Lost Worship
In 1967, John Lennon wrote “I Am the Walrus”, and the Beatles performed it on their Magical Mystery Tour. With lines such as “crabalocker fishwife” and “elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna”, the lyrics are so bizarre, that many have concluded that John had to be on drugs. Maybe or maybe not, but the song’s background aids our understanding. It seems that earlier that year, a high school student sent Lennon a letter informing him that the student’s professor had assigned all his students to analyze Beatles’ lyrics. In a game of one-upmanship, John decided to write some lyrics that defied analysis. The result? A song whose intellectual high point is the famous line, “I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob.” The song can certainly be enjoyed without knowing its background, but how much better it is when we realize that John was just trying to be as crazy as possible.
When looking at early manuscripts of the Psalms, the divisions between each hymn is not nearly as distinctive as we see in our Bibles (see insert for a page of the psalms in the Leningrad Codex dated to 1008 AD). Other than markings in the margins (which were added later), there are no titles (i.e., Psalm I, Psalm II) or spaces between the lines. When looking at the subtitles it is unclear whether they go with the previous wording or what follows.
In other words, out of the fifty-five psalms which have subtitles, it becomes guesswork as to whether they are a superscription or subscription. For example, the subtitle to Psalm 88 reads in the NKJV:
“A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the Chief Musician. Set to ‘Mahalath Leannoth.’ a Contemplation of Heman the Ezrahite.”
So the immediate question is, who wrote this psalm? Was it the Sons of Korah, or Heman the Ezrahite, or did both have a part? Did the sons of Korah, who were told of their forefather being swallowed up in the earth during Moses’ day, pen the line:
“You place me in the lowest regions of the pit” (88:6a),
or did Samuel’s grandson, Heman, who experienced Israel’s rejection of his father’s sin, write:
“You cause my friends and neighbors to keep their distance; those who know me leave me alone in the darkness.”
You can certainly appreciate this psalm either way, but these words were included in the “church” hymnal to instruct us. We know from 1 Chronicles 9:22, that Samuel and David established a system of worship that Solomon instituted in the Temple. David’s purpose wasn’t just to assemble some nice songs to sing during worship, but to instruct the people about their God and what He had done for them.The correct "score notes" would give us the proper understanding that David, or others following in his footsteps, was communicating.
I believe the correct understanding of this worship system, was lost over the centuries of sin that saw the Temple worship shut down completely several times, and eventually destroyed as Judah was carried off into exile. Is there a pattern in Scripture that will help us unravel this? I think there is. Let's look at it Sunday.
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