Reading the Psalms Christianly
Apocalyptic Poetry and Resurrection Prophecies
Brad Jersak
Psalm 17 (18):4–19 (Orthodox Psalter)
For the end [telos], for the child of the Lord, David: what things he spake unto the Lord, even the words of this ode, in the day wherein the Lord delivered him out of the hands of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul; and he said:
4 The pangs of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity sorely troubled me. 5 The pangs of hades encircled me, round about the snares of death have overtaken me. 6 And in mine affliction I called upon the Lord, and unto my God I cried; He heard my voice out of His holy temple, and my cry before Him shall enter into His ears.
7 And the earth shook and was made to tremble, and the foundations of the mountains were troubled and were shaken, because God was angry with them.
8 There went up smoke in His wrath, and fire from His countenance set all aflame; coals were kindled therefrom. 9 And He bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under His feet. 10 And He mounted upon cherubim and flew, He flew upon the wings of the winds. 11 And He made darkness his hiding place, His tabernacle round about Him, dark water in the clouds of the air.
12 From the far-shining radiance that was before Him there passed by clouds, hail and coals of fire. 13 And the Lord thundered out of heaven, and the Most High gave forth His voice. 14 And He sent forth His arrows, and scattered them; and lightnings were multiplied, and troubled them sorely. 15 And the well-springs of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were revealed at Thy rebuke, O Lord, at the on-breathing of the spirit of Thy wrath.
16 He sent from on high, and He took me; He received me out of many waters. 17 He will deliver me from mine enemies which are mighty and from them that hate me, for they are stronger than I. 18 They overtook me in the day of mine affliction, and the Lord became my firm support. 19 And He led me forth into a spacious place; He will deliver me, because He desired me.
How does one read the Psalms “Christianly”? Which is to say, how do the Psalms anticipate and inform their telos or fulfillment in Christ, and how do Christians read the Psalms as a Christian book of prayer.
Using Psalm 17 (LXX) from the Orthodox Psalter, two brief points are well worth noting. First, David models how Jewish apocalyptic imagery is descriptive of events rooted in this world. And second, we see how his near-death experiences transpose into resurrection prophecies.
David shows us how apocalyptic imagery is poetic
In Psalm 17, we have a very early example of Hebrew apocalyptic imagery within the context of a Psalm, centuries prior to the Jewish exile(s), when apocalyptic literature became popular. The apocalyptic genre is rooted in and derived from Hebrew poetry.
And while the imagery is obviously symbolic, the Christian tradition repeatedly stumbles over apocalyptic language into crass literalism. Even when Daniel 7 explicitly interprets cosmic images (such as its grotesque beasts) as referring to earthly events (the rise and fall of empires), literalist interpretations of billows of fire, hail stones of coal, rock-breaking earthquakes and encroaching darkness revert to unwarranted literalism. And this is especially true when the text assigns violence directly to God.
But in Psalm 17, the superscription aligns the apocalyptic imagery of the hymn with historical referents in the life of David that we read in the historical literature. The context of this Psalm is “…in the day wherein the Lord delivered [David] out of the hands of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul.
We know this story, because it is recounted for us in 1 Samuel 18-31 in great detail. The Lord indeed delivers David out of the hands of his enemies, including King Saul, many times over these 14 chapters:
18:11 |
Saul throws his spear at David twice. |
18:13 |
Saul makes David commander of 1,000, hoping he will be killed. |
18:17 |
Merab is offered to David, if he will “fight the Lord’s battles like a valiant man.” |
18:20f. |
Michal is offered to David for 100 Philistine foreskins, and he presents 200. |
19:1 |
Saul orders Jonathan and his servants to kill David. |
19:10 |
Saul slings his spear at David again. |
19:11f |
Saul sends messengers to David’s house to kill him. |
19:18f |
Saul sends three groups of men to Naioth to take David, then comes himself. |
20:1-42 |
Jonathan aids David in his escape. |
21:1-9 |
David takes the consecrated bread and Goliath’s sword from Amimelek the Priest at Nob. |
21:10-15 |
David fakes insanity before Achish at Gath. |
22:1-5 |
David escapes to the cave of Adullam and stronghold of Mizpah. |
22:6-23 |
Saul kills the priests of Nob. |
23:1-6 |
David saves Keilah from the Philistines. |
23:1-29 |
David moves from place to place in the wilderness with Saul in pursuit. |
24:1-22 |
David spares Saul’s life at En Gedi |
25:1-44 |
David, Nabal and Abigail. |
26:1-25 |
David spares Saul’s life again at the desert of Ziph. |
27:1-28:2 |
David and his men settle in Philistine territory for 16 months. |
28:3-24 |
Saul at the witch of Endor, visitation from Samuel. |
29:1-11 |
Achish Sends David Back to Ziklag |
30:1-31 |
David destroys the Amalekites. |
31:1-12 |
Saul takes his own life in battle. |
Now, having reviewed the historical narrative, I reread David’s poetic account of God’s direct intervention in Psalm 17:7-15, looking in vain for any connection between the real-time events and David’s apocalyptic vision of fire, smoke, earthquakes and lightning. When in the story does God ride the cherubim in the clouds, shroud himself with darkness or burst forth with blinding radiance?
Perhaps these lyrics describe a nighttime chase in the wilderness in which David evades Saul through some earth-shaking, tree-splitting storm. It could have happened. But 1 Samuel says no such thing. Rather, it’s more likely that we’re to see a bifurcation of reality in which the historical books describe events from below while the poetry describes it from heaven’s point of view. That is, the Psalm pulls back the curtain, attributing credit to God for his providential care through each of David’s crises. David ascribes glory to heaven for his earthly survival, recognizing God’s hand at work behind the scenes—and then he paints what’s behind the scenes with these dramatic, more-than-literal word-pictures.
And that, I suggest, is how apocalyptic imagery is composed, what it achieves and how it should be interpreted—not only in the Psalms, but also the Prophets and the Book of Revelation—perceiving life here and now through heaven’s eyes and God’s care.
David’s near-death experiences transpose into resurrection prophecies
The early church declared that Christ “rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures.” The Scriptures the creed refers to are the Old Testament passages that, in retrospect, prophesy the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The New Testament evangelists’ eyes were opened on Pentecost to see, for example, how David’s brushes with death serve as prophetic pronouncements of Christ’s defeat of death. For example, when Peter cites the Psalmist’s words, “because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, you will not let your holy one see decay” (Acts 2:27 / Psalm 16:8-11), he amplifies David’s hope that God will rescue him from dying (preventing his death) into Jesus’ hope that his Father will rescue him from death after death. So the near-death experience is transposed into a resurrection prophecy.
This happens repeatedly in the Psalms, and especially in those where superscriptions signal a Messianic prophecy with the words, “To the end” (grossly mistranslated “for the choir director” in many Bibles). “To the end” or “Unto the telos” is like a dedication to the coming One—the Messiah—who would fulfill the words of the Psalm as Israel’s Deliverer. So when they saw that phrase in the introduction, church fathers like St Gregory of Nyssa watched for Christ, his passion and his resurrection victory in the Psalm. Psalm 17(18) is no exception.
In verses 4-6 and 16-19, David cries out in his distress, praying that God will deliver him from the snares of death and the pangs of hades. And we read that God hears that prayer and answers it.
Had David died and been resurrected? No, he is writing this as one who is just a step ahead of his captors, lurking in the shadows, hiding in caves, fighting for his life. He prays these prays at the threshold of death, pleading to God for deliverance, and finds God to be faithful.
But in the ears of the first Christians, they heard these prayers as prophecies of Christ’s crucifixion, his descent into hades, his conquest of death and his glorious resurrection. Certainly the author of Hebrews recognizes this dynamic when he says,
“During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:7).
Yes, David cried out that God would save him from dying and he was delivered. But Christ cries out for God to save him (and us all, in him) from death itself, not by avoiding its jaws, but by passing through it unscathed and leaving hades empty and in ruins behind him—fulfilled in his resurrection.
So when reading the Psalms, if we’re to read them Christianly, let’s spot David’s cries for deliverance and recognize in them the treasury of his Messianic death and resurrection prophecies.
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