May 28, 2024 - Psalms 71-75

“I have been as a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge” (71:7).  A short and simple declaration but so significant.  A definition of  “portent” – ‘a sign or warning that something, especially something momentous or calamitous, is likely to happen.’  That is, the psalmist writes that, when others see him, they see trouble about to happen and, so, they turn against him.  Jeremiah gave a very similar testimony:  “I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side!  ‘Denounce him! Let us denounce him!’  say all my close friends, watching for my fall.  ‘Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.’

But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me.  They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed” (Jeremiah 20:10-11).  Both the psalmist and Jeremiah, indeed, God’s people in every age, though oppressed and persecuted by the wicked, are able to pray with confidence, “Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.  For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth”  (71:4-5).

All my hope on God is founded;

he doth still my trust renew.

Me through change and chance he guideth,

only good and only true.

God unknown,

he alone

calls my heart to be his own.   -- Joachim Neander (1899)