Episode Details

Psalm 92: The Song the Sabbath Sings

Of all the psalms, this is the only one assigned to a specific day — the Sabbath — and it reads like a man who has finally stopped long enough to see clearly. "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord." Not a difficult thing, not a duty, but a good thing — as natural and fitting as morning light or evening rest. The psalmist plays his ten-stringed instrument and finds himself overwhelmed not by God's simplicity but by His depth: "O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep." There is a kind of person, he notes, who cannot perceive this — the brutish, the fool — not because the evidence is hidden but because they have never been still enough to notice. And then comes the image that has comforted every aging saint who feared their usefulness was spent: "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing." The righteous are not like grass, which springs up overnight and is gone by Tuesday. They are like the palm tree, like the cedar in Lebanon — slow-growing, deep-rooted, patient. The Sabbath psalm is not about resting from work. It is about finally seeing what all the work was for.

00:00 A Good Thing to Give Thanks
01:00 The Lord Most High Forever
02:00 Flourishing Like the Palm Tree