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Wednesday 9/04/24
Title: Psalms of the sons of Korah
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Psalms of the sons of Korah
You may remember that during our introduction to the book of Psalms, I taught you that this book is actually a collection of songs, poems, laments & prayers spanning a time period of nearly 600 years. These songs were preserved over the generations largely due to their association with temple worship.
At that same time I offered you an example of this.
2 Chronicles 29:25-30 mentions both David and Asaph as composers of Psalms and illustrates their common use as songs of worship and praise through the years.
King Hezekiah was one of those kings who had both his high and low points. He began his reign quite devoted to God. In his first month as King being just a 25 year old boy, he had the doors to the temple repaired, cleansed the temple and restored temple worship.
As King Hezekiah ordered the burnt sacrifice to be offered, the entire assembly worshiped God singing songs composed by both David and Asaph. This was 300 years after both men were dead, showing clearly that these songs had been carefully preserved and were still in common use.
It says…
“(25) Hezekiah stationed the Levites in the LORD’s temple with cymbals and stringed instruments, just as David, Gad the king’s prophet, and Nathan the prophet had ordered. (The LORD had actually given these orders through his prophets.)
(26) The Levites had David’s musical instruments and the priests had trumpets.
(27) Hezekiah ordered the burnt sacrifice to be offered on the altar. As they began to offer the sacrifice, they also began to sing to the LORD, accompanied by the trumpets and the musical instruments of King David of Israel.
(28) The entire assembly worshiped, as the singers sang and the trumpeters played. They continued until the burnt sacrifice was completed.
(29) When the sacrifices were completed, the king and all who were with him bowed down and worshiped.
(30) King Hezekiah and the officials told the Levites to praise the LORD, using the psalms of David and Asaph the prophet. So they joyfully offered praise and bowed down and worshiped.”
Now all of these psalms were eventually collected into a single book, with 5 divisions. Of course we use the word “book” loosely since books were not in use at this time.
So far we have worked through Book I and tonight we begin Book II.
Each of these book divisions ends with a doxology of sorts.
In fact, the entire final chapters of Psalms 146-150 are a type of doxology. The most famous of which is Psalm 150 which ends with THE great doxology,
“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD! ”
Book II in the greater collection of Psalms spans Psalms 42-72.
The authors of which include David who wrote 18 of them, the sons of Korah who wrote 7 of them, Asaph who wrote 1 of them, Solomon who wrote 1 of them – leaving 4 Psalms in Book II of unknown authorship – namely Psalms 43, 66, 67 & 71.
Book II covers the topics of Deliverance and Redemption often using the Exodus itself as the focal point and prime illustration.
Spiritually, the deliverance and redemption touched upon in this book points primarily to Israel’s hope for restoration and God’s fulfillment of His promise to Abraham.
This book and book III together cover the time period between Solomon, Hezekiah and Josiah, a period of time between 970-610 BC.
We begin tonight with Psalm 42 which was composed by the sons of Korah.
Who was Korah and sons?
Well if we go back in time to the genealogies found in Exodus, we find this family was of the tribe of Levi.
Exodus 6:16, says
“These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their genealogy: Gershon, Kohath,and Merari.”
Then if you skip down a few verses you discover that among the offspring of Kohath was Izhar and one of his sons was Korah. So Korah was the 3rd generation from Levi, son of Jacob.
Now that might seem impossible since the captivity in Egypt was 400 years, but man’s lifespan had not yet diminished to an average of 75 yet, since the flood.
Levi lived 137 years.
Kohath lived 133 years.
The lifespan of Izhar is not mentioned but you can readily see from the first two that 400 years was quite possible so that by the time Korah was born and participating in the Exodus he could have been in his late 40’s if not older. Being the 2nd born of 4 brothers who were all over the age of 20 when the wanderings in the wilderness began – 1 Chron. 23:12-24.
Korah is famous in Israeli history for all the wrong reasons! He is directly associated with one of the worst rebellions against known and established authority in the history of all Israel.
Turn with me to Numbers 16. We will only hit the highlights but a quick summary of the event in which Korah, Dathan, Abiram & On gathered leaders together to confront Moses and Aaron to challenge their authority.
In verse 3 it says,
“(3) They came together against Moses and Aaron and told them, “You have gone too far! Everyone in the entire community is holy, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?”
(4) When Moses heard this, he fell facedown.
(5) Then he said to Korah and all his followers, “Tomorrow morning the LORD will reveal who belongs to Him, who is set apart, and the one He will let come near Him. He will let the one He chooses come near Him.
(6) Korah, you and all your followers are to do this: take firepans, and tomorrow (7) place fire in them and put incense on them before the LORD.
Then the man the LORD chooses will be the one who is set apart.
It is you Levites who have gone too far!”
(8) Moses also told Korah, “Now listen, Levites! (9) Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the Israelite community to bring you near to Himself, to perform the work at the LORD’s tabernacle, and to stand before the community to minister to them? (10) He has brought you near, and all your fellow Levites who are with you, but you are seeking the priesthood as well. (11) Therefore, it is you and all your followers who have conspired against the LORD!
As for Aaron, who is he that you should complain about him?”
Skipping to verse 16…
“(16) So Moses told Korah, “You and all your followers are to appear before the LORD tomorrow–you, they, and Aaron. (17) Each of you is to take his firepan, place incense on it, and present his firepan before the LORD–250 firepans. You and Aaron are each to present your firepan also.”
(18) Each man took his firepan, placed fire in it, put incense on it, and stood at the entrance to the tent of meeting along with Moses and Aaron.
(19) After Korah assembled the whole community against them at the entrance to the tent of meeting, the glory of the LORD appeared to the whole community.
(20) The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, (21) “Separate yourselves from this community so I may consume them instantly.”
(22) But Moses and Aaron fell facedown and said, “God, God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will you vent Your wrath on the whole community?”
(23) The LORD replied to Moses, (24) “Tell the community: Get away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”
(25) Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. (26) He warned the community, “Get away now from the tents of these wicked men. Don’t touch anything that belongs to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins.”
(27) So they got away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Meanwhile, Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the entrance of their tents with their wives, children, and infants.
(28) Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the LORD sent me to do all these things and that it was not of my own will: (29) If these men die naturally as all people would, and suffer the fate of all, then the LORD has not sent me. (30) But if the LORD brings about something unprecedented, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them along with all that belongs to them so that they go down alive into Sheol, then you will know that these men have despised the LORD.”
(31) Just as he finished speaking all these words, the ground beneath them split open. (32) The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, all Korah’s people, and all their possessions.
(33) They went down alive into Sheol with all that belonged to them. The earth closed over them, and they vanished from the assembly.
(34) At their cries, all the people of Israel who were around them fled because they thought, “The earth may swallow us too!”
(35) Fire also came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were presenting the incense.
(36) Then the LORD spoke to Moses:
(37) “Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to remove the firepans from the burning debris, because they are holy, and scatter the fire far away. (38) As for the firepans of those who sinned at the cost of their own lives, make them into hammered sheets as plating for the altar, for they presented them before the LORD, and the firepans are holy. They will be a sign to the Israelites.”
(39) So Eleazar the priest took the bronze firepans that those who were burned had presented, and they were hammered into plating for the altar, (40) just as the LORD commanded him through Moses.
It was to be a reminder for the Israelites that no unauthorized person outside the lineage of Aaron should approach to offer incense before the LORD and become like Korah and his followers.”
Now I did not just go through all of this for context alone, even though providing the backstory for these men would be a worthwhile endeavor by itself. This offers us a valuable lesson regarding authority, calling and redemption.
All authority comes from God. It is HE ALONE Who delegates it to mankind which is something the modern church no longer universally embraces in order to accommodate unscriptural beliefs.
God had honored the descendants of Levi for their zeal for God at the beginning of the exodus and because Korah’s sons were of age they were not destroyed along with their father and those in his tent. This tells us something without actually saying it. Korah’s sons deliberately did not participate with this rebellion! They were of age to make their own decisions before the Lord and they decided to not rebel!
It is the contemplations, praises and songs of these sons of Korah that have been preserved for all time in the book of Psalms as inspired and for our edification!
This also demonstrates that each man is responsible for his own actions and choices. Their characters from which these decisions are made are not predetermined by some predisposed character inherited from their father. We have a choice!
Psalm 42:1-11,
“(1) For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.
As I’ve told you in the past, a MASKIL is a wisdom Psalm, but in this case it is a contemplative wisdom in the form of a lament.
These men were almost certainly part of an exile. Since it seems most likely that all of the contents of Book II was written between 970-610 BC and the Levites were scattered throughout both kingdoms, possessing lands allotted them from the other tribes since they themselves had no land allotted to them, this was quite possibly the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom under Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chron. 5:26) in 721 B.C., Sargon Ⅱ (2 Kings. 17:3) or in 701 B.C. under Sennacherib which included Judah.
At any rate, the sons of Korah who wrote this lament were longing for the days when they could appear before God in the Temple!
“As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God.
(2) I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?”
Now the modern reader assumes this to be a query regarding death. “When will I die and appear before my Maker” is the assumed direction of meaning. While this option cannot be categorically ignored, I believe context suggests the meaning as being – “before God in His temple”.
“(3) My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?”
(4) I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.
(5) Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.
(6) I am deeply depressed; therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
(7) Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.”
The Jordan River has three primary sources, all of which rise at the foot of Mount Hermon. One of these comes from an elevation of 1,800 feet. There are some waterfalls between these sources which empty into the Jordan and one or several of these may be among those to which these Psalmists refer.
“(8) The LORD will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night–a prayer to the God of my life.
(9) I will say to God, my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?” (10) My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”
(11) Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.”
The point of this Psalm is clear. Israel’s connection with God was through the temple and the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies in particular. To be far from the temple was, in some measure, to be far from the presence of God.
These people were not superstitious simpletons. They knew that God was the Creator of the universe and was omnipresent, even as Solomon clearly stated at his dedication of the Temple to which these men longed to return. Nevertheless, there was a very real way in which God’s manifest presence was to be found where He had placed His name – in Jerusalem, in the Temple, between the Cherub of the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies!
We understand and experience this in much the same way. While we, under the New Covenant, enjoy unfettered access to God in that He has sent the Holy Spirit to inhabit our very bodies as His temple and we have His promise that He will NEVER leave us for forsake us – we also, experience a sense of God’s presence when we gather corporately which we do NOT experience as individuals alone.
Jesus addressed this when He said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them”
Psalm 43:1-5,
As I stated earlier, this is one of the anonymous Psalms and therefore offers us very little one which bases our understanding of the context of the back story which inspired its composition.
An ungodly nation is mentioned. A rhetorical device seems to be used to imply God’s capitulation to these advisories if not His direct involvement in their attacks. Nevertheless, this Psalmist, like the sons of Korah from whom we just read, shows confidence in God’s deliverance and encourages his own soul to trust Him for as much.
The ending clause is also consistent with our previous Psalm that we are fully justified in entertaining the sons of Korah as the possible authors. The phrase is so unique in scripture where the author asks their own soul the reason for its forlorn emotions just before proclaiming certain hope in God’s intervention. It appears only 4 times in all of scripture, much less the entire greater book of Psalms, 3 of which were in Psalm 42 and once here. As such, if this be not authored by the sons of Korah, then no doubt this author possessed a certain preference for their style and conformed his musings to that general pattern.
“(1) Vindicate me, God, and defend my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from the deceitful and unjust man.
(2) For You are the God of my refuge.
Why have You rejected me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?
(3) Send Your light and Your truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to Your dwelling place.
(4) Then I will come to the altar of God, to God, my greatest joy. I will praise You with the lyre, God, my God.
(5) Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.”
Psalm 44:1-26,
As stated earlier, these songs of the sons of Korah probably were written during part of the Assyrian onslaught and ensuing captivity of Judah beginning around 701 BC. This and Psalms 49 were possibly looking back to a deal King Hezekiah tried to make with Sennacherib to spare Judah an invasion of Assyria with silver & gold taken from the Temple of God as is recorded in 2 Kings 18-19.
We will read a potion of it here 2 Kings 18:13-37,
“(13) In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.” [date supported by Isa. 36:1] (14) So Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me. Whatever you demand from me, I will pay.”
The king of Assyria demanded from King Hezekiah of Judah 11 tons of silver and one ton of gold.
(15) So Hezekiah gave him all the silver found in the LORD’s temple and in the treasuries of the king’s palace. (16) At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the LORD’s sanctuary and from the doorposts he had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.”
This was clearly a misstep of Hezekiah – a proof of wavering faith. We do not know what was in his mind to do this, though in the end he recovered his way and faith and did what was right – trusting the Lord.
I agree with David Guzik that, knowing this King’s good heart, he simply was taking into account all that had gone before with Assyria. All of Israel has been attacked and many taken captive and even the outskirts of Judah had been successfully attacked. It is quite likely that Hezekiah may have thought that the sins of his father Ahaz had caught up with he and Judah and they were finally going to get what was coming, and so sought to buy peace rather than seek and ask God.
At the word of Isaiah, Hezekiah turned and trusted the Lord Who delivered them from Sennacherib.
The lessons learned from these events can be seen in the words of this Psalm. For while Judah had suffered several defeats at the hands of the Assyrians and their King had sought material means of procuring peace, in the end repentance and God’s favor won the day!
“(1) For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.
God, we have heard with our ears–our forefathers have told us–the work You accomplished in their days, in days long ago:
(2) to plant them, You drove out the nations with Your hand;
to settle them, You crushed the peoples.
(3) For they did not take the land by their sword–their arm did not bring them victory–but by Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, for You were pleased with them.
(4) You are my King, my God, Who ordains victories for Jacob.
(5) Through You we drive back our foes;
through Your name we trample our enemies.
(6) For I do not trust in my bow, and my sword does not bring me victory. (7) But You give us victory over our foes and let those who hate us be disgraced.
(8) We boast in God all day long; we will praise Your name forever. Selah
(9) But You have rejected and humiliated us; You do not march out with our armies. (10) You make us retreat from the foe, and those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves.
(11) You hand us over to be eaten like sheep and scatter us among the nations.
(12) You sell Your people for nothing; You make no profit from selling them.
(13) You make us an object of reproach to our neighbors, a source of mockery and ridicule to those around us. (14) You make us a joke among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples.
(15) My disgrace is before me all day long, and shame has covered my face, (16) because of the voice of the scorner and reviler, because of the enemy and avenger.
(17) All this has happened to us, but we have not forgotten You or betrayed Your covenant.
(18) Our hearts have not turned back; our steps have not strayed from Your path. (19) But You have crushed us in a haunt of jackals and have covered us with deepest darkness.
(20) If we had forgotten the name of our God and spread out our hands to a foreign god, (21) wouldn’t God have found this out, since He knows the secrets of the heart?
(22) Because of You we are slain all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.
(23) Wake up, LORD! Why are You sleeping? Get up! Don’t reject us forever!
(24) Why do You hide Yourself and forget our affliction and oppression? (25) For we have sunk down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground.
(26) Rise up! Help us! Redeem us because of Your faithful love.”
Blessings!
Tri
