The King’s English

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Psalm 107

There’s a saying: “Most people only look up when they’re flat on their backs.”  It’s proved in the bible time and again.  And this phrase “at their wits’ end” is a perfect description for where people find Jesus.  Or rather, where He finds them.

“Wits’ end” is quite a creative translation from the AV.  If Psalm 107:27 was rendered more literally,  it would say, “all their wisdom was swallowed up / ruined”.  But “at their wits’ end” is wonderfully pithy.  And it’s stuck.  Modern translations can’t seem to improve on the saying and it has passed into common parlance.

When a person runs out of ideas and hope, they are said to be “at their wits’ end.”  In the Psalm it’s a mighty storm that brings people to this point.

(It’s worth knowing that storms are symbols of chaos, of disorder, of trouble in life):

“They that go down to the sea in ships,  that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.  For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.   Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.  He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.  Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!  (Psalm 107:23-31)

Here’s an eerily accurate prophecy of the storm which Jesus calms in Mark 4.  The disciples – led by hardened fishermen – set sail, confident in their years of experience on the Sea of Galilee.  The wind gets up and we can imagine them steeling themselves to press on.  The waves crash into the boat.  They try to bail themselves out, but start to sink.  Still, whatever the storm dishes up, they determine to handle.  The storm is not beyond them.  So they think.  Until at some point, they realise the truth: they’re out of their depth.

“They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.  Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble.” (Psalm 107:27-28).

The word “then” is very revealing.  The LORD is not their first port of call but their last.  But, He doesn’t hold this against them.  Immediately “he bringeth them out of their distresses.  He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.”  (Psalm 107:28-29).  This is precisely what Jesus does in Mark 4.  He simply speaks to the wind and the waves and brings instant calm.

The disciples are not equal to the storm.  But they find that Jesus is infinitely superior to it.  When He proves it, He leaves His people staggered and breathless, asking “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41).

With Psalm 107 before us the answer is obvious : He is the LORD.  But as the disciples come to terms with having God in the boat “they feared exceedingly” (Mark 4:41).  One more powerful that a hurricane sails with them!  Jesus is the LORD.

But what’s most frightening is this – He’s the LORD who doesn’t always bring “plain sailing.”  In fact He “raiseth the stormy wind”.  Many times Jesus sets sail for rough seas.  He even creates the rough seas!

Why?

Because He’s the LORD who is known best in storms.  Think of it this way:  Did the disciples know Jesus before the hurricane?  Yes, to a degree.  But how much more did they know Him after the hurricane?  With awe and wonder they cry out “What manner of man is this!”

“Wits’ end” experiences have a unique ability to reveal Jesus.  There’s a sense in which we only begin to know Him as LORD when we come to the end of ourselves.

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Psalm 103

Psalm 103 gives us a sobering contrast between the life of man and the love of God.  One is fragile and short-lived, the other is eternal and unchanging:

“As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.  For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.  But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children.”  (Psalm 103:15-17)

The actress in her dream role, the athlete breaking all records, the musician with the world at his feet – they’re like brilliant floral displays.  Brimming with life, they dazzle and delight.  They reflect the glory of the Word, their Maker.   But just a change of wind – and they’re gone.

It’s not that our lives are pointless.  Instead they testify to an extravagant God who lavishes His world with beauty at every turn.  Human life is not a cruel joke.  But it is very, very brief.

As quickly as the seasons change, the actress loses her looks, the athlete is injured and the world moves on.   And so soon those bodies will be compost for the flowers their lives once resembled.

We may erect monuments to the dead, but before long their place “shall know (them) no more.”  I don’t know the names of my great-grandparents – and my great grandchildren will not know mine.  We don’t live on, even in the memories of those that are left.

This is the fleeting flourishing of the flesh.

But — verse 17 continues — the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.  Now that’s quite a claim!  Though insubstantial, we belong to an eternal reality.  Though we are withering bluebells, we know a merciful love that goes on forever.

This love lasts, not just into the future, but is “from everlasting”?  The love of God does not just preserve the God-fearer to all eternity.  It is upon the God-fearer from all eternity.

How can this be?

I was not in existence from everlasting.  How can the love of God be on me from eternity past?

Here’s the Bible’s stunning answer:  God the Father loves me with the very love which He has for His eternal Son, Christ.  You see only Christ could be said to be loved “from everlasting to everlasting.”  If such a love is upon me it’s only because I’ve come in on God’s love for Christ.

When the Son took on flesh He drew us into His life.  God-fearers (another name for believers) become incorporated into Christ, and in Him we could not be more secure.

Now that we are in Jesus, God’s love for us is not like His love for Jesus.  God’s love for us is not based on His love for Jesus.  God’s love for us is His love for Jesus.  We are so identified with Christ that we are loved by God as the eternal Son.  In Christ we share in something unbreakably, unwaveringlyand  unimprovably wonderful – the everlasting love of God.

This is incredible.  Perishing plants like ourselves can get grafted into the true Vine, Jesus Christ.  In Him we participate in a love without beginning and without end.

No wonder the Psalm ends with rapturous praise:

Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.

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Psalm 90

Your days are numbered.

That is a sobering thought.  You have a finite number of heart-beats left.  When you’ve reached your allotted tally there will be no more.

To put it starkly, we are in the queue for the crematorium.  It may be a long queue, but it’s getting shorter all the time.

Queen Elizabeth the First is supposed to have said on her death-bed “All my possessions for a moment of time.”  In her day she was the richest person alive, yet she had no bargaining chips with death.  And neither do we.

One person who felt this very keenly was Moses.  He wrote Psalm 90 (the only Psalm of the 150 which is attributed to him).  He knew from bitter experience that the LORD places a final limit upon us.  Though he was loved by God, he perished in the wilderness, short of the promised land.  This death sentence is often spoken of in Numbers and in Deuteronomy.  It was a non-negotiable decree: Moses will not cross the Jordan.  He must die in the desert.  Therefore he journeyed through the wilderness and prepared his people for the future with the certain knowledge that he would not make it.  The shadow of death fell across everything he did.  And so he writes these verses from experience:

For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.    The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.  Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.  (Psalm 90:9-12)

We naturally fear death and seek to put it out of our minds.  But Moses instructs us in a different course.  To “number our days” is to apply our hearts to wisdom.

Perhaps this means more than simply embracing our mortality.  It takes no great spiritual insight to figure out that the grave awaits.  But I wonder whether the numbers themselves are important here:

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years (Psalm 90:10)

Threescore and ten (70) and fourscore (80) have theological significance.  Seven (and its multiples) represents completion.  There are 7 days in the week, the seventh is a day of rest and then the week is over.  The eighth day is the first day of a new week.  8 (and its multiples) mean we have broken through to a whole new beginning.

And so Jesus lay in the ground on the seventh day.  His natural life had come to an end.  But “by reason of Almighty strength” He burst through into a whole new beginning on the eighth day.

And in Psalm 90 we have a trace of this.  There is a natural life-span of seven-ness.  But then there may be an operation of “strength” whereby a lifespan breaks through into eight-ness.  Here is a little gospel proclamation in the midst of our mortality.  Though our natural lives will run their course, there is a “strength” that will deliver us into life beyond natural life.

So to “number our days” is not simply to consider our finitude – though that is essential.  If we really want to apply our hearts to wisdom we must know that “by reason of God’s resurrection strength” there is life beyond limit.  Yes, there is an end to this natural lifespan and I must face that.  But through Christ there is also an eighth-day-reality – a new beginning on the other side of death.

One day, beyond our last day, there will be days without number.  And, today, every day is a day closer.

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Psalm 84

The way we think about it, careers, businesses and sports teams go from “strength to strength.”  And usually they go from “strength to strength” because of hard work and perseverance.

But in Psalm 84 both those assumptions are challenged.

First of all, it is God’s people who go from “strength to strength.”  (Psalm 84:7)  Now isn’t that an attractive thought?  We speak of impersonal things – like the stock market – going from strength to strength.  But our personal experience is the exact opposite.  In our “green salad days” we might be full of life and vitality.  But isn’t it true that we go from “strength to weakness“?  How can we go from strength to strength?  Such a trajectory goes against everything we know in nature.  Well, listen to the context…

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee… They go from strength to strength (Psalm 84:5-7)

Consider this example:  A man tells you he is rich.  You might expect that his riches are in his possession.  But he says, no, his wealth is in his father’s bank account.  What’s more, this money is earning interest, and one day it will come into his name.  Right now he doesn’t have a penny to his name.   Nonetheless, you could well say that his money is going ‘from wealth to wealth’.

So it is with strength.  The Christian has no strength in themselves.  Indeed we step out into the world looking just like our Lord.  We turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, forgive our enemies and answer evil with blessing.  It looks very weak.  But actually we have entrusted our strength to a Lord who, by His cross and resurrection, knows how to turn such weakness into strength.

In all our weakness, our prayer is verse 9:

“Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine Anointed.”

Our strength is not in ourselves.  We do not protect ourselves. But we have a Shield in heaven who is strong enough for all of us.  Another name for Him is our Anointed – the Messiah.  He is our protection and strength.  So He is the One to whom we look.  Just as the Father entrusts all things to Christ, so we entrust ourselves (our strength) to Him.

This is an investment that will pay eternal dividends.

“I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”  (1 Timothy 1:12)

And in the meantime:

“though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”  (2 Corinthians 4:16)

The whole world follows the pattern of “strength to weakness,” because the whole world believes the lie of “strength in ourselves”.  But the Christian is different.  We know “strength in Christ.”  And therefore we experience “strength to strength” – now and forever!

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Psalm 72:9-20

It’s a euphemism for death, but these days we rarely talk of people “biting the dust” – not in a final sense anyway.

We might say that a plan or project has bitten the dust.  But describing a person’s death as biting the dust seems the preserve of tough-talking cowboys.

The exact wording – bite the dust – is found nowhere in the bible.  Yet it is thoroughly biblical in origin. This is because the phrase depends on a whole biblical theology of dust and eating.  Let me explain:

In Genesis 2, man was made from the dust.

In Genesis 3, man listens to the serpent (i.e. Satan) and so must return to dust.

And Satan is cursed to eat dust all his days (Genesis 3:14)

Thus Satan is set up as a man-eater (1 Peter 5:8)

Christ will join man to crush the man-eater (Genesis 3:15)

How will He do this?  Incredibly, by being Man eaten (John 6:51)

Only in this way does He swallow His enemies (1 Corinthians 15:54)

Now those who don’t eat (with) Christ get eaten (Revelation 19:18)

But those who do eat Christ join Him in crushing the man-eater (Romans 16:20)

Therefore Satan will eat dirt all the days of his life (Micah 7:17; Revelation 20:10)

And all those who follow him will likewise “lick the dust” (Psalm 72:9)

[The Messiah’s] enemies will lick the dust.  (Psalm 72:9)

So Christians can do their own John Wayne impression.  Because of Christ’s victory we can use some very tough talk on Satan.  We can say:

“Eat dirt man-eater!  There’s one Man you couldn’t swallow.  He’s swallowed you.  Our food will be the Man eaten.  And you will lick the dust forever.”

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Psalm 72:1-8

The Hebrew language abounds in double entendres.  We have already considered the multiple shades of meaning to the word “Adam“.  It refers to the historical person of Adam, to a man and to man (meaning humanity).  The way the Bible thinks of things, what happens to the man Adam happens to all man.

Or consider the verb “nasa“.  It means “lifted up” but it also means to “bear the weight of” and is the verb “to forgive.”  Thus to the Hebrew mind, the One lifted up is the One bearing a weight in order to forgive.  But I digress…

Today we consider the Hebrew word “eretz”.  It’s a word that means both “land” and “earth.”  In particular it has that double meaning of the land (the promised land) and the earth.  When a Hebrew speaker refered to Canaan as the “eretz”, they were viewing this strip of land at the end of the Mediterranean as a token of the whole world.

When the phrase “the ends of the earth” is used (and it’s used 27 times in the Old Testament) it has this lesser and greater reference.  And never is this more obvious than in Psalm 72:8.  It speaks about the Ideal King, the Messiah:

He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

Does this mean that the King of Israel will rule from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee and from the Jordan unto the ends of the land?  Well, approximately, Solomon achieved this.  But he was only a micro-king ruling over a micro-cosmos.  When the Israelites saw a King like Solomon reigning over a united Israel, they were witnessing a charcoal sketch of a glorious fresco.  At its pinnacle, everything the Israelite monarchy could hope to be was a mere shadow.  Today, enjoy this panoramic vision of Jesus Christ’s  righteous reign:

Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son. 2 He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.

3 The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. 4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. 5 They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. 6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. 7 In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.

8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. 9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. 10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. 11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.

12 For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. 13 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. 14 He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.

15 And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. 16 There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.

17 His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. 18 Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. 19 And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.   (Psalm 72)

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Psalm 23

For many it’s their favourite “King James” phrase.  Yet, as far as I can tell, it was the Geneva Bible of 1587 that first gave us this wonderful wording:

“My cup runneth over.”  (Psalm 23:5)

Here is the expectation of the Messiah as He faces “the valley of the shadow of death.”  He will come through to victory and feasting at the LORD’s table.  He will be publicly vindicated, anointed and His cup will run over (read Psalm 23).

This gives us two sources of confidence:

First, the Messiah’s life and blessings have a super-abundant quality.  They spill over in excess.  If we would seek His vindication, His anointing, His place at the feast, then we can take comfort that He has more than enough blessing to go around.  Christ has not won His victory for Himself alone – His cup runneth over.  And His blessings are not dished out with a teaspoon.  Rather, as John declares “Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.”  (John 1:16)

Second, Psalm 23 lets us in on a calculation that Christ made as He faced “the valley of the shadow”.  He weighed the darkness of the valley against the cascading fullness of the LORD’s blessings.  And in Christ’s estimation, the overflowing cup was worth the dark and dreadful valley.

If that’s Christ’s estimation then we can be sure that whatever valley we face, the vindication will make it worthwhile.  Even Christ’s cross was worth it for the sake of the feast.  How much more will our little crosses and sufferings be made to seem triflingin comparison with the weight of glory in store for us?  (2 Corinthians 4:17)

As Martin Luther has said:

“If we consider the greatness and the glory of the life we shall have when we have risen from the dead, it would not be difficult at all for us to bear the concerns of this world. If I believe the Word, I shall on the Last Day, after the sentence has been pronounced, not only gladly have suffered ordinary temptations, insults, and imprisonment, but I shall also say: “O, that I did not throw myself under the feet of all the godless for the sake of the great glory which I now see revealed and which has come to me through the merit of Christ!”

Christ’s cup overflows to us.  And through Him even our cup will overflow.

Therefore even the darkest valley will be worth it.

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Psalm 23

When his son Absalom briefly usurped his throne, David withdrew from Jerusalem.  He crossed the Kidron valley, ascended the Mount of Olives and escaped to safety.

“And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over: the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness. (2 Samuel 15:23)

Here was the King after the LORD’s own heart, but now he passes through the valley of deep shadow (Kidron is related to words for blackness and mourning).  It is a walk of shame as he passes through this valley at the people’s head.  He is heading towards the summit of the Mount of Olives (where the garden of Gethsemane stands).  And he seems to be abdicating his throne forever.

Some contend that David had the Kidron Valley in mind as he wrote Psalm 23:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

Perhaps though it’s the other way around.  Psalm 23 is, originally, the words of the Messiah’s sufferings and glories which are placed on David’s lips.  David’s own typological experiences in the Kidron Valley are foretastes of Christ’s ultimate valley.

Jesus is the King who takes that great and fearful walk of shame.  He enters into the darkness of death itself.  And John felt it was necessary to add this detail as he recounted Christ’s final hours:

“Jesus went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.”  (John 18:1)

Where David crossed the Kidron and then passed through the garden of Gethsemane, Christ stopped at the garden.  Christ could have kept going to safety, just as David had.  He could have used this ancient escape route.  Instead He pauses, prays and accepts the cup of suffering from His Father (Matthew 26:36-46).  Jesus awaited arrest in this garden that He might be brought back to Jerusalem and face death’s darkest valley.

Christ has chosen to walk our path and to do so at our head.  Like a needle piercing the black shroud of death He passes through, bearing the brunt of its terrible curse.  And we trail behind Him like the thread, pulled through in union with our suffering King.

We cannot pray the twenty-third Psalm by ourselves.  Hebrews 2:15 reminds us that we are naturally slaves to our fear of death.  As we contemplate this valley we fear much evil.  And so we should – death is our ultimate enemy.

Yet we do not pray Psalm 23 alone.  First of all Christ prays it.  First of all He walks that path and comes through into feasting, victory and joy.  But He does it as our Forerunner.  If we belong to Him, His victory is our victory.  Today He still prays this Psalm for us and in us as our Intercessor, High Priest and Friend.  As we hear His song, we allow His voice to tune our hearts.  And soon – imperfectly but no less really – we will find ourselves joining in:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me!

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Psalm 23

In between the Psalm of the cross (Psalm 22) and the Psalm of Christ’s ascension back to heaven (Psalm 24) we have the 23rd Psalm – a Psalm of resurrection.

^“1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. ²He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. ³He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  ⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.  ⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  ⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”

If we assume that the Speaker remains unchanged throughout this section of the Psalms, we can see this song firstly as the prayer of the Messiah as He faces “the valley of the shadow of death.”

Indeed many clues within the Psalm would confirm this.  The whole song is intensely personal – there is only one blessed man here.  And He is contrasted with the many enemies in whose midst He will be vindicated.   He seems to be uniquely hosted at this celebratory table beyond death.  There He is “anointed” (another way of saying christed).  And the final verse could most literally be translated “I will return to the house of the LORD for ever.”

Believers certainly look forward to entering the house of the LORD forever.  But the only Man to return to heaven is the One who came from heaven – Christ Himself (John 3:13).

So this Psalm is, originally, the song of the Messiah who would suffer and then be glorified.  Seeing how He handles death, we can gain much comfort as we walk through that valley with Him and in Him.

And the first comfort Christ confesses is this opening phrase: “The LORD is my Shepherd.”

There’s an oft-repeated biblical phrase that first appears in the book of Numbers: “sheep without a shepherd.”  It describes a leaderless rabble who need a loving and strong ruler to guide them.  Sheep are notoriously foolish creatures.  They require much closer attention than most animals.  And the LORD pictures His care for His people as Shepherd.  Not as a Coach or Instructor, as though He simply issues commands from a distance.  He is a Shepherd who gives hands-on care.

As we read this Psalm we get a sense of that “hands-on care.”  Everything the Psalmist experiences in life, death and beyond is due to the intimate guidance of the LORD.  This Psalm is a counterfoil to the cry of godforsakenness we heard two days ago.  The Messiah declares that his experiences – up to, including, and beyond “the valley of the shadow” – are all the result of the intensely personal shepherding of the LORD.  He is guided through death and back to the table by a loving Shepherd who can be trusted to know best.

As we hear the warmth of Christ’s descriptions of His Father we gain courage for our own walk.  There are times when we can sing the 23rd Psalm with quiet confidence and trust.  Yet sometimes “the rod and staff” of the LORD do not comfort us.  Instead they anger us or make us despair.  Many times we do fear evil, especially in that dark and terrible valley.

Yet this is a path which Christ has walked.  And He has walked it for us.  He has walked it as the trusting and obedient Son of the Father.  He has submitted to the rod and staff.  He has submitted to the deep darkness and come through to glory. Our hope is not in our own “dying well”.  Our hope is in the fact that He has died well.  And if we trust Him, we are in Him, carried through to share a place at the table.

Yet, as we walk our own path, let us allow Christ’s vision of the Father to be our own.  He could trust the LORD even as He headed for Jerusalem, even in Gethsemane, even at Calvary.  He could see that, on the other end of the rod and staff, there was a loving Shepherd.  He had faith that the feast would make the valley worthwhile.

As we face our own sufferings and death let’s allow His song to sink into our hearts.  May His faith in the Father be ours.  And then we too will sing with confidence “The LORD is my Shepherd.”

Psalm 22:1-31

When Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He was referencing the whole of Psalm 22.  Before chapter divisions were inserted into the biblical text (in the 12th century AD), a person would refer to a Psalm by quoting its first line.  And when we study the whole of Psalm 22, we get a unique window onto the horrors of Christ crucified.

The Psalm that begins “My God, My God” continues with an extended, first person account of the Messiah’s sufferings.  In verse 6 He says:

“I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.  All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.”  (Psalm 22:6-8)

A thousand years before Good Friday this Psalm predicts the whole experience of crucifixion – even quoting in advance the words of the crowd at Calvary (Matthew 27:41-43).

The phrase “laughed to scorn” is the KJV’s consistent translation of a single Hebrew word which carries both senses of laughing and scorn.  Nowadays we would call this an amplified translation.  If such a policy is employed too often it can make for onerous reading.  Yet when deployed sparingly and with a poet’s ear, it enriches a translation.

The King James Bible cannot claim the credit for this turn of phrase – it appears in Miles Coverdale’s (1540) and John Rogers’ (1549) translations.  The saying caught the attention of William Shakespeare, who perhaps knew the phrase from its use in the Bishop’s Bible of 1568.  He thought it eloquent enough to use in a key passage of Macbeth:

“Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth”. (Act 4, scene 1)

Shakespeare has caught the Bible’s meaning.  To laugh something to scorn is to deride it – to laugh at and deem it as nothing.  That’s how Macbeth considered “the power of man.”  And it’s how the power of man considers the Messiah.  We laugh Him to scorn as He dies in apparent weakness.

Yet there is a profound irony here.  Whilst the mockers felt superior to Christ, their derision only proved His Messiah-ship.  As they laugh Him to scorn they prove that Jesus is the Messiah of Psalm 22.  It’s just one of several striking fulfilments of the Psalm on Good Friday.  The Messiah continues…

“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.  My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.  I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.  They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture”.  (Psalm 22:14-18)

The One who appeared so laughable on that cross is seen – in the light of Scripture – to be in complete control.  As they pierce His hands and feet, as they mock Him and gamble for His clothes, they are in fact establishing His identity.  Jesus is the Messiah, promised of old, the One who must suffer, must die and must rise again.  He will endure the scorn for now.  But He will have the last laugh.