Psalm 14 is identical to Psalm 53 - except for one thing. Well two things, but one major. Do you know what it is? If you like to figure stuff out on your own, compare the two, otherwise read on.
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| The Book of Psalms is actually a collection of five books. |
Last month I wrote about how the book of Psalms is actually a compilation of five books.
This explains why two identical Psalms exist in the Bible. Psalm 14 is part of the first book and Psalm 53, the second.
But back to the difference: Psalm 14 and 53 use different names for God. Psalm 14 uses Yahweh (English Bibles = LORD) while Psalm 53 uses Elohim (English = God). This actually is the significant difference between Book Two (Ps 42-72) and the rest of the Psalms.
Book Two is known as the Elohistic Psalter, which is a fancy way of saying it prefers to use Elohim for the name of God, against the rest of the Psalms, which prefer Yahweh.
This tells us a lot about how the Bible came to be the way it is. At one point, Book Two was a complete collection used by a specific community as their worship manual. And for reasons unknown to us, they preferred the name Elohim over Yahweh (cf. Ps 40.17 & 70.4).
Do you prefer one name for God over another? When you pray, do you pray to Jesus? Yeshua? The Father? Yahweh? Jehovah? God? Spirit? Or maybe even Baby Jesus?
And what do think it means that you would be more comfortable with one name or another? Would it be healthy for you to vary the way you speak about God? Would it enrich your spiritual life?
2 comments:
I never saw the movie but I have loved that scene for a while. I think its easy to focus on one aspect of God and therefore neglect others, and I could probably use a dose of mixing it up. Thanks Brandon!
You're welcome Charlie. Thanks as always for your great comments!
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