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POST XLVI OF LX
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The Book of Common Prayer (1979) includes a plan for reading the Book of Psalms in morning and evening installments for 30 days. I am therefore blogging through the Psalms in 60 posts.
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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,
that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 226
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To read Psalms 114 and 115 together is appropriate, for they are one psalm in the Septuagint. Non nobis, Domine.
Not to us, O LORD, not to us
but to Your name bring glory
for the sake of Your love and Your faithfulness.
–Psalm 115:1, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
Psalm 114, set after the Exodus from Egypt, uses wonderful poetic imagery to depict nature itself rejoicing at the mercy and power of God. The miracle of the Exodus, as Exodus 14 presents it, is not the parting of the waters of the Sea of Reeds (instead of the Red Sea), for verse 21 mentions
a strong east wind.
No, the miracle is the liberation itself. In the wake of such a feat one must surely recognize the futility of idolatry, correct? Not necessarily!
That was orthodoxy pertaining to the concept of Sheol, or the Hebrew underworld. Neither did anyone there have any (further) obligations to God, according to the theology of a former time. Theology changed, of course.
The implication of the text is that those who do not praise God in this life are like the dead. By that standard many people are like the dead, unfortunately. Life is in God, however.
How many of us are like the dead?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 20, 2017 COMMON ERA
PROPER 15: THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR A
THE FEAST OF JOHN BAJUS, U.S. LUTHERAN MINISTER AND HYMN TRANSLATOR
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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