Psalm Meditation 1099 Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time July 11, 2021 Psalm 45 1 My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. 2 You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. 3 Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your glory and majesty. 4 In your majesty ride on victoriously for the cause of truth and to defend the right; let your right hand teach you dread deeds. 5 Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; the peoples fall under you. 6 Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; 7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions; 8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad; 9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir. 10 Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your people and your father’s house, 11 and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him; 12 the people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people 13 with all kinds of wealth. The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes; 14 in many-colored robes she is led to the king; behind her the virgins, her companions, follow. 15 With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. 16 In the place of ancestors you, O king, shall have sons; you will make them princes in all the earth. 17 I will cause your name to be celebrated in all generations; therefore the peoples will praise you forever and ever. (NRSV) This may be a totally random thought sparked by verse 13 of this marriage psalm. I hope it is helpful despite or because of its focus. In early preaching, the habit was to read a verse of Scripture, expound on it, move to the next verse and repeat the process. I believe that the chapters and verses of the Bible are divisions for preaching. The chapters are a text for a given week and the verses are the places to stop in order to expound on that bit of Scripture. To add to the possibility of confusion, early Hebrew was written without punctuation or even spaces between words. Dividing a text as has been done with verse 13 raises an interesting question. In the NRSV there is not even a comma to separate verse 12 from 13; the verse picks up in the middle of a sentence. Chances are, that at one time people read the sentence as if the princess were decked with all kinds of wealth, and now it makes more sense for the people of Tyre to be the ones with all kinds of wealth as wedding gifts for the king. The punctuation has changed but not the versification. Either way, the reading does not have any effect on our salvation—this time. So, all of this to remind us that it is important to be careful how we read and comprehend Scripture. Am I correct about how Scripture was divided into chapters and verses? I have never seen any explanation of any kind; so maybe yes, maybe no. Have I seen and heard people take the same verse of Scripture to prove opposing points of view by putting emphasis on the part that proves their point? Yep, I have. As we read Scripture, especially if we are reading to prove ourselves right about something, and ‘those people’ wrong, we do well to keep an eye to God instead of proving our own point of view with Scripture. July 5, 2021 LCM