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psalm_onethirtyoneOkay, everybody! It's time for your lesson about psalms.
Here is the deal. There are basically two types of psalms: the Psalm That is Actually a Beautiful Piece of Religiously Significant Poetry, hereafter referred to as the Good Psalm, and The Psalm That is Actually an Excuse For David To Be a Whiny Bitch About Things, hereafter the Whiny Bitch Psalm. Oh, I grant you that occasionally a psalm may start out in Good territory and then veer into Whiny Bitch, but the point is that they stick to these two genres. You are not going to find the Action-Comedy Psalm or the Romantic And Erotic Psalm (that would be Song of Solomon, go read it, it's hot).
Here is an example of a Good Psalm: psalm one-thirty-one. It is also a short psalm, which does tend to help--as a general rule of thumb, the longer a psalm is the whinier and bitchier it is.
Psalm 131 (Domine, non est)
O Lord, I am not proud;
I have no haughty looks.
I do not occupy myself with great matters,
or with things that are too hard for me.
But I still my soul and make it quiet,
like a child upon its mothers breast;
my soul is quieted within me.
O Israel, wait upon the Lord,
from this time forth for evermore.
See? Nice. Brief, to the point, well-worded for maximum impact. Child imagery for David, which is a surprisingly effective device with him (see psalm 139 for another example, although be aware that halfway through (verse 18) it changes into a whiny bitch psalm. In fact, I generally like to pretend that psalm 139 does not go past the seventeenth verse, because it is gorgeous up until there).
You want a whiny bitch psalm? I'm putting it under a cut, because it's hella long and also just deeply annoying--yes, David, we know you suck, why do you have to do it so loudly? No wonder Saul was always throwing things at you, we're surprised Jonathan could stand sleeping with you--don't look so surprised, it's completely obvious--&c.
Hold not your tongue, O God of my praise;
for the mouth of the wicked,
the mouth of the deceitful, is opened against me.
They speak to me with a lying tongue;
they encompass me with hateful words
and fight against me without a cause.
Despite my love, they accuse me;
but as for me, I pray for them.
They repay evil for good,
and hatred for my love.
Set a wicked man against him,
and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is judged, let him be found guilty,
and let his appeal be in vain.
Let his days be few,
and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless,
and his wife become a widow.
Let his children be waifs and beggars;
let them be driven from the ruins of their homes.
Let the creditor seize everything he has;
let strangers plunder his gains.
Let there be no one to show him kindness,
and none to pity his fatherless children.
Let his descendants be destroyed,
and his name be blotted out in the next generation.
Let the wickedness of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
and his mother's sin not be blotted out.
Let their sin be always before the Lord;
but let him root out their names from the earth.
Because he did not remember to show mercy,
but persecuted the poor and needy
and sought to kill the brokenhearted.
He loved cursing,
let it come upon him;
he took no delight in blessing,
let it depart from him.
He put on cursing like a garment,
let it soak into his body like water
and into his bones like oil;
Let it be to him like the cloak which he wraps around himself,
and like the belt that he wears continually.
Let this be the recompense from the Lord to my accusers,
and to those who speak evil against me.
But to you, O Lord my God,
oh, deal with me according to your Name;
for your tender mercy's sake, deliver me.
For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
I have faded away like a shadow when it lengthens;
I am shaken off like a locust.
My knees are weak through fasting,
and my flesh is wasted and gaunt.
I have become a reproach to them;
they see and shake their heads.
Help me, O Lord my God;
save me for your mercy's sake.
Let them know that this is your hand,
that you, O Lord, have done it.
They may curse, but you will bless;
let those who rise up against me be put to shame,
and your servant will rejoice.
Let my accusers be clothed with disgrace
and wrap themselves in their shame as in a cloak.
I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth;
in the midst of the multitude will I praise him;
Because he stands at the right hand of the needy,
to save his life from those who would condemn him.
Ohh, there's so much not to like here. There is some beautiful poetry here; a couple of these lines are really stellar. But it's kind of outweighed by the hypocritical stuff (oh those horrible people who curse people! I hope they burn in hell!) and the whiny WHINY JESUS DAVID JUST SUCK IT UP bitchiness (wah wah I'm hungry and no one likes me) and the sanctimonious beginning (they are so mean to me but I PRAY FOR THEM ANYWAY). I mean, really, David, some of this stuff is correctable, you know. The less you suck the more likely people are to be nice and feed you. Honestly, he reminds me of Ed here. Maybe David would have been more tolerable if someone had put a dead possum in his mailbox.
But you see here the two types of psalm. They're pretty much all like that, with an occasional--and I should have mentioned this before, I'm sure, I'll fix it when I do my senior thesis--deviation into TOTALLY BORING psalmistry. However, boring is boring and provides no entertainment, as least as far as I'm concerned.
To end on a good note, I will leave you with one last example of the type of psalm that must have won Jonathan's heart and somehow balanced for him the fact that otherwise his boyfriend was kind of a loser.
Psalm 42 (Quemadmodum)
As the deer panteth for the water-brooks,
so panteth my heart for you, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God;
when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while all day long they say to me,
"Where now is your God?"
I pour out my soul when I think on these things:
how I went with the multitude and led them into the house of God,
With the voice of praise and thanksgiving,
among those who keep holy-day.
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
My soul is heavy within me;
therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan,
and from the peak of Mizar among the heights of Hermon.
One deep calls to another in the noise of your cataracts;
all your rapids and floods have gone over me.
The Lord grants his loving-kindness in the daytime;
in the night season his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I will say to the God of my strength,
"Why have you forgotten me?
and why do I go so heavily with the enemy oppresses me?"
While my bones are being broken,
my enemies mock me to my face;
All day long they mock me
and say to me, "Where now is your God?"
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
...I should compile a book. "Psalms That Are Actually Worth Reading". It could be one of those coffee-table books, and have misty Meaningful Illustrations. Would you buy it?
Here is the deal. There are basically two types of psalms: the Psalm That is Actually a Beautiful Piece of Religiously Significant Poetry, hereafter referred to as the Good Psalm, and The Psalm That is Actually an Excuse For David To Be a Whiny Bitch About Things, hereafter the Whiny Bitch Psalm. Oh, I grant you that occasionally a psalm may start out in Good territory and then veer into Whiny Bitch, but the point is that they stick to these two genres. You are not going to find the Action-Comedy Psalm or the Romantic And Erotic Psalm (that would be Song of Solomon, go read it, it's hot).
Here is an example of a Good Psalm: psalm one-thirty-one. It is also a short psalm, which does tend to help--as a general rule of thumb, the longer a psalm is the whinier and bitchier it is.
Psalm 131 (Domine, non est)
O Lord, I am not proud;
I have no haughty looks.
I do not occupy myself with great matters,
or with things that are too hard for me.
But I still my soul and make it quiet,
like a child upon its mothers breast;
my soul is quieted within me.
O Israel, wait upon the Lord,
from this time forth for evermore.
See? Nice. Brief, to the point, well-worded for maximum impact. Child imagery for David, which is a surprisingly effective device with him (see psalm 139 for another example, although be aware that halfway through (verse 18) it changes into a whiny bitch psalm. In fact, I generally like to pretend that psalm 139 does not go past the seventeenth verse, because it is gorgeous up until there).
You want a whiny bitch psalm? I'm putting it under a cut, because it's hella long and also just deeply annoying--yes, David, we know you suck, why do you have to do it so loudly? No wonder Saul was always throwing things at you, we're surprised Jonathan could stand sleeping with you--don't look so surprised, it's completely obvious--&c.
Hold not your tongue, O God of my praise;
for the mouth of the wicked,
the mouth of the deceitful, is opened against me.
They speak to me with a lying tongue;
they encompass me with hateful words
and fight against me without a cause.
Despite my love, they accuse me;
but as for me, I pray for them.
They repay evil for good,
and hatred for my love.
Set a wicked man against him,
and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is judged, let him be found guilty,
and let his appeal be in vain.
Let his days be few,
and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless,
and his wife become a widow.
Let his children be waifs and beggars;
let them be driven from the ruins of their homes.
Let the creditor seize everything he has;
let strangers plunder his gains.
Let there be no one to show him kindness,
and none to pity his fatherless children.
Let his descendants be destroyed,
and his name be blotted out in the next generation.
Let the wickedness of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
and his mother's sin not be blotted out.
Let their sin be always before the Lord;
but let him root out their names from the earth.
Because he did not remember to show mercy,
but persecuted the poor and needy
and sought to kill the brokenhearted.
He loved cursing,
let it come upon him;
he took no delight in blessing,
let it depart from him.
He put on cursing like a garment,
let it soak into his body like water
and into his bones like oil;
Let it be to him like the cloak which he wraps around himself,
and like the belt that he wears continually.
Let this be the recompense from the Lord to my accusers,
and to those who speak evil against me.
But to you, O Lord my God,
oh, deal with me according to your Name;
for your tender mercy's sake, deliver me.
For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
I have faded away like a shadow when it lengthens;
I am shaken off like a locust.
My knees are weak through fasting,
and my flesh is wasted and gaunt.
I have become a reproach to them;
they see and shake their heads.
Help me, O Lord my God;
save me for your mercy's sake.
Let them know that this is your hand,
that you, O Lord, have done it.
They may curse, but you will bless;
let those who rise up against me be put to shame,
and your servant will rejoice.
Let my accusers be clothed with disgrace
and wrap themselves in their shame as in a cloak.
I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth;
in the midst of the multitude will I praise him;
Because he stands at the right hand of the needy,
to save his life from those who would condemn him.
Ohh, there's so much not to like here. There is some beautiful poetry here; a couple of these lines are really stellar. But it's kind of outweighed by the hypocritical stuff (oh those horrible people who curse people! I hope they burn in hell!) and the whiny WHINY JESUS DAVID JUST SUCK IT UP bitchiness (wah wah I'm hungry and no one likes me) and the sanctimonious beginning (they are so mean to me but I PRAY FOR THEM ANYWAY). I mean, really, David, some of this stuff is correctable, you know. The less you suck the more likely people are to be nice and feed you. Honestly, he reminds me of Ed here. Maybe David would have been more tolerable if someone had put a dead possum in his mailbox.
But you see here the two types of psalm. They're pretty much all like that, with an occasional--and I should have mentioned this before, I'm sure, I'll fix it when I do my senior thesis--deviation into TOTALLY BORING psalmistry. However, boring is boring and provides no entertainment, as least as far as I'm concerned.
To end on a good note, I will leave you with one last example of the type of psalm that must have won Jonathan's heart and somehow balanced for him the fact that otherwise his boyfriend was kind of a loser.
Psalm 42 (Quemadmodum)
As the deer panteth for the water-brooks,
so panteth my heart for you, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God;
when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while all day long they say to me,
"Where now is your God?"
I pour out my soul when I think on these things:
how I went with the multitude and led them into the house of God,
With the voice of praise and thanksgiving,
among those who keep holy-day.
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
My soul is heavy within me;
therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan,
and from the peak of Mizar among the heights of Hermon.
One deep calls to another in the noise of your cataracts;
all your rapids and floods have gone over me.
The Lord grants his loving-kindness in the daytime;
in the night season his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I will say to the God of my strength,
"Why have you forgotten me?
and why do I go so heavily with the enemy oppresses me?"
While my bones are being broken,
my enemies mock me to my face;
All day long they mock me
and say to me, "Where now is your God?"
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
...I should compile a book. "Psalms That Are Actually Worth Reading". It could be one of those coffee-table books, and have misty Meaningful Illustrations. Would you buy it?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 07:38 am (UTC)I would actually love to learn about the Bible from you. I am positive it would make me actually interested in it the way I was when I was younger.
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 07:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 11:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 11:47 am (UTC)♥
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 01:14 pm (UTC)And yes, Jonathan/David OTP.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:19 am (UTC)They so are.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 01:40 pm (UTC)... and your characterization of David makes me laugh like a hyena. >_>;;
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:20 am (UTC)XD You mean as a whiny loser who was sleeping with his employer's son?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 02:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 02:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 02:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 02:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 03:12 pm (UTC)You are worse than the Apostle Paul. Put down the stylus and go ride a bike or something. Ask Jonathan and Bathsheba to go on a picnic with you. Get out of your black-curtained room of emo that induces these things.
Love,
She Who Likes Paul's Woman-Hating Letters Better Than Your Whiney Poetry
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:21 am (UTC)...Jonathan/Bathsheba/David would be cute if it weren't for Uriah and the fact that David almost certainly raped or coerced Bathsheba.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 07:16 pm (UTC)...oh, but your faith is a beautiful thing, you know. To be secure enough to be able to laugh, and counter church doctrine when it doesn't make sense, and... yeah. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 12:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-20 01:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-21 03:23 am (UTC)...Haha, I say that like I knew it before but I actually did not, and I still need to get around to reading Solomon. Oh well. Me and the biblical things, we do not usually get along in person, but they are interesting to learn about secondhand!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-21 03:28 am (UTC)Solomon is very sexy! I like it. Some parts are mildly weird (your breasts are like a cluster of grapes, your breasts are like twin deer, &c) but some are just the most gorgeous erotic poetry imaginable. Really nice. And you have me for all your secondhand religious needs! :D
...did you get a new username?