The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): The Jews are the longest enduring ethnic group on earth. Their God's chosen people, and yet they've been slandered, hated, persecuted, pursued, and murdered throughout their history.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. There are a number of reasons why the Jewish people have suffered so greatly, but perhaps the most compelling is that God would send the Messiah through them, and of that Satan was not unaware. Join Dr. Boice as he looks at the power and grace of God in the history of Israel from Psalm 129, a psalm of victory and survival.

Dr. James Boice: From time to time in our study of the Psalms I've mentioned the name of Derek Kidner. He's one of the good writers on the Psalms, and I mention him again now because of something he says at the very beginning of his study of Psalm 129. He writes, "Whereas most nations look back to what they have achieved, Israel reflects here on what she has survived." That seems a strange thing to say and perhaps a strange thing to do, even bordering on paranoia, but it's not at all strange when you think of the history of Israel.

The Jews are the longest enduring distinct ethnic people on the surface of the earth. They've been slandered, hated, persecuted, expelled, pursued, and murdered throughout a long history of their existence, and yet they have survived intact. In fact, today many of them are back in their traditional land of Israel. They're a brilliant, talented people, but their survival has not been a product of their brilliance or their talent. It's a testimony to the power and grace of God, His sovereign will and His power in preserving them as a people.

There's an interesting story from history that bears that out. Frederick the Great was having a conversation with his chaplain on one occasion and asked him some very serious questions about the authority of Christianity. He'd been greatly influenced, unfortunately, by Voltaire, the brilliant French skeptic and agnostic, the most famous man in Europe in his day. The great King said to his chaplain something like this: "If your Bible is really true, it ought to be capable of very simple proof.

So often when I ask questions about the authority of Christianity, I'm given some great tome to read, which I have neither the time or the inclination to do. If your Bible is really true, you ought to be able to give me a defense of it in a single word." The chaplain looked at Frederick the Great and said to him, "Your Majesty, it's possible for me to answer your question quite literally. I can give you the proof of the Bible in a single word." And Frederick said, "What possible word could that be?" And the chaplain said, "Israel, Your Majesty." And the story says that Frederick was silent.

Now that's what this Psalm is about. Psalm 129 is about the survival of the Jews in spite of centuries, even millennia, of oppressions, of persecutions, and it's an explanation of that, which says the reason they've been able to survive is because of the will and protecting presence of God. Now, here's the way it begins: "They have greatly oppressed me from my youth, let Israel say; they have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me.

Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long, but the Lord is righteous; He has cut me free from the cords of the wicked." Let me point out that that's an awful lot like Psalm 124, which we've already looked at, both in the theme and also the style or the form of the verse, especially in its call in the opening line from somebody who must be like a cantor. He calls out like this: "If the Lord had not been on our side, that's what we're going to sing, you see."

And then he says, "Now let Israel say." And then they repeat it: "If the Lord had not been on our side, when men attacked us," the way Psalm 124 reads. And then presumably they all go on and they sing that Psalm together. Now that's exactly what we have here. The words are slightly different, though the theme is the same. The cantor calls out, "They have greatly oppressed me from my youth. Let Israel say." "They have greatly oppressed me from my youth," and then it goes on to say, "but they have not gained the victory over me."

Now what is that all about? Well, the youth of Israel was the formative period of the nation when they were in Egypt. It's referred to that way several times in the Old Testament. Hosea does it in the 11th chapter, "When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son." That's the way God writes. So, it's those formative days when the people were growing from a small number that first entered Egypt into the great nation that's called Israel's youth. And we know very well that those were days of persecution and oppression by the Pharaoh and by those who were under his command.

They were threatened by the numerical growth of the Jews, and so they subjected them first to hard labor, treating them as slaves to construct the treasure city of the Pharaoh. And then when that didn't seem to be working, the Pharaoh cracked down even harder and eventually gave orders that all of the male children should be killed. It was in a time of harsh, cruel oppression like that that God brought Moses into the picture, allowed him to survive, and brought him back years later as the great emancipator of the Jews.

But when you read this phrase in our Psalm, it doesn't merely say that God allowed them to be oppressed in their youth. It says *from* their youth, which means of course from that very earliest beginning all down through their history, even up to the time at which the psalmist is writing our Psalm and, of course, beyond. You think of the Old Testament history and you have examples of that. You go back to the time of the judges. They were greatly persecuted during the time of the judges by all of the surrounding peoples, by the Philistines, the Syrians, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Edomites.

You read the first chapters of Amos and you get a feeling for how bad that was because there, in those first chapters, this minor prophet pronounces in God's name judgment upon these surrounding peoples: upon Damascus and Gaza and Tyre and Edom and Ammon and Moab. And it's done because of the cruelty, treachery, and wanton destruction of these surrounding nations. They suffered greatly during those long, long years. And then you pass from the time of the judges to the monarchy and you find the same thing happening there.

Josiah, a very good king, went out to resist the Pharaoh of Egypt when he came marching through the land, and Josiah was killed by him. The northern kingdom of Israel was attacked and harassed by the Syrian forces and then finally overthrown. The history of that period is seen in the names of the Syrian kings, kings like Shalmaneser III, Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and then Sargon II. When Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, finally fell to Sargon in the first year of his reign, 721 BC, the people were deported, scattered, and the history of the northern kingdom ended.

And then the trouble fell upon the kingdom in the south, and they experienced trouble as well. First of all, from the Assyrians under Sennacherib, Sargon's son, who invaded Judah early, 701 BC. And it was this man and his armies that were scattered in the night by the angel who came through and killed 185,000 of the opposing army. But then the power in the east passed from the hands of Assyria into the hands of the Babylonians, and it was finally under the armies of Nebuchadnezzar that Jerusalem, the great capital of the southern kingdom, fell in 586 BC. And all of those people were carried off into exile with a great deal of suffering.

And that's only the history of the Jews up to that time, or if we pass beyond the 70 years of the exile up to the time that this particular Psalm was written. But the same kind of history has continued since then, down through the Middle Ages. The Jews were persecuted in one way or another by most of the European powers who either deported them, which they did constantly throughout the Middle Ages, so the Jews were harassed and sent from place to place, or at times confining them to what became the famous or infamous Jewish ghettos in the major cities of Europe.

And we think as we pass to more modern times of that dreadful period of the Second World War and the Holocaust and the murder of so many Jews under Adolf Hitler. Well, "may Israel say they have greatly oppressed me from my youth," but Israel also adds, "they've not gained the victory over me." Now why is that? Why have they not gained the victory over Israel? There's only one answer to that. I've already talked about it. It's not because they're such a strong people.

They have great inner strength, but that's not what has caused their survival, or because they're brilliant. You can have a great deal of brilliance and you still can't stand against an oppressor. The reason they survived is because of God. It's because of God. That's what this first stanza is about. Do you notice how it builds up in kind of a poetic suspense? Everybody knows the answer from the beginning. "If, if, if, why the 'if'?" And then it comes in at the very end of the stanza: why it's because of God who is righteous and who has cut me free from the bonds of the wicked.

When it says that God is righteous, it means that He's righteous in the sense that He's faithful to His covenant. He's an upright God; He doesn't break His word. And so, He's promised to bless the people and He continues to bless them. When it says He has set me free or cut me free from the cords of the wicked, it means that He's delivered them from slavery, and that's what He does again and again throughout their history. That is a parallel statement to verse 7 of Psalm 124, which says, "We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare."

Now, that's what the first stanza does. We come to the second stanza of this Psalm, and we come to verses that are imprecatory. Now, what that means is that they're verses that call for judgment upon one's enemies. Here, it's judgment on those who hate Zion, that is, those who are responsible for the kind of persecution that the first stanza is talking about. It always amuses me when I read commentators who are somewhat of a more liberal bent and they come to these imprecatory portions of the Psalms, how they almost stumble all over themselves in attempts to kind of get out of it and not actually have to face up to what the psalmist is saying.

They do it on the grounds, of course, that Jesus taught us to forgive our enemies. And it's true, Jesus did. He said we're to pray for our enemies. As a matter of fact, He did it on the grounds of common grace. Jesus said the reason we are to pray for those who despitefully use us is because God causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:44 and 45). And what that means is we don't pray that our enemies will starve or that their business will collapse and they'll have no money to provide for themselves.

That's not the sort of thing that we should do. And we should certainly pray for their conversion and repentance. But you see, it doesn't mean that we should pray that God will never exercise a judgment. And that's exactly what is happening here. What it's saying is that God needs to punish evil, and God does punish evil. And God needs to reward the good, and God does reward the good. What should we pray for for the wicked? That they should repent, of course. But suppose they don't repent. Should we pray that their plans might prosper, they might be successful in their evil designs? Of course not.

I'm always impressed with what Spurgeon does with a passage like this, and I want to read you something. This is pure Spurgeon. Spurgeon comes to these passages and this is what he says: "If this is an imprecation, well, let it stand and my heart says amen to it. It's but justice that those who hate, harass, and hurt the good should be brought to naught. Those who confound right and wrong ought to be confounded, and those who turn back from God ought to be turned back. How can we wish prosperity to those who would destroy that which is dearest to our hearts?

This present age is so flippant that if a man loves the Savior, he is styled a fanatic, and if he hates the power of evil, he is called a bigot. As for ourselves, despite all objectors, we would revive in our heart that old practice of Ebal and Gerizim, where those were blessed who bless God and those were cursed who made themselves a curse to the righteous." And then he gets practical: "Study a chapter in the Book of Martyrs, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and see if you don't feel inclined to read an imprecatory Psalm over Bishop Bonner and Bloody Mary."

And then this great line: "It may be that some wretched 19th-century sentimentalist may blame you. If so, read another imprecatory Psalm over him." Well, in spite of all that has to be said about these imprecatory Psalms and the controversy, it is striking, it seems to me, how mild the psalmist is at this point. Because if you read this last stanza, in spite of everything that Israel has endured, he is not asking that these enemies be sent to hell.

God will take care of that in His own time, if He pleases to do that. He's not even asking that His enemies might have heaped on their heads the same kind of oppression he and his people have experienced at their hands. He's not even saying that. All he is praying for is three negative things: that they might have no honor, that they might have no success, and that they might have no blessing as long as they pursue their evil course. And what I suggest is that we can pray exactly the same thing for the evil we see about us today.

How about this matter of honor? How would Israel's enemies get honor? Well, they'd get it through a military victory, especially if they were able to crush Israel completely, which is what they were trying to do. The psalmist is asking that they might be turned back and that they might know the shame of defeat instead of the honor of victory. Now, isn't that what we should pray for those who are trying to do dishonorable things? We certainly don't want to pray that they be honored.

And so, when we see evil about us, especially in our own government or our own communities or those who are oppressing others in evil ways, we should pray that their shame might become known. May be, in this wretched kind of climate in which we live, that the shame is known and it doesn't really bother people. It's one of the bad things about America in our day, but nevertheless, that's the direction in which Christians should pray. And then the second thing, verses 6 and 7, he prays that they might have no success.

He uses kind of a quaint image at this point, asking that they might be like grass on the rooftop which withers before it can grow. In that day, the houses had dirt roofs supported by wooden beams, and presumably in this hard-packed earth on top of the houses, sometimes seeds would settle and little bits of grass would grow. But of course, the soil was shallow and there was no real water up there, and so it would wither up. It wouldn't do very well. He's saying that's what I would like to see happen to them.

You might be able to say, "Well, even withered grass has some value. After all, you can gather it up and use it for fuel." And he acknowledges that, but he says he doesn't even want them to be that useful or successful. He doesn't want people even to be gathering them up and bringing them home. Is it wrong to pray like that? Of course it isn't wrong to pray like that. You wouldn't want to pray that people who have evil designs would succeed in their evil designs. You want to pray that they might be frustrated and that that might be known instead.

And then there's the final thing, it's in verse 8: that they might have no blessing. Now, that particular prayer or wish is connected to the harvest image in verse 7 because it was a common practice in times of harvest when people were joyful to exchange blessings in the name of the Lord. You have an example of that in Ruth, in the second chapter and verse 4. Boaz arrives in his field and he has a greeting for the harvesters. He says, "The Lord be with you." And they reply, "The Lord bless you." That's the way the response is given.

Now what the psalmist is saying is, may there be no blessings like that ever given to these evil people. Is it wrong to pray like that? Of course not. How could it be wrong? The opposite is what would be wrong. And look, let's think about this also. What has been the end of those who have set themselves against the Lord and against His anointed? Well, the end is that they experience self-destruction and suicide. Derek Kidner, I mentioned a moment ago, writes about those who choose the way of hate, which is soul-destroying, and set themselves against God, which is suicide.

The end is exactly that: self-destruction and suicide. And we see that in the history of those who have set themselves against God. People like Adolf Hitler would be a striking example, a man who literally committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin at the end of the Second World War. Now, that's what the Psalm is about. But enough of Jewish history. Let's pass away from that. And when we're talking about anti-Semitism, which we've been doing, we can't help but think of the cause of anti-Semitism.

And the ultimate cause is not merely that the Jews are different from other people or unique. They're not all that different after all. The Jews themselves say, "We're just like other people, only more so." There are lots of "more so" people in the world, some of you not even Jewish are "more so," and it's not that that's the ultimate cause of the persecution. The real cause is spiritual, that God promised to send the Messiah through the Jewish people. And Satan, who hates the Messiah, hates the Jewish people through whom the Messiah was to come and did, of course, come.

You have lots of pictures of that in the Bible. As a matter of fact, you have a great one in the book of Revelation, right at the end. You recall in the 12th chapter of Revelation the devil is pictured as a terrible dragon who is standing before a woman who is about to give birth so that he might, I quote, "devour her child the moment it was born." Perfectly obvious what that is. The woman is Israel, the devil is the dragon, her child is Jesus Christ. He hates the woman because he hates Jesus. Now, that's a prophetic picture.

In that particular account in Revelation, the child is snatched up to God and saved out of the hands of the dragon that's trying to destroy it. But if you think throughout history, you realize that although Jesus is victorious over Satan, Satan nevertheless got in his licks against Jesus. You go back to the very beginning of the Bible to Genesis, to that first great announcement of the Gospel, and what you find God saying there as He speaks to Satan is this: "He," that is Jesus, "will crush your head, but you will strike His heel."

And that's what Satan tried to do down through history. He was always striking out at Jesus from those very early moments when he caused Herod to move against the children of Bethlehem, thinking that if he killed the infants and massacred them, somehow he would get this alleged pretender to his throne, all the way up to the instigation of that final murderous hatred in the hearts and minds of Jesus' enemies that caused them to drive Him to the cross. Well, I look back to a verse here in this Psalm that we've passed over already.

It's the one in which Israel describes her mistreatment by saying, "Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long." That's a powerful measure, of course. It combines two ideas, two metaphorical ideas: one of beating or scourging and then the second of a farmer who is cutting furrows across a field, thoroughly digging up the land. It's saying that's what it's been like. But when you look at that and you think of it in terms of the experience of Jesus Christ, you can't help but realize that Jesus was literally beaten as part of the persecutions He endured before His crucifixion.

And yet you see here's the important thing about that: although Jesus was persecuted and beaten, it was through that that He achieved our salvation. That's the way Isaiah writes about it (Isaiah 53:5): "With His stripes we are healed." And then he goes on to unfold it: "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him. We all like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

You see, these attacks on Jesus were literal, they were real, and yet it's through them that God achieved our salvation. Jesus Himself like Israel might well have said, "They have greatly oppressed me from my youth." But He would have added rightly, and we well understand it, but they have not gained the victory over me. How could they possibly have gained the victory? Jesus is God. He's the only sovereign ruler of the universe. Therefore, although Satan struck out against Him and wounded Him in that respect, God used the work of Christ and the cross of Christ to actually crush Satan and defeat his work forever.

Back in the second Psalm, there's a picture of this. The rulers of this world unite in their opposition against God and His anointed, but God isn't threatened by that. God simply laughs at the folly of mere human beings and, for that matter, Satan himself, to think that mere creatures can stand against the Almighty God. And then God says, "I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill." You see, we see a lot of examples of Satan's oppression and a lot of evil in this world, but we have to remember as Christian people that the victory is never going to go to Satan.

The victory is the victory of our Lord. The victory belongs to Jesus Christ. We come back to Revelation again, and in the 11th chapter, we read this: "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever." And our hearts say amen to that. He will reign forever and ever. There's one last point of application because when we remember that Jesus lives, we also remember that we will live because He lives.

And because He's been victorious, we're going to be victorious. And we notice that it's not in our case by avoiding our share of the world's oppression. As Christian people who are following after Jesus Christ, victory doesn't come by avoiding the difficulties, but rather through passing through them victoriously. Jesus said when He was talking to His disciples before His own arrest, beating, and crucifixion, "In this world you will have trouble." He said to His disciples, "If they hated me, they'll hate you."

And the more you are like Jesus Christ, the closer you walk to Jesus Christ, the more you will be hated by Jesus Christ. But He said at the same time, "Nevertheless, don't be discouraged. Remember this: I have overcome the world." How often in the long course of history have Christians been forced to cry out, "They have greatly oppressed me from my youth"? The cry of the saints, when we read about it in Revelation, is this: "How long, oh Lord, how long?

How long does this have to endure? How long do we have to put up with all of the discouragements, all of the abuse, all of the crushings, all of the sin, all of the evil that surrounds us in the world?" And the only answer we have is, "I am coming soon. I am coming soon," says Jesus. But in the meantime, Jesus is with us to give us the strength to persevere. We say, "Why is this so necessary? Why doesn't He just eliminate these things? Why isn't life perfect for Christians so we never have to go through any of these problems?"

And the answer is this: so the world that stands around and looks on might know that the power is of God and not of us, and might be directed to see, honor, and worship Him. That's why. The apostle Paul was one who understood this. He suffered many things as a missionary to the Gentiles. He says he was repeatedly imprisoned, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, starved, threatened. Listen, here's the way Paul understood it. He's writing here to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 4:7): "We have this treasure," he means the Gospel which he's bearing to the world, "we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We're hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body." Do you know that forceful Christian battle cry, which is in Latin and sometimes is printed on seals next to a picture of the burning bush?

The Latin reads *Nec Tamen Consumebatur*. It means, "And yet not consumed." And you see that's it exactly. The fires of persecution are always there. The Jews have had them, and so have Christ's people, Jews and Gentiles, down throughout the centuries. But we say as Paul himself could say, "Thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for that victory, and we're thankful that You've done it in the way You have, that it might be perfectly evident that our survival as Your people, indeed our triumph as Your people, is not because of anything in us, but is because of that one we serve, who is the King of Kings and is the Lord of Lords to whom You have given all the kingdoms of this world and who will be seen to be triumphant ultimately one day. We thank You for that, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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