“Yet they have not prevailed against me”
[Psalms 129]
I am sure some of you heard the news last week about an accident in which a pastor who was in charge of and serving a church in the Redondo Beach area was stabbed in the lower body by his mentally ill son. After reading the news in the newspaper, I looked for more internet news. But it seemed that the pastor was in a very difficult and distressed situation due to his ministry and now he was killed by his own son. It was sad to hear this news. How do you feel when you hear this news? It must be a world filled with sorrow, hardship, trouble, and a lot of mortality. I meditated on the words of Deuteronomy 31 during the early morning prayer meeting on Friday before I heard this news. I meditated on the words of Moses' last will, which he spoke to the Israelites, Joshua, and also the Levites priests and all the elders of Israel, before death. According to those words, Moses urged the Israelites and his successor Joshua to be strong and courageous because God was with us. In particular, in Deuteronomy 31:6, Moses said to the Israelites, “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you He will not fail you or forsake you.” Then he heard God's voice in God's presence. In other words, God said to Moses, ‘If the Israelites enter the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey, and have eaten, and are satisfied and become prosperous, then they will turn to other gods and serve them’ (v. 20) and would break the covenant with God. At that time, God was angry with the Israelites, hiding His face from them and told them that “many evil and troubles have come upon them” (vv. 17, 21). God told Moses that the Israelties would be consumed by a Gentile nation (v. 17). Only then God told Moses that the Israelites would say, “Is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have come upon us?” (v. 17) The reason why God wasn’t with the Israelites and hid His face from them was because of the sins of the Israelites. As a result, the Israelites were forced to suffer calamity and tribulation. The Israelites were punished by God for their sins and persecuted by the Gentile nation.
That is the background of Psalms 129. In other words, the Israelites had been persecuted by the strong enemies of the Gentile nation since they were in Egypt. I think this is the history of Israel. Israel has been persecuted by the surrounding Gentile nations from the beginning of the construction of the nation of Israel, and even now Israel is being persecuted by surrounding nations. This is called ‘the history of the persecution of the chosen people’ (Park). The psalmist who was in the history of the persecution of the chosen people said in Psalms 129:2 – “Many times they have persecuted me from my youth up; Yet they have not prevailed against me.” The Israel's history has been and is still a history of repeated suffering from enemy Gentile nations. In the Old Testament, starting from Egypt (Moses' time), the Israelites suffered from time to time due to the invasion and persecution of these Gentile nations such as Moab, Edom, Midian, Philistine, Assyria, Babylon, and Rome. How about now? Although now Israel is said to be a strong country with nuclear weapons, how much is Israel suffering amid the conflict between the Palestinians and Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iran, etc. who are around Israel? That is why the psalmist repeatedly said in Psalms 129:1 and 2: “Many times they have persecuted me from my youth up” (2x). The lesson that these words teach us is that we, the holy people of God, the church as the body of the Lord are always persecuted by our enemies.
This fact can be known not only through the history of Israel, but also through the history of the church. One of them is the case of the Roman Emperor Nero persecuting Christians (64AD) (first persecution). In the summer of 64 AD during the Apostolic Era, a fire broke out in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire, which no one could have imagined. In 6 days, a powerful flame was said to have completely destroyed 10 of the cities divided into 14 districts. At that time, a rumor spread among people that the Emperor Nero set fire to the city of Rome in order to rebuild Rome according to his will. It is said that the rumor spread and expanded, and later developed into a rumor that Emperor Nero sang a harp while Rome was burning. The citizens' anger was then directed towards Nero, so Nero sought a scapegoat to escape his crisis and the target was Christians. Nero announced that Christians burned Roman poetry and persecuted them. Tacitus relatively detailed the persecution of Christians under Nero at this time as follows: ‘Nero used it for entertainment for the citizens before killing the Christians. Some of the believers covered their fur coats to tear the dogs to death. Others were crucified. Others set fires to light them like lanterns at night. Nero opened up his petition to direct such a show, and he dressed as a chariot racer and directed the spectacle in the amphitheater by walking around in the chariot. For this reason, the citizens also felt compassion for these people who deserved punishment. Because they died not for the good of ordinary people, but to satisfy a human being's cruelty’ (Internet). In addition to the persecution of Christians by Emperor Nero, the history of the church includes the persecution of Christians by Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD) (second persecution) and the persecution of Emperor Diocletian (284-305) in 303. In particular, it is said to have been the worst persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian. At this time, churches were destroyed, the Bible was burned, all Christian rights were suspended, and Christians were said to have become victims of pagan gods (Internet). After all, God's people will continue to suffer tribulation and persecution from the time of the psalmist, to the time of the early church, to the present and to the second coming of the Lord.
To what extent, then, were the Israelites persecuted by their enemies? In Psalms 129:3, the psalmist describes it like this: “The plowers plowed upon my back; They lengthened their furrows.” This refers to the fact that those who persecuted Israel in the words of a parable made Israel into ruins and persecuted them without any doubt, as if they were plowing it (Park). According to Roberts, in Palestine, it is a common term for those who are persecuted to refer to the persecutors, ‘they have plowed me (Park). This is, in a word, that the Israelites were persecuted by their enemies and fell to extreme misery (Park). But the important thing is that God saved the Israelites, who had fallen to such extreme misery. Look at verse 4: “The LORD is righteous; He has cut in two the cords of the wicked.” God broke the cords used by the enemies of Israel while oppressing the Israelites, and delivered the people He loved from the hands of the enemies. As a bird escaped from a hunter's snare (124:7), God saved the Israelites by breaking the cords like that snare. Therefore, the psalmist confessed with confidence: “"Many times they have persecuted me from my youth up; Yet they have not prevailed against me” (129:2). In other words, the enemies of Israel afflicted Israel many times, but each time God caused them to fail in the end, so that the Israelites were victorious. With this triumphant experience and conviction, the psalmist wrote a song of ascent in Psalms 129. When we ascend to the Lord's temple, we must come up with the confidence of victory as well as the experience of winning through God's help in the spiritual battle in this world.
The psalmist, who recalled this saving grace, prayed: “May all who hate Zion Be put to shame and turned backward; Let them be like grass upon the housetops, Which withers before it grows up” (vv.5-6). He prayed to just God, that God would shame their enemies who hate the Israelites, and also to be punished. That is what the word “Let them be like grass upon the housetops” means (v. 6). The grass upon the housetops doesn’t have deep roots, so it grows for a while and then dries out (Park). The psalmist prayed to God that the enemies of the Israelites would be like that. He prayed to God that the enemies of the Israetlies would be like grass which wait for a while and quickly dries up and disappear. And he said that no one would bless the enemies of Israel, the enemies of God (v. 8). The reason is because they were outside the right of God's blessing (Park).
This is what 2 Timothy 3:12 says: “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” The saints are persecuted a lot in this world. There will be a lot of suffering, persecution, and pain. But let us walk by faith with the assurance of God's salvation and the assurance of victory. Let’s hold unto the John 16:33b – “… In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Wanting to go forward boldly by trusting in Jesus who overcame the world,
James Kim
(Praying that in assurance of victory, face the spiritual battle and sing the praise of victory through God's grace)