Treacherous Tongue!

Psalm 52

“Why brag about evil, you hero!  God’s faithful love is constant.  Like a sharpened razor, your tongue devises destruction, working treachery. You love evil instead of good, lying instead of speaking truthfully. Selah

You love any words that destroy, you treacherous tongue!

This is why God will bring you down forever.  He will take you, ripping you out of your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah

The righteous will look on with awe and will ridicule him: “Here is the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches,
taking refuge in his destructive behavior.”

 But I am like a flourishing olive tree in the house of God; I trust in God’s faithful love forever and ever. I will praise You forever for what You have done.
In the presence of Your faithful people, I will put my hope in Your name, for it is good.”

A little history is always helpful; this psalm is about Doeg the Edomite, one of Saul’s chief herdsmen, informing Saul that David had gone to Ahimelech's house.  David got the priest to help him by giving him bread and the sword of Goliath, but David was not truthful with the priest, this is what he told him about the priest and why he was alone.  The account is in 1 Samuel 21:2, “David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.” He also lied to the priest about the sword that was used to kill Goliath.

Now David was not the only one that lied, we have this account of Doeg telling Saul something he did not witness, but we have learned how powerful and destructive are half-truths by watching the Congress of The U.S.A.  When the guards of Saul refused to kill the priest and his family, Saul turned to Doeg, and he not only killed 85 priests but women and children.  Then he bragged about what he had done. 

Maybe Doeg the Edomite would have been wise to have heard this word from Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,  but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things, I delight, declares the Lord.”

What do we know about the Edomites, they were from Esau?  He was the brother of Jacob who gave up his birthright?  They were always enemies of Israel and he took great pleasure in killing the people of Nob.  What we are not told is how he died, but I would not for all the power and money of this world want to take his place in judgment.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice