The Tanakh Podcast

This Mizmor expresses absolute protection in God. In fact, it is a conversation between a teacher and a student about reliance on God's thorough protection. At the close of the Psalm, God Himself adds his reassurances.

"The span of our life is seventy years, or, given the strength, eighty years." This is a meditation about human mortality and making life joyous and worthwhile.

This Mizmor contains a direct, audacious accusation of God - that he has betrayed his covenant with the Jewish People and with the House of David. When was this Psalm composed? Under what circumstances? Did God renege on his commitment?

This Mizmor is the soliloquy of a person crying out in pain and suffering, feeling close to death. The Malbim says: "from start to finish, it offers no comfort, only the cry of brokenness and despair... This is also a metaphor for the Jewish People in exile."

A remarkable hymn to Jerusalem! - Yes - the city of God; but also, every Jew finds his or her roots in Jerusalem and can feel that it is the city in which they belong.

This is a cry for help, salvation and forgiveness. The Mizmor employs the language, the formula of the 13 Attributes of Mercy which originate in God's forgiveness after the Golden Calf. At the center of the Mizmor then is God's tendency to mercy and forgiveness.

Are we there yet? The Mizmor opens with a feeling that the redemption is at hand, but very soon we realize there is much further to go.

This is a Psalm yearning to visit the Temple, but essentially yearning to be close to God.

They say, “Let us wipe them out as a nation;Israel’s name will be mentioned no more.” (v.5) This is the oldest hatred. The attempt at a Final Solution. The genocidal ambitions of generations of enemies who we now call Anti-Semites. The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.

When the forces of law and justice become corrupt, then society falls apart.