gratitude that expresses itself in humble obedience. And above all the kingdom of God.

 YHWH MALAK

The Book of Psalms discloses, as much any section of Scripture, the radical unity of the Testaments. Grace, faith, creation, redemption, the fellowship of the saints, the presence of God, worship, and the proclamation of that the God of Israel is King and the glory of his reign are unbreakable chains that tie the Testaments together through the Psalms. It is a surprising, yet common, misunderstanding among Evangelicals and restorationists that the kingdom of God was an idea introduced by Jesus of Nazareth.  But Jesus did not introduce the reign of God into Jewish piety.  Jews knew, believed, and preached that God was/is King.  Jesus did too, every time he prayed and sang the Psalms. We do know that the central proclamation of Christ was the kingdom ... but it was an "Old Testament" doctrine.

Yhwh Malak! This is the central theological claim of the canonical book of Psalms. It is the center on which all faith and "topics" in the Psalter depend.  This declaration can be translated as Yahweh reigns, or the LORD is King (NRSV), or "the LORD has become King" (REB). The first translation views the kingdom as an activity, the second as a role, and the third as an event.  Here is the kicker, all three are grammatically possible.  So I embrace them all without denying the accuracy of any.

The Lord, the God of Israel, is King. This is, according to James Luther Mays, is the central theological claim of the canonical Psalter [2].  My own study of the Psalms indicates that Mays is not far from the mark, if at all. God's reign is explicitly stated and lies behind the major metaphors for Yahweh in the book as we shall see. I want to encourage my readers to meditate upon all the following Psalms: Pss 24, 29, 47, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 104, 145, and 146.  When you are reading through the rest of the psalms note phrases like the Lord "sits enthroned" or "rules the nations." It is a theme that is not hidden.

Why Yahweh is King?

The Psalms declare the kingship, and thus the kingdom, of God from two directions.  The first is that Yahweh is the "maker of heaven and earth."  Psalms such as 8, 19, 29, 33, 93 and 104 show the Lord overcoming the forces of chaos (anti-creation and anti-life) in order to establish a dwelling in which his creatures can thrive in his presence. Because Yahweh is the Creator, all other powers of whatever nature are subject to him. It is for this reason the Psalms repeatedly exhort, and even command, "all the earth" to acknowledge and submit to the Reign of God. It is the reason that "all creation" declares his glory.  The Loving King creates.

The second direction the Psalms come from to proclaim the reign of Yahweh and his kingdom is through his astounding, and unprecedented, act of pure grace in redeeming the most insignificant (Deuteronomy 7.7) of people to his very own treasured possession - Israel.  The Exodus is the Gospel in the Hebrew Bible. Such psalms as 47, 68, 98 and 114 all bring the Gathered People back to the fact that Yahweh is King because he rescued, redeemed and saved Israel.  God is King because he is the Redeemer! These texts all bring us back to the central Story of Israel - the Exodus from certain death in Egypt.  These psalms recall the very first time in the Bible that God is declared to be King.  In Exodus 15, after the great miracle of grace in the Exodus, the prophets Moses and Miriam lead the people in worship. In worship they declare, "The LORD will reign forever and ever" (Ex 15.18).

These two ways of declaring the kingship of Yahweh are intertwined in numerous Psalms.  Creation and Redemption are never that far apart in the Bible.  Such powerful mingling of these occur in psalms such as 33, 136, 146, and 147.  Sometimes within a single psalm these themes are brought together in the corporate prayers of God's people.   Look at Psalm 74

"Yet God my King is from old,
working salvation in the earth.
You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the dragons 
in the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the for 
the creatures of the wilderness.
You cut openings for springs and 
torrents;
you dried up ever flowing streams.
Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you established the luminaries and 
the sun.
You have fixed all the bounds
of the earth;
you made summer and winter."
(74.12-17; see also 89.5-14)

The classic example of the bringing of these themes together in the Psalms is the majestic hymn to the King's  HESED in Ps 136.  The psalm thunders between the congregational leader and the response of the gathered people declaring God has shown steadfast love in creating the world and for redeeming Israel in that world.

God is King! This is not new with Jesus, rather it is the foundation of Israel's faith. As we read, pray, and praise our way through the Psalms we see many other "titles" for God's activity.  But these are royal in nature in the Ancient Near East even if at times we in the modern west misconstrue the nature of the images [3]. It is as King that the Lord is warrior, judge, refuge, and shepherd. These roles are all kingly roles and all proclaim the kingdom of God in the Psalms. Prayers of appeal and lament, as well as hymns of praise are based on the belief that Yahweh is in fact the King of the Universe and King of Israel in particular.

Dimensions of God's Kingdom

Worship is such a radical enterprise. Israel was "literally" the backwoods of the ancient world. Yet they made "grandiose" claims.  Mt. Zion is a pathetically small hill and yet Israel declared it to be the greatest and grandest of all mountains.  In fact Zion is the sort of the "navel" of the world.  These claims are nearly laughable from the perspective of the rebellious world and its "empirical evidence." These statements are all true though because Israel had gone to worship. In worship a reality is disclosed, the Psalms declare it to be so, in which the rebellious creation is turned on its proverbial head! What is "out there" is mere counterfeit.  God is King. His Kingdom will fill the whole earth. His dwelling is the center of all creation.   Israel knows these truths not through observation but through faith and worship. Jesus believed these truths he learned as a child singing and praying the Psalms as a faithful and liturgical Jew.  Israel makes three claims (if not more) about Yahweh and his kingdom.

First, the Psalms declare that God's kingdom is transnational and universal.  Israel is the manifestation of God's kingdom but God's kingship is not limited to the boundaries of Israel. He is King of all the earth.  Israel knew this because Yahweh defeated the faux king named Pharaoh (Ex 8.2, 9:14, 16, 29).  The "Old Testament" proclaims the kingdom of God is universal.

"They shall speak of the glory of your
kingdom,
and tell of your power,
to make known to all people {nations} your
mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of your
kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom,
and your dominion endures
throughout all
generations"
(Ps 145.11-13)

Israel is the "type" of the church in the Hebrew Bible.  Israel does not correspond to any nation states such as the USA, Germany or Japan.  Israel corresponds to the church. In fact the "church" is the Israel of God. No. Gentiles have not "replaced" Israel of old rather Gentiles have been grafted by God's amazing grace into the one People of God stretching back to Abraham.  Thus Israel is God's kingdom made visible in the world, just as the "church" is the kingdom made visible.  But God's kingdom is greater than both and never reduced to some nation state.  It is universal.

Second, the Psalms declare that God's kingship is redemptive in its function. Celebrating the King is an act of faith done in worship.  The declaration Yhwh Malak is made within hymns in the Psalter.  Declaring Yahweh to be King is not something the wicked perceive, that the nations acknowledge (anymore than they think Zion is greater than Mt. Everest!). It is something proclaimed through worship and lived because we know it to be true. In the kingdom of God specific values are inculcated and enjoined because they flow from the King's nature. These values turn the world, again, on its head.  Note these texts,

"righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne" (97.2)

"The King is mighty, he loves justice, you have established equity,
you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob" (99.4)

"The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The LORD is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made" (145.8-9, see vv. 14-20)

"He upholds the cause of the oppressed 
and gives food to the hungry.
the LORD sets the prisoners free,
the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD." (146.7-10)

It is difficult to read these few excerpts and not hear the voice of Jesus in the Gospels saying virtually the same things. Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God is so "Old Testament." His preaching molded and shaped by the faithful worship of his mother Mary and his step-father Joseph. The kingdom has a redemptive thrust. Compassion is the value of values. In the kingdom we imitate God. We love what he loves, we do what he does.  The reality of the kingdom cannot be "spiritualized" into some "heaven" or privatized as my own secret walk with God.  It is the aligning of our entire life, in every way thinkable, to the redemptive will of God.  We are the vessels of God's will being done "on earth as it is in heaven."  God's kingdom is in the world as salt, light and leaven to undo the vandalism of shalom throughout creation.

Third, the Psalms reveal that God's kingship and his kingdom have an eschatological dimension. One cannot read in the psalms with any degree of sympathy and not come face to face with the cold fact that we live in a world that is completely alien to the kingdom of God. The world we proclaim in gathered and private worship is so contrary to the world "out there." God's people are often as flawed as the "wicked" and "enemies." Those who are specifically designated to safe guard the powerless aliens, widows and poor become the very instrument for crushing them. These kinds of huge gaps are dealt with in the Psalms themselves and also in the prophets of Israel.  In worship we confess that we do not place trust in human powers of any kind.  We have learned that we are easily seduced by the "dark side," that is by the corrosive and toxic appeal of the fallen world.

So the Psalms proclaim that the King is coming! The coming King is reason for celebration, rejoicing and the ground of all hope.  So worship itself is a form of prayer in which God's people call for the kingdom to be fully and completely manifest "out there." This, by the way, is not simply so the wicked will go to hell.  Rather when the King comes to "judge" (as it is often translated) the notion is not simply that he is coming to condemn.  He will deal with gross evil though.  Rather the main point of the Hebrew is that the King "will make things right."  All will be well when the King arrives.  This eschatological theme pervades a number of psalms.  The coming is Good News of great joy,

"Shout for joy before the LORD, the King.
Let the sea resound and everything in it;
the world and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the LORD,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity."
(98.6-9)

Creation bursts into joy because of the King is coming to put the world back together again.  You may want to compare this train of thought in Ps 98 with Paul's in Romans 8.18-25.  The king is coming.  That is something we look forward to. This eschatological look to the kingdom is what gives such potency to Jesus' proclamation that the "kingdom of God is at hand."

Wrapping Up

The notion of the kingdom of God is a fundamental theme in the Story of God.  It binds the Testaments together down to the DNA.  In the Psalms, this belief in the Sovereign God smashes directly into the human notion of Sovereign Self. The Psalms call us to confess that the Lord is King because he is Creator of all things in heaven and earth.  The Psalms call us to confess the King because he has redeemed by his own grace a people out of rebellious creation.  The Psalms call us to drink deeply the faith and values of the King and live them as missional people.  The Psalms call us to recognize the universal and cosmic nature of the kingdom of God and to be the people of redemption.  And the Psalms call us to recognize and pray for the King to come.

When we look at these themes, just mentioned, it is not hard to see why Jesus' ministry in the Gospels looks the way it does.  Jesus' ministry is a mirror of the prayers, the worship, and the faith of the minstrels of Israel who sang about the Glorious God - Yhwh Malak. 

Notes:

1] For a brief overview of how Jesus' life and the Psalms "mirror" one another see J. Clinton McCann, Jr, A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms: The Psalms as Torah (Abingdon, 1993), 163-175.

2] James Luther Mays, "The Language of the Reign of God," Interpretation 47 (1993): 117-126

3] See Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near East Iconography and the Book of Psalms (Crossroads, 1978), 244-306.

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