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| PSALMS |
| Explanatory Footnotes - page 2 |
| time of trouble, they also look forward to "seeing his face" - a goal that is valuable only to someone who deeply loves God. To see God's face is to see and know him personally, deeply, and without the clouds of mystery that so often make faith difficult. 19:7 The Names of God After describing the skies as a reflection of God's glory in the first six verses, Psalm 19 switches gears. From the sun, moon, and stars it turns to consider the beauty of God's law. Reflecting that change, the poem in Hebrew uses a different, more personal name for God. The first six verses refer to God with a general name that anyone, of any religion, might use - just like our English word God. But from verse seven onwards, God is called Yahweh (translated "the Lord") - the personal name God revealed to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3:15). The heavens declare the glory of God, but God's law reveals even more - his personal voice to his chosen people. He introduces himself to them by his first name, as it were. 26:1 Self-Righteous? This claim to be blameless or righteous - repeated many times in other psalms - should not be stretched too far. Whenever the psalmists examined themselves before God, they acknowledged their deep need for forgiveness (see 143:2; 19:12; 32:105; and 130:3. Here, though, the issue is God's fairness. Knowing little about life after death, the psalmists expected that good people would do better in this life than bad people. They were deeply puzzled when they did not. Didn't God control every event? In calling for justice, they emphasized that they had been more faithful to God than their enemies. Compared to the people plotting murder and betrayal against him, the psalmist was blameless. In a wholehearted, |