Psalm 65

As I reached for the thermostat to turn up the air conditioner, I thought about the Pharaohs 0f Egypt and remembered that I had read that the royal family members of ancient Egypt had slaves, who accompanied them, and gently cooled them with hand- held fans. I smiled to myself that all I had to do was move a switch in order to receive either heat or cold in the house. I wondered if I would trade that single luxury in order to live in a Pharaoh’s palace, and decided that I wouldn’t. I believed that my life was more comfortable than a pharaoh’s!

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.(Psalm 65:8) These words, written at the time of the pharaohs, that carry the inspiration of the Creation itself, are available to me every day. A Spirit so joyful, so full of the beauty and priceless splendors of the world in which we live, are still an inspiration thousands of years after they were written down. David experienced the Spirit of God in the wilderness, while he was a shepherd, and several of his psalms extol the beauty of nature. Psalm 65 is no exception: You crown the year with your beauty, and your carts overflow ; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain. They shout for joy and sing. (verses 11-13) In David’s eyes, the beauty of the earth is a mirror of its Creator. He can barely describe it without seeing God in the fields and mountains, and even in the rain: You visit the earth and water it. (verse 9)

David, the youngest son of Jesse, was raised as a shepherd on his father’s land. As a boy he spent much of his time in the fields with the sheep. Far from feeling disadvantaged, he recalled his time out doors in lyrical and even musical terms. Psalm 65 is introduced as written to “the Chief Musician,A Psalm and a song of David.” Though the lives of shepherds were neither comfortable nor easy, David had a boundless faith in his God, and the very earth itself was a comfort to him. When he was running from Saul in the years after David killed Goliath, he protected Nabal’s sheep with his men who followed David. Nabal’s shepherd reported to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David’s men were very good to us., and we suffered no harm. Whey were a wall to us both day and night while we were with them keeping the sheep. ( 1Samuel,25: 15&16) Psalm 65 is a song of joy and praise, fashioned after David’s own life in nature. His words signal a world full of the joy of life itself, and full of the comfort of a loving God.

Love in Him,

Prue