Just so that we have this text in front of us, here is Psalm 6.  Like in the previous post, I have the NRSV and LXX text lined up next to each other, with the LXX in italics. 

Psalm 6

[1] O Lord Do not rebuke me in your anger,

Lord, do no reproach me in your anger,¹

Or discipline me in your wrath.

Nor discipline me in your wrath.

[2] Be gracious to me , O LORD, for I am languishing;

Have mercy on me, Lord, because I am weak.

O LORD, heal me for my bones are shaking with terror.

Heal me, Lord, because my bones were troubled.

[3] My soul also is struck with terror, while you O LORD – how long?

And my soul was exceedingly troubled. And you, Lord, until when?

[4] Turn, O Lord, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.

Turn, Lord, to deliver my soul, save me on account of your mercy.

[5] For in death there is no remembrance of you;

Because in death there is no one who mentions you,

In Sheol, who can give you praise?

And in Hades, who shall profess to you?

[6] I was weary with my moaning, every night I flood my bed with tears;

I am wearied by my moaning, I shall bathe my bed each night,

I drench my couch with weeping.

I shall drench my seat in my tears.

[7] My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes.

My eye was troubled from anger, I grew old among all my enemies

[8] Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

Stand apart from me, everyone who works lawlessness,

For the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

Because the Lord has hearkened to the sound of my wailing.

[9] The LORD has heard my supplication;

The Lord has hearkened to my entreaty,

The LORD accepts my prayer.  

The Lord received my prayer. 

[10] All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; 

May all my enemies be ashamed and greatly troubled,

They shall turn back and in a moment be put to shame. 

They shall turn away and be exceedingly shamed in a moment.

This Psalm is mostly an entreaty for mercy rather than punishment from God, with the narrator describing themself as terrified, weeping, etc. and calling upon God for deliverance.  It is not until vv. 7 that the narrator’s enemies are mentioned as a cause for the lamentations, and then the subsequent verse reads:

[8] Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

Stand apart from me, everyone who works lawlessness,

For the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

Because the Lord has hearkened to the sound of my wailing.

The Psalm then concludes that God, having heard the narrator’s prayer, will accept it, and the narrator’s enemies will be struck with terror and ashamed.   

If we then consider how this is used in Matthew 7:21-23, which reads:

[21] Not everyone saying to me “Lord, Lord” shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but the ones who are doing the will of my father in the heavens. [22] Many shall say to me in these days, “Lord, Lord was it not in your name we prophesied and in your name we cast out demons, and in your name we did many works of power?” [23] And then I shall confess to them that “I never knew you; Separate from me workers of lawlessness.”

Here it is quite fascinating to see these workers of miracles in Jesus’ name filling the role of Jesus’ enemies.  Whereas the people who seem to fill this role in Luke’s seem to have mostly spent their time feasting rather than pursuing the narrow path, in Matthew it is unclear what behavior precisely is worthy of condemnation here.  Is Jesus saying not to prophesy?  Not to cast out demons?  Is there an implication that rather than doing those thing, the people who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven will be pursuing other, righteous behavior?

This to me is one of the most challenging parts of reading the New Testament, because there are many places where condemnations like this occur, but it is not necessarily clear what is being condemned or what righteous behavior looks like.  This is a particularly fraught question in Matthew, because Matthew is prone to quite apocalyptic language and also because the Sermon on the Mount seems to demand perfect compliance to the law as outlined in the Hebrew Bible.  But there are also frequent testimonies to God’s mercy in the New Testament, and passages that seem to imply that salvation is universal for everyone.  

One of the reasons that I have gone so far down the rabbithole with my Bible study is precisely that I am trying to understand that tension and understand what is actually being called for. There are many Christian voices today that I think are calling out loudly and certainly about what the Bible means, who is saved and who is punished, but it seems to me that their confidence is perhaps misplaced and that we should all be wary that we are the ones who are prophesying and casting out demons while standing on ground without a foundation.  

I think that is probably enough time spent on my little soapbox, so I will end this post here. In the next post, we will remember that what we actually care about is how “fire” is used in Matthew, how that relates to Zechariah, and revisit the beginning of Matthew 7 to see if it sheds light on later passages. 

1. In the LXX, vv. 1 reads “Regarding the end, in hymns, over the eight.  A psalm to David.” In the NRSV text a similar prefatory note is omitted from the versification system, so that verse 1 in the NRSV text corresponds to verse 2 in LXX.  For simplicity’s sake I am using the NRSV versification here. ↩︎