Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, and do not punish me in Your burning anger. Psalm 38:1 NASB Punish – Have you ever prayed a prayer like this? Have you reached the point, long after the Lord has redeemed you, long after you recognize your sinful condition and your desperate need for grace, where…
I will come with the mighty deeds of the Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, Yours alone. Psalm 71:16 NASB Make mention – What do you think about the choice “make mention” for the verb zākar? Does it capture the feeling of this verse? Not for me! “I will come with the mighty deeds”…
Abandoned among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You no longer remember, and they are cut off from Your hand. Psalm 88:5 NASB No longer remember – zākar. What an important Hebrew verb! Zākar means “to remember,” but the same consonants in noun form also mean “male.” It seems to me that…
They did not remember His [w]power, the day when He redeemed them from the enemy, Psalm 78:42 NASB Not remember – In the next ten verses Asaph lists all the mighty works that God did to redeem His people from Egypt. You might notice that his list isn’t quite the same as the sequence of events in Exodus. For…
And they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer. But they flattered Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongue. For their heart was not steadfast toward Him, nor were they faithful with His covenant. Psalm 78:35-37 NASB Remembered – “To believe is to remember,” wrote Abraham Heschel. Asaph might not…
But You, Lord, remain forever, and Your name remains to all generations. Psalm 102:12 NASB Remain – God remains forever. In Hebrew, יְהֹוָה לְעוֹלָם. You’ll notice immediately that David uses the personal name of God, יְהֹוָה , not the word “Lord.” This matters, since he continues the thought with “Your name,” not “Your title.” There were plenty of other divine…
When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, Psalm 63:6 NASB Remember/meditate – “Now I lay me down to sleep,” but it rarely happens so easily. Nursery rhymes are wishful fables. Sleep is far more difficult. The room is dark. The noise of the day is finished, but there are…
A Psalm of David, for a memorial. “O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger.” Psalm 38:1 NASB For a memorial – Have you ever prayed like this? Have you reached the point, long after the Lord has redeemed you, long after you recognize your sinful condition…
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man that You take thought of him and the son of man that You care for him? Psalm 8:3-4 NASB Take thought – David spent many nights under the stars. Without the disturbance of…
“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness, through a land not sown.’’” Jeremiah 2:2 NASB I remember – I have been reading the devotional by Oswald Chambers for many decades….
