Asaph’s duet burns with questions, stated and unstated (1). The questions stated are to God. Within are unstated questions asking, Am I a victim or the perpetrator? What is my part in it? If I can ask God, “Why have you rejected me? Why are you angry?”, then I have a part in the answer to the questions I am asking God. When I ask God, “Why rejection, why angry?” I am really asking myself the same questions, that is, if I am humble enough to accept God’s answer, especially if God’s answer is silence.
I see with my little eyes, one on Babylon Asaph and another on modern Western Wall Asaph, two men singing this prayer-psalm. Visions of Babylonian and Roman soldiers dance in their heads. “Your foes roared in the place where you met with us; they set up their standards as signs.” (4) A standard was a banner with false deities painted or embroidered on it. Each troupe followed its deity in battle. When the battle was won, they hung the standards on the temple mount as a sign of victory.
Asaph, who composed this prayer-psalm as an old man in Babylon, witnessed as a young man while a Levitical musician in Jerusalem, what is written next. He sang in memory his prayer, “They behaved like men wielding axes to cut through a thicket of trees. They smashed all the carved paneling with their axes and hatchets. They burned your sanctuary to the ground; they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.”
Jews in Babylon and Jews today can mourn this same prayer concerning the place where God told them the temple will be the place where I will meet with you.
Now, for the faithful in the Messiah, the place of meeting is with the Spirit of God within us. We cry “Abba Father.” Many Messianic Jews and Christians pray to our heavenly Father as is in verse 8, “They said in their hearts, ‘We will crush them completely!'” Persecution is sure to happen. We do not need to ask God why. But we do need to ask ourselves why.
2 Peter 3:11-14 says, “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.”
