Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-190 (Bible Reading Notes)

FALSE CONFIDENCE

PSALM 30 (From ‘Encounter with God’ – Sunday 24 Sep 2000)

Are you at risk from things going too well in your life? Or are you dogged by recurring problems?

Jewish history records that this psalm, though written much earlier, was used at the restoration of the temple in the Maccabean era in about 164 BC. Originally, it spoke of the writer being at death’s door until healing was experienced (vs 2,3). The writer gives thanks in memorable phrases (vs 4,5).

The reference to God’s anger suggests that the sickness owed something to sin on the writer’s part. The meditation digs deeper in verse 6, which reports a misplaced false confidence that apparently contributed to the writer’s distress.

The Maccabean Jews may have seen evidence of this in the national sins that led to their forebears being exiled from Palestine in the sixth century BC; modern believers may recall taking a casual approach to God and Christian living because things were going well and good health seemed assured, until sickness hit. But instead of being a total disaster, it led to a reevaluation of their life priorities and an unusually penitent prayer (vs 810), which on this occasion God answered with physical restoration. (Compare Isa 38:1020)

The mood of the psalm therefore swings back with even greater fervour to gratitude and commitment (vs 11,12). The night of pain has given way to restored physical health. That does not always happen to the sick, but we have a better hope than the Old Testament writer’s confined one of health and wealth in this present life.

Christians have learned to weigh the sufferings of this life against the hope that those who die in Christ will rise to endless life in a cleansed cosmos. (See Rom 8:1725; Rev 21:35)

Pray now for someone who is physically or mentally sick: for the healing of the whole person, at all levels of their being.

– Brian Hill

Copyright Scripture Union, 2000

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