For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The godly live their lives with integrity. The fact that they do so will be a blessing to their children, who will be even more blessed if they follow their parent’s example.
The first thing I am reminded of when I read this psalm is that it was this psalm which Jesus quoted when He was on the cross. As I read it today, I realized that there will be times when we may experience something like what inspired the psalmist to write this psalm. There will be times when our troubles seem more than we can bear, when we cry out night after night and God does not bring us relief. There will be times when we feel like we have been abandoned by God. However, let us always remember that Jesus felt the same way when He hung on the cross, so we know that we are not alone.
This passage is one of the most thorough counters to the idea that it is consistent with Christian faith to hate the Jews. Yes, some Jews rejected the Gospel and as a result the Gospel was preached to the Gentiles and those Gentiles who believed were grafted into God’s family to replace those Jews who rejected God’s saving grace. However, this should not make those of us who are not of Jewish heritage proud and arrogant. We must remember that while we were blessed in part because those Jews rejected God’s message of grace, we will be blessed even more when they finally turn to God and accept His grace. Rather than hate the Jews and seek their destruction, as some do, we should love them as God’s Chosen People and seek their reconciliation with God (something we should seek for all people who do not yet know the Lord).
When Jehoshaphat died, his mistake in allying himself with Ahab by arranging for his son, Jehoram, to marry Ahab’s daughter is fully revealed. Upon his father’s death, Jehoram became king and killed all of his brothers. Jehoram followed the practices of Ahab’s family and re-established places of worship in the high places, where pagan practices were followed. About his death the passage tells us one of the saddest things that can be said about anyone, “No one was sorry when he dies.”
Ahaziah, Jehoram’s youngest son became king upon his father’s death, because all of his older brothers had been killed by marauding bands of Arabs. Ahaziah accepted members of Ahab’s family, his mother’s family, as advisers. These advisers encouraged him to continue the evil practices of his father. We get a good idea of just how evil Ahab’s family was upon Ahaziah’s death. At that point Ahaziah’s mother proceeded to kill all of the royal family she could lay her hands on, including her own grandsons. Only one of them escaped because his aunt, a daughter of Jehoram, spirited him away to the Temple and put him in the care of the high priest. I find it hard to imagine a depravity any greater than someone who is willing to kill their own grandchildren in order to further their own desire for power.