The Watchtower Society has this raving review of the Psalms:
*** si 101 Bible Book Number 19-Psalms ***
THE book of Psalms was the inspired songbook of true worshipers of Jehovah in ancient times, a collection of 150 sacred songs, or psalms, set to music and arranged for the public worship of Jehovah God in his temple at Jerusalem. These psalms are songs of praise to Jehovah, and not only that, they also contain prayers of supplication for mercy and help, as well as expressions of trust and confidence. They abound with thanksgivings and exultations and with exclamations of great, yes, superlative, joy. Some are recapitulations of history, contemplating Jehovah’s loving-kindness and his great deeds. They are packed with prophecies, many of which have had remarkable fulfillments. They contain much instruction that is beneficial and upbuilding, all of it clothed in lofty language and imagery that stirs the reader to the very depths. The psalms are a sumptuous spiritual meal, beautifully prepared and spread invitingly before us.
Psalms is no doubt a very interesting part of the Bible as they provide us with a good insight into how an ancient and extremely superstitious people perceived God and how they viewed this deity.
As you can see the superlatives are used in abundance by the Watchtower writer in heaping praise on the Psalms. Not much too see approaching a realistic reading of this part of the Bible. But this can hardly be expected from a fundamentalist sect like the Watchtower Society.
Anyway, let us have a look at some of these “inspired” songs for “true worshipers of Jehovah” these tales of “Jehovah’s loving-kindness and his great deeds”, which is so incredibly “upbuilding”.
In Psalm 52 we find the same thinking that we can behold in so many of the illustrations in the Watchtower literature illustrations that portray people smiling and laughing while “worldly” people get their “comeuppance” and getting slaughtered in the background. Any human being with something even resembling moral and common decency would of course at least feel sadness at such a spectacle, but not so with “Jehovah's true worshipers”:
*** Rbi8 Psalm 52:4-6 ***
5 God himself will also pull you down forever;
He will knock you down and tear you away from [your] tent,
And he will certainly root you out of the land of the living ones. Se'lah.
6 And the righteous ones will see [it] and will be afraid,
And over him they will laugh.
There is a similar statement in Psalm 58:
*** Rbi8 Psalm 58:6-10 ***
6 O God, knock out their teeth in their mouth.
Break down the very jawbones of maned young lions, O Jehovah…
10 The righteous one will rejoice because he has beheld the vengeance.
His steps he will bathe in the blood of the wicked one.
Not many but the most extreme fundamentalists find anything up building and ethical about this barbarism. But it gets worse:
*** Rbi8 Psalm 59:10-13 ***
10 The God of loving-kindness to me will himself confront me;
God himself will cause me to look upon my foes.
11 Do not kill them, that my people may not forget.
By your vital energy make them wander about,
And bring them down, O our shield Jehovah,
12 [For] the sin of their mouth, the word of their lips;
And may they be caught in their pride,
Even for the cursing and the deception that they rehearse.
13 Bring [them] to an end in rage;
Bring [them] to an end, that they may not be;
And may they know that God is ruling in Jacob to the ends of the earth. Se'lah.*** Rbi8 Psalm 68:21-23 ***
21 Indeed God himself will break the head of his enemies in pieces,
The hairy crown of the head of anyone walking about in his guiltiness.
22 Jehovah has said: “From Ba'shan I shall bring back,
I shall bring [them] back from the depths of the sea,
23 In order that you may wash your foot in blood,
That the tongue of your dogs may have its portion from the enemies.”
The same barbarism and sadism
we see described here where people should be made to suffer good and long before Jehovah in rage finished them off is also alive and well in the Watchtower literature:
*** w79 9/15 28 The "Cup" That All Nations Must Drink at God's Hand ***
28 For mere selfish reasons those political “shepherds” and “majestic ones” will “howl,” yes, roll about on the ground. As the Sovereign Lord Jehovah calls them to account during the “great tribulation,” they will grimly realize that the day has come for them to be slaughtered and scattered.
But there is more up building material in the Psalms:
*** Rbi8 Psalm 109:6-14 ***
6 Appoint over him someone wicked,
And may a resister himself keep standing at his right hand.
7 When he is judged, let him go forth as someone wicked; And let his very prayer become a sin.
8 Let his days prove to be few; His office of oversight let someone else take.
9 Let his sons become fatherless boys, And his wife be a widow.
10 And without fail let his sons go wandering about; And they must do begging,
And they must look for [food] from their desolate places.
11 Let the usurer lay out traps for all that he has, And let strangers make plunder of his product of toil.
12 May he come to have no one extending loving-kindness, And may there prove to be no one showing favor to his fatherless boys.
13 Let his posterity be for cutting off. In the following generation let their name be wiped out.
14 Let the error of his forefathers be remembered to Jehovah, And the sin of his mother—may it not be wiped out.
One wonders in vain what possible moral and ethics anyone can get out of such hateful and vindictive ranting. But of course there might be something for the “true believers” in there.
Some times a Psalm have a very promising start just to turn into a litany of praise of slaughter and murder, such a Psalm is this one:
*** Rbi8 Psalm 136:1-2 ***
136 Give thanks to Jehovah, O YOU people, for he is good:
For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite;
2 Give thanks to the God of the gods:
For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite;
And then…:
*** Rbi8 Psalm 136:17-20 ***
17 To the One striking down great kings:
For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite;
18 And who proceeded to kill majestic kings:
For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite;
19 Even Si'hon the king of the Am'or•ites:
For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite;
20 And Og the king of Ba'shan:
For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite;
Then we have a most famous and poetic Psalm, which have inspired people for ages, but all of them have somehow forgot that last verse – 9.
*** Rbi8 Psalms 137:1 - 138:0 ***
137 By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down.
We also wept when we remembered Zion.
2 Upon the poplar trees in the midst of her
We hung our harps.
3 For there those holding us captive asked us for the words of a song,
And those mocking us—for rejoicing:
“SING for us one of the songs of Zion.”
4 How can we sing the song of Jehovah
Upon foreign ground?
5 If I should forget you, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand be forgetful.
6 Let my tongue stick to my palate,
If I were not to remember you,
If I were not to make Jerusalem ascend
Above my chief cause for rejoicing.
7 Remember, O Jehovah, regarding the sons of E'dom the day of Jerusalem,
Who were saying: “Lay [it] bare! Lay [it] bare to the foundation within it!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, who are to be despoiled,
Happy will he be that rewards you
With your own treatment with which you treated us.
9 Happy will he be that grabs ahold and does dash to pieces
Your children against the crag.
Of David.
Reading the next Psalm we can understand where the Watchtower Society get the material for consecrating hatred and make hatred of those criticizing the Watchtower Society compulsory:
*** Rbi8 Psalm 139:19-23 ***
19 O that you, O God, would slay the wicked one!
Then even the bloodguilty men will certainly depart from me,
20 Who say things about you according to [their] idea;
They have taken up [your name] in a worthless way—your adversaries.
21 Do I not hate those who are intensely hating you, O Jehovah,
And do I not feel a loathing for those revolting against you?
22 With a complete hatred I do hate them.
They have become to me real enemies.
23 Search through me, O God, and know my heart.
Examine me, and know my disquieting thoughts,
As we can see, the Watchtower Society and many other fundamentalist find much of their sick, insane and revolting ideas in the very Bible, the “Word of God”. It is amazing what kind of outrageous atrocities one can find support for there. If you want to enslave blacks, God is right behind you! If you want to treat women like property, the Bible will support you. If you want to hate and look down upon homosexuals, the Bible is your book. If you want to slaughter those who don’t “accept” you religion, the Bible is right behind you. They say that believers turn out to be just like the God they worship, seem to be very much the case with Jehovah's Witnesses
Norm
