RR Psalm 43:2 Part 2

Shalom,

Psalm 43:2 For You are my God, my stronghold. Why have You spurned me? Why do I go about gloomy because of the oppression of the enemy?

After a great opening, “For You are my God of my strength,” we have to deal with a couple of rhetorical questions.  Both begin in Hebrew with the word “Lamah” meaning “why.”  However; we’re only going to deal with the first question today.  From the Hebrew words used, an amplified version might be, “Why have you set me aside as if I stink (on account of being rotten)?”  

This has to be rhetorical because God promises us the opposite is true.  Jeremiah 31:3 “From afar Adonai appeared to me.” “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”  Rather than cast us off, God has drawn us near.  

Yeshua has a sweet aroma, and when we follow Him, we take on His fragrance too.  Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as dearly loved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Messiah also loved us and gave Himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God for a fragrant aroma.

Remember in Song of Songs, the confession of the bride (it is really our confession as we follow Yeshua) over her Beloved… Song 5:10 My lover is dazzling… 13 His cheeks are like a bed of spice, towers of sweet-scented perfume.  She is so inspired by Him.  The story of Song of Songs has a reality in our relationship with Yeshua.  And similarly, we are overwhelmed by His sweetness.

Of course, not everyone smells the sweetness of Yeshua’s life, but that’s not on Him… 2Co 2:15 For we are the aroma of Messiah to God, among those who are being saved and those who are perishing— 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. Who is competent for these things?

Yes, who is competent for these things?  That’s another rhetorical question…. The people of God have been given grace to smell the difference.  Specifically, those who are mature in the Lord, being love motivated, they are those who are “competent for these things.”

1Corinthians 13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.  

This is the opposite of being “cast off.”  It describes being “drawn near.”  Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have boldness to enter into the Holies by the blood of Yeshua. 20 He inaugurated a new and living way for us through the curtain—that is, His flesh. 21 We also have a Kohen Gadol over God’s household. 22 So let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and body washed with pure water.

Shalom shalom.

Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Mon5-Jan-202616th of Tevet, 5786
Ex 1:18-2:10 2 Sa 20Ps 92-93Lk 12:35-59 (Gal 2)

Rabbi H Michael Weiner

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