Wednesday, 30 August 2017

Psalm 132 - God's dwelling place

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Psalm 132:3-6 "Surely I will not go into the chamber of my house, or go up to the comfort of my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob. Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of the woods." NKJV

Another version of the first two verses: "If I will come my house tent, if I will rise up onto my couch bed. If I will give sleep to my eyes to my eyelids, you will slumber."

These verses contain the Hebrew word Im three times. This word is typically translated as "if" but "if" in Hebrew is not the same as "if" in English. There are the many translations of this one Hebrew word in the New American Standard Version (including certainly, never, surely, than, until and without!), but in my translation, I chose to stick with "if".

Well, this is a devotional, which by definition must produce a thought to which we can devote our lives. In the context of Psalm 132, these verses are a quote telling what David vows unto God. David is promising to find a place for God (as we will see in verse 5 tomorrow). The contrast in these 2 verses is that David will not go to his own home nor sleep until he finds a home for God.

David's search is not over until he (David's Son, Yeshua) finds you. You are the Temple of the Lord. Messiah in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27b)

Here is my original translation for the second two verses: "Until I will find a place (or space) for the Lord, tabernacles to the Mighty One of Jacob. Look here, we heard in Ephraim, we found in a field-woods (meadow)."

In these 2 verses, we have two separate thoughts. Verse 5 is the end of the beginning of the Psalm. That thought is that David has sworn not to rest in any way until he finds a place for God.

Then we have the beginning of a description of what it is like to worship God in His Tabernacle. Watch these next few verses as David paints a word picture of the future. What is it like to worship in the presence of God? Verse 6 is the poetic way of saying, "We investigated this and look what we found out."