Songs of Summer: Psalm 46

The Psalms are a collection of songs and poems from the Old Testament. We mentioned last week that 73 of the 150 Psalms were written by King David, and then the rest of them were written very likely by about 10 other authors. The scholars suggest that the oldest Psalm was written by moses in about 1400 B.C. and that maybe the latest Psalm was written in the 4000 BC by the Prophet Ezra as the Israelites were freed from captivity and got to come back to Jerusalem. Some of the Psalms line up with historical events like you can see it very clearly.

It's another historical story in the Bible and it's paralleled to that. And others are a little harder to place in history. Today we're in Psalm 46. And while there's still some debate around where this Psalm is placed in history, I think after looking at lots of different sources, studying a lot this week, I really believe that Psalm 46 was written on a very, at a very specific moment in history in 701 BC. And you might be thinking, how could you know 701 BC?

Well, something very specific happened in 701 BC and that was the siege of Jerusalem by the king Sennacherib. Everyone's favorite king, King Sennacherib. You all learned about him growing up, I'm sure. Right. But this siege is a really intriguing story because it's not just accounted for in the Bible, it's also accounted in the history of extra biblical scholars, extra biblical historians.

So a few different historians captured this. And in fact, Sennacherib himself wrote down or chiseled, had somebody chisel into stone. Right. I'm sure he didn't do it himself. He's the king.

But for all of you who struggle to believe in the historical value of the Bible, this story is corroborated outside the Bible too. That's cool to me. So before we jump into the text of Psalm 46, quick history lesson about the kind of socio political scene at this point. Here's the scene. King Hezekiah is the 13th king of Judah.

This is the southern kingdom of Israel. You may remember we talked about it a few weeks ago. King Solomon. After King Solomon, the nation of Israel split into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was based in Samaria and the southern kingdom is based in Jerusalem.

And this is where Hezekiah is ruling. The Bible tells us that Hezekiah was one of the good kings. There were only eight good kings out of the 40 some, and he was one of them. When he became king, he tore down all the places of pagan worship that had been set up as they worshiped other gods. And he got the people back to honoring and worshiping God.

We read about this in Second Kings, chapter 18, starting in verse 5. He, Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him when wherever he went out, he prospered.

This idea of going out was when kings would go to war and they would go and they would grow their kingdom. And when he went out to take more land and more people, God went with him. Now, at the same time that Hezekiah is ruling in Jerusalem, the neo Assyrian nation, the empire which is based about 500 miles to the east, is growing in power. And the Assyrians have conquered a huge number of cities and people groups over about 100 years at this point. They're known for being fantastic warriors.

And their political aim is complete control and to get as much money and resources flowing in as they possibly can. And so they will come to a city with their army and if they, the leader or the king or whoever it is of that city agrees to pay them, they go, we're good, we don't have to fight. But if they want to fight back, they absolutely destroy them and they level them. They're known for being nasty, nasty warriors, murdering women and children, skinning people alive. They loved to impale bodies and severed heads up on poles and put them outside of the city to show as an example to everyone their destruction and might and ruthlessness.

And so Assyria comes and attacks the city of Samaria. That's the head of the northern kingdom. It actually ends up being a three year siege on the city. This is how serious they were about this. Samaria is about 100 miles north of Jerusalem and that's about here to Columbus, think about that far.

But they don't come south to Jerusalem because the king before Hezekiah was paying them off. But then the king dies and his son becomes king Sennacherib. And all the people that are paying Sennacherib, they go, you know what? This sounds like a really good time to see if he is as serious as his dad. Maybe we'll stop paying him.

So Hezekiah stops paying him as well. This is a bad idea because Sennacherib is even nastier than his dad actually with this. So hezekiah as Assyria is going out and they are now going to all these places that have stopped paying them and they're crushing them. Hezekiah is thinking to himself, maybe we should fortify the city. So he fortifies the city.

They put up more walls around the city, and he does something super strategic. See, the city of Jerusalem did not have any water inside the walls of the city. Their water source was from the spring of Gihon. It was up on the mountainside outside of the city walls. And they had an aqueduct that ran the water down into the city.

And there was a pool there where it would gather, and that spring would well up and it would dump into the city. Well, Sennacherib knew or not Sennacherib, Hezekiah knew that if the Assyrians came, they could quickly shut off the water supply and this would be a major problem. They would lose this battle. And so he says, we're going to put in tunnels under the ground for this water to flow into the city. And so he had two different teams, one at one end, one at the other end.

We actually know about this because of an inscription in the tunnel that still exists today. And it says that they met from either end and came towards the middle, which is an amazing feat given that this was a very long time ago. They didn't have any of our technology. Right. Historians said that they think that maybe what they did is kind of bang on the ground over the tunnel to get them to line up and eventually meet each other.

But this brings water into the city. And then Hezekiah says, let's tear down the aqueduct. Let's tear down the tower around the spring of Gihon and just cover it in rubble. Then that way nobody can get to it. And this brings water into the city.

Don't forget this, because this is going to come back into the story later. Well, eventually, Sennacherib, along with a small army of only 200,000 warriors, shows up outside of the wall. This is a big problem for scale here. The entire metropolitan Cincinnati area has just over 300,000 people. This is 200,000 nasty warriors.

And historians say it would take about 1,000 acres of land for their encampment. That's a lot. That's a lot. Okay. The church is built on 20.

There's 54 behind it. Okay, 1,000 acres. Now, eventually they show up, and archeologists have found what has been called the prism of Sennacherib. This is that stone piece that's got all the history on it that Sennacherib had had Recorded. Now, there are two parts to this inscription that I want to read today.

The first is the opening part, and it gives us this picture into who Sennacherib thought he was, what he thought of himself. And the second part literally describes as they come to Jerusalem to siege Jerusalem and attack Hezekiah. So we'll read the first part here. It says, sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters of the earth, the entire world. This wise shepherd, favorite of the great gods, guardian of the right, lover of justice, who lends support, who comes to the aid of the needy, who turns his thoughts throw up.

I mean, come on. To Pius, the perfect hero, mighty man, first among all princes, the powerful one. This is one sentence. Powerful one who consumes the insubmissive, who strikes the wicked with the thunderbolt. The God Asher, the great mountain, an unrivaled kingship has entrusted to me.

And above all, those who dwell in palaces had made powerful my weapons. From the upper sea of the setting sun to the lower sea of the rising sun. All humankind he has brought into submission at my feet. And mighty kings feared my warfare.

He's pretty great. He's pretty great. Sure sounds a whole lot like all the things that we read in the Bible about the real God, right? He thinks he's pretty great. He attributes his power, though, if you notice, to the fact that he is the favorite king of the gods.

Specifically, he says that his God, Asher, the great mountain. File that away. We're going to come back to that. The great mountain Asher has made him powerful and great. Now, let's pick up where the prism describes how Sennacherib conquered the the cities of Hezekiah.

And the Bible agrees with this. As for Hezekiah, the Jew who did not submit to my yoke 46 of his strong walled cities, as well as the small cities in their neighborhoods, which were without number. By leveling with battering rams and by bringing up siege engines, by attacking and storming on foot, by mines and tunnels and breaches, I besieged and took those cities. 200,000, 150 people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, cattle and sheep without number, I brought away from them and counted as spoil. So as the Assyrians make their way to Jerusalem, Hezekiah sends word to Egypt for some help in fighting them.

This is kind of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or you know how that whole thing goes, right? So they're calling on Egypt to come and Help, because it's in everybody's best interest that Sennacherib loses. I can't help but find this a bit ironic since the Israelites were in captivity as slaves in Egypt for 400 years prior to this. And it really echoes of the Israelites in the desert saying, if only we had stayed in Egypt where we had food and water, at least we wouldn't be dying in the desert. And this is the pattern on repeat of Israel looking to earthly power when things get difficult.

But as Hezekiah waits for Egypt to come to his aid, he decides that he might ought to pay Sennacherib his backed pay. So he sends a message that he realizes he made a mistake, he'll pay back everything he owes. So Sennacherib takes the payment, which would have been about. Worth about $75 million today, and he decides he'll take Jerusalem anyway. So Sennacherib sends a message to Hezekiah.

He says, give me the entire city, give me 2000 warriors and I'll spare the people. But Hezekiah says, no, I think God's got this. So Sennacherib sends another message. And we read this in 2 Kings 18, Sennacherib says, has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?

Where are the gods of Sephavaim, Henna and Ivah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? Sennacherib laughs and he says, yeah, sure, your God can save you. You know how many other gods saved all the other people that I've already conquered?

None. That would be none. Your God is no different. He's exactly like all of them. Now imagine with me for a minute what this would have been like.

Like if we can just imagine for a minute. You and I are people in the city of Jerusalem. We look out and we see an endless sea of warriors. 200,000 warriors inside the city walls. Historians say there were 8 to 10,000 people at best.

This is a 20 to 1 ratio of city people, some of whom are warriors, to 200,000 warriors. These are impossible odds, to say the least. Our king tells us that God's got this deliver us. But imagine the fear. Imagine the stories being passed around.

We've all heard about how Sennacherib has come across the world like a plague, how he's destroyed city after City king after king, including a three year siege on Samaria and the Northern Kingdom. And imagine knowing that it's just a matter of time before we're going to be brutally killed or at best taken away as slaves. In fact, we can look back just a few years ago as our favorite virus, COVID 19, was coming across the world, right? And we heard these stories of COVID 19, right? And then we knew somebody who knew somebody who had it, and then we knew somebody who had it, and then it came into our homes, right?

We lost our minds. We hoarded toilet paper and canned goods and pasta. And this was almost entirely based off of fear of something we just didn't understand. This is an actual nasty, violent army of 200,000 people outside the city walls. Can you imagine?

Hoarding toilet paper would have been the least of our worries at this point, right? Most of us panic when we have to walk downstairs after we turn off the light or have to go out to the car in the dark, right? Sennacherib goes on. He catches wind that Egypt is going to come help. And so Sennacherib takes a detachment and he goes down to Egypt to fight.

And I did not know any of this before I got to this. And this just kind of blew my mind a little bit. It's this awesome little bit of history. There's a guy named Herodotus, he's a Greek historian, and this is outside the Bible. And he says that when Sennacherib gets to this Pelusium, I believe it's called down, it's a city in Egypt, he goes down there to fight and just kind of head them off before they can get there.

And here's what Herodotus says happened. Quote, a multitude of mice. Mice. A multitude of mice gnawed to pieces in one night, both the bows and the rest of the armor of the Assyrians. And that it was on that account that the king, when he had no bows left, drew off his army from Pelusium.

Like what? This is extra biblical. This is pretty fantastic. Mice came and chewed through the bows. File this way, it's going to come back.

Psalm 46. Now, in the meantime, Hezekiah prays to God and he asks him what to do. And God replies to Hezekiah through Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah? Yes, the same prophet who wrote the book of Isaiah.

God says that he'll take care of things, that Sennacherib won't enter the city. And in fact, he won't even fire an arrow. I wonder if it's because he had no Bows.

God also says that he will cause the Assyrian army to go back the way that they came. This is impossible. This is impossible. This is impossible. Here's what happens.

This is how God does it. 2 Kings 19, starting in verse 35. That night, the angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000 thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, broke camp and withdrew.

He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. I'd say this was a rather effective strategy. Sennacherib wakes up to 185,000 dead soldiers, and he's like, actually, you know what, guys? Actually, I just remembered I got this thing I got to get back to in Nineveh. Yeah.

And he never comes back. Right. Now, of course, Sennacherib's prism conveniently leaves this part out where they didn't conquer the city. A Babylonian historian, a different guy, a guy named Berossus, records that when Sennacherib got back from his failed battle against one of the Egyptian armies, of course, because of the. The mice, he wakes up the next morning and finds the camp full of dead soldiers.

Barossa says that Sennacherib was in great dread, I would imagine, and he just packs up and heads back to Nineveh again. Secular history corroborating with the Bible. Now imagine what it would have been like for God to impossibly and miraculously come to our rescue after all of that. Because this is the context in which Psalm 46 is written. Now, let's read Psalm 46 through this lens.

This psalm is a psalm of rejoicing after God miraculously delivers Jerusalem. And I think you'll see why I believe this is exactly what it's talking about. Psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear.

Though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. I love this phrase. A very present help in trouble. Psalm 46 is proclaiming that God isn't just watching or aware. He is active and present.

In fact, he is omnipresent. That means he is equally in all places at the same time. He is with us. And I love this word, therefore, because we often believe that faith in God is based off of something other than reality, that faith in God is illogical. But this is showing that faith in God is perfectly logical.

Because if he is who he says he is. If he is our fortress, if he is our deliverer, if he spoke the world into being and he is ever present, he is with us, then we have nothing to fear. What if God is who he says he is? Then we have nothing to fear. Right, therefore is a logical argument.

Paul says it this way. We sang these words. We will sing these words. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

These first few verses are proclaiming that even when everything looks impossible, is literally impossible. Even when there is a sea of warriors surrounding the city, we can have faith in our very present God. And then that last line, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Interestingly, as I was doing, the word study here can be translated, though the mountain quakes with its boasting. Remember Sennacherib's words, the God Asher, the great mountain, an unrivaled kingship has entrusted to me, and above all those who dwell in palaces, has made powerful my weapons.

Sennacherib was boasting in the power of his mountain God. And Psalm 46 just pushes back and says, you can boast in your mountain God, but we will not be moved. Let's keep reading. Verse 4. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. If you remember, there is no river that runs through Jerusalem. And I think this is a multi layered image here.

I think it's a reference to the tunnel that Hezekiah built to bring water into the city from the Gihon spring. But I think that it's also a future prophecy of what's to come. Remember that Jesus says to the woman at the well that he has living water. Remember a few weeks ago we studied in John 7 when Jesus said, let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink whoever believes in me. As Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.

This is a prophecy that's fulfilled in Jesus, a prophecy that we get to take part in as believers. We are the new holy habitation of God. The Holy Spirit Spirit is in us. Right? Streams of living water flow from within us.

And then notice the last line. God will help her when morning dawns. I don't think this is figurative at all. I think this is referring to the morning that Sennacherib wakes up to find 185,000 of his warriors dead. Keep reading.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter. He utters his Voice God. The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

We just talked about the power of remembrance, of looking back. The God of Jacob, they're saying. The God who was faithful then. The same God that we sang about just a few minutes ago. The same God.

The same God. The same God. The God of Jacob is our faithful God. That phrase the Lord of hosts literally means the God of heavenly armies. God came to fight for Israel with a supernatural heavenly army.

Verse 8. Come behold the works of the Lord. How he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. And he breaks the bow and shatters the spear.

He burns the chariots with fire. I think this is a direct connection to how God sent mice to chew through the bows of Sennacherib's archers. The psalm proclaims that God can turn off wars. And that's exactly what he did in Pelusium. He turned off the war by chewing through the bows.

And in Jerusalem, he turned off the war. Yesterday there was a massive, impossible, unstoppable army outside of the walls. Today there is not. He is the God who turns off wars. And then comes the closing of the Psalm, verse 10.

It's one of our favorite coffee cup and T shirt verses one that we probably have on a plaque in our home. We might even have it tattooed on our bottom. Psalm 46, 10. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth. I think this is one of the most misused verses of scripture in the whole Bible. It makes us feel good and there's some good stuff behind it, no doubt. But I think we all picture this as if we are God's cat. And he says, here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty.

And we hop up in his lap and he scratches behind her ear and we purr and he goes, be still. Be still and know that I am God. The beginning of this psalm is full of loud things. The earth quaking, the waters foaming and roaring, the mountain boasting. It's loud and wild and scary.

And in the midst of this, God declares to the whole earth, enough.

Be still. I am the sovereign Lord of the universe. Stop your boasting. I will be exalted. Not you.

I will be exalted. Be still.

This stirs my mind to think about two other stories that echo this idea. One is found in the book of exodus in chapter 14. The Egyptians are. The Egyptian army is chasing the Israelites. As they left because Pharaoh changed his mind.

And they get to the Red Sea and they're all in terror and moaning and groaning and crying and sorrow. And they're loud. And in front of them is an impassable sea. And behind them is an impossible to defeat army. And this is what happens.

This is what Moses says to them. Exodus 14:13. And Moses said to the people, fear not. Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.

Sounds familiar. The Lord will fight for you and all you have. And you have only to be silent. Moses proclaims to the people, knock it off. Stop.

Silence. Stop your trembling. Stop your fear. God will fight for you. Let go and watch him do his work.

In the second story, we find in the Book of Mark, Jesus and the disciples are out on the Sea of Galilee. And they're crossing the sea. And a storm comes up. You remember, Jesus is in the bottom of the boat and he's sleeping. And the waves are frothing and the wind is blowing, and there's nothing they can do but be at the mercy of the weather.

And they go, jesus, wake up. What's wrong with you? Here's what happens. Mark 4:39. He Jesus got up.

He rebuked the wind and said to the waves, quiet, be still. Then the wind died down. It was completely calm. He said to the disciples, why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?

They were terrified and asked each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. This question, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. It was their moment that they recognized that this guy that could do great party tricks and heal people and do cool things is God.

Be still and know that I am God.

Stop your striving. This word be still literally means become limp, become useless. Let go, stop striving, stop toiling, stop arguing, stop crying, stop working. And the word no is the word yaddah. Say that with me.

Yaddah. Yaddah. The word yaddah is much more than head knowledge. The word yaddah is to intimately experience something, to see it firsthand. When he says, be still and know, he says, be still.

Stop it. And experience the very present help. And then the psalm closes with this repeated refrain from verse 5. Again this look back. The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress. The Lord of heavenly armies is with us. The same God who has been faithful all throughout history is the same God who is Our fortress even now is the same God who causes streams of living water to flow in and through us by his spirit. I love the line from a recent rewrite of the old hymn it as well. It says, so let go my soul and trust in Him.

The waves and wind still know his name. The waves and wind still know his name. He is almighty God. Be still and yada experience intimately.

So how do we do this? How do we do this? Well, I'm going to ask you to stand, if you would, And I just. I'm going to ask you to close your eyes.

We're going to pause, breathe, and quietly in your spirit. I just want you to ask God right now to show you what you're afraid of, to show you what is in your life right now. The impassable sea. The storm that is unstoppable. The mighty army outside the city walls.

What's encamped outside of your wall right now that you believe is impossible to overcome. It could be big. It could be really big. It could be small. It could be forgiveness.

It could be grief, trauma.

It could be a literal adversary or enemy. It could be a marriage that's falling apart. It could be raising kids.

It could be loneliness. It could be anything.

Picture that in your head. And then I'm going to ask you to close your hands, clench your fists tightly so that your fingernails are digging into your palms. Hold that tightly to where it hurts and hear these words that God is speaking to us now.

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still.

Stop it. Stop your striving. Stop your arguing. Stop your working. Be still and yada know experience intimately that I am God.

Now let go.

And open your eyes and let's read these words together.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its summit, swelling. And then there's that word, salah. This is a word that just says pause, pause. Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am God.

Let's pray.

God forgive us for our striving and our whining and our toil and our fear. I know that you're patient and you don't expect us to be without those things in our broken human state. But I pray that you will help us to unclench our fists, to be silent and to know deeply, intimately by experience that you are God. Thank you for the beautiful connections and parallels in the psalm that we read today. Thank you for this historical background that just makes it so rich.

Do your work in us and help us to just be still. In Jesus name, amen.