Naked Bible Podcast 324 — Psalm 91 and Demons

[Music] You're listening to the Naked Bible podcast. To support this podcast, go to nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Hiser's approach to the Bible, click on new start here at nakedbiblepodcast.com. [Music] Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, episode 324, Psalm 91 and Demons. I'm the layman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey, Mike. How you doing? Pretty good. Pretty good. Ready to get some uh some topical stuff done now. Yeah, we've had a lot of interviews and now single topics. So, I'm excited. And the first one seems pretty interesting. Well, you know, I I you know, the short version here is I've I've heard enough about Psalm 91 to just have it make me a little ill when it comes to the whole Corona virus thing. So, I thought that's a good place to start. You know, we'll we'll jump into that because, you know, there's just stuff lurking, you know, under the surface that in includes demons, you know, and it's always great to talk about demons, isn't it? So, I thought that'd be a good place to start. You have a book out, so it kind of makes sense. Uh, how's that going? Any, uh, updates on that? Yeah, the book's going well. Well, the book Yeah. Well, Amazon said they were out of stock in in like 10 hours on the first day, you know, that I I heard and then I went up and looked and saw that, you know, it was sold out. So, I don't know if that was good news or bad news because there's really no way to tell. Like, does that mean that Lexom printed 10,000 of these and they're just gone like in a in a flash or did they only print like a thousand? You know, who knows? So, I actually looked today and it said, you know, you can order the book, which is nice of Amazon to tell people. Uh, you can order the book and it'll your book will get here by, you know, like sometime next week. So, they either have more or they know they're getting more. So, I who knows the mysteries of Amazon. [Music] Um I they're they're sort of incalculable. Yeah. So I don't I don't worry about them too much anymore. Yeah. There's been lots of good uh funny memes and u funny things going on about your books. For instance, you got a box full of demons. You've got uh demons is on the way. I mean there's all kinds of funny things that people are saying and stuff. So uh so that that's good. like demons are good news. Yeah. Yeah. And your trailers and stuff that you shot with Lexom, those are nice. Those are so long ago I don't even remember them. I I I should I should go and watch one. Yeah, they're good. You know, I I know though that they used um Well, I don't know if it was uh because when we did the demon stuff, all I remember is the room was dark, you know, because like they wanted it dark for because it's demons, you know. And I don't know if they took a picture then or if it was an older picture, but but I'm actually going to be on the may maybe the issue is already out. I don't even know. Um, but I'm I'm on the cover of Bible Study Magazine with one of these pictures that really makes me look kind of sinister. It's like, thanks a lot. Yeah, I think I saw it. Yeah. Right. Right. Could I have done anything to look a little more sinister for you? That's good. Oh, well. Yeah, it's good. I I have I have my copy, Mike, so I haven't read it yet, but uh I I did see Oh, you got Yeah, I got one. I pre-ordered it a long time ago. And I see you got, you know, Michael Brown in there. You got Tim Mackey saying a few words and Frank Turk. Yeah. Yeah. No, it has it has good recommenders. You know, I was real happy that that the recommenders liked the book. And, you know, I was a little disappointed because, you know, I had given Tim Mackey, you know, of the the Bible project, uh, a PDF in advance, you know, to to help him prep for those videos that the Bible Project did, you know, before I I went out. And and what I wanted was his his email reply to me after he'd read the draft. He said, "Dude, this is so helpful." Yeah, you know, that's just that's exactly what Tim would say, you know. So, but but he wrote a he wrote a blurb that sounds a little more a little more academic, a little less Tim, but you know, it's it's still Tim, so we're happy with it. Supernatural version of Angels and Demons. You can just have it where he just says, "Dude, that's it." That actually would be a pretty powerful endorsement if if T Mackey just said, "Dude, that's all you got to say." Yeah. You know, I actually and I sent I sent his email reply to Lexom and asked them to use it, but I they probably thought it was a joke. You know, it just because it was just funny, but you know, sometimes you don't get your way. I hear you. Well, Psalm 91, Mike, I'm excited about this episode. Uh, can you give us a little hint at at some of the other topics that are coming our way? Oh, well, I I I could, but I really don't want to because if I, you know, we're, you know, I'm actually trying to avoid new Exodus stuff because we just left Exodus. So, I'm actually picking my way around that, but uh that that might factor in there. But all I'll say is, you know, Old Testament, New Testament, you know, relationship. So, I don't want to commit to anything specific because something something else in the list might strike me. uh during the week and I I want to do that instead, but so I'm gonna be a little careful. Well, don't be shy about the Exodus stuff. We've got a good foundation of it now. So, you know, I mean, yeah, I know you want to build upon that. That's I'm just thinking that it's like wearing out your welcome, you know, just trying to trying to stay a little just a little away from that at least for a little bit of time. But, you know, we we'll we'll find our way back there. All right. At some point, I'm sure. I hear you. All right. Well, Psalm 91, uh, I'm going to read through the Psalm. It's not that long, uh, to start here, and I I'll sort of telegraph the places that we're going to going to spend some time camping. So, what I want to do is I want to go through the psalm and make some comments as to the to the Hebrew Bible uh, context of the psalm. And then we're going to drift into, well, how was this psalm understood or thought about in Jesus' day, you know, the second temple period? Uh, and and of course on into the first century AD, which is part of the second temple period. And you know, that's how we'll go. So, we're going to we're going to cover both Old and New Testament here because the Old Testament stuff is going to sort of again create a framework for what's going on in the New Testament. And it it's actually going to matter because here's a here's a little heads up. Psalm 91 is actually one of the places in the Old Testament that Satan quotes in his confrontation with Jesus and and he wasn't really talking about the Corona virus but you know the fact that he that Psalm 91 is one of those places is actually interesting and it's interesting for a number of specific reasons that I don't think will occur to again the the normal you know Bible reader or Bible student. So Psalm 91, let's just read it. I'm reading from ESV. He who dwells in the shelter of the most high. And let me just stop there. Isn't it interesting? Most high. Most high. Elon. I mean, where have we heard of most high before? Oh, that would be Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32 worldview. Okay. you know, Yahweh dispenses, you know, the nations, all lots the nations to the lesser sons of God who become again hostile supernatural forces in the course of the Old Testament. So, we'll stow that away. He who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust, for he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. Now, pestilence, we're going to camp on that word in a in a bit. Uh, it's the word dev. Interestingly enough, and this is the only time I'm going to mention this because I don't want to rabbit trail into how the septuagent translator misread a word, but here's a good example where they do. Deair dalot bet in Hebrew is also not just the word for plague, but again, Hebrew has homographs, homonyms. It's also the word for word. And so the Septuagent has he will rescue you from the trap of hunters and from a terrifying word, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but anyway, deor is not the Hebrew word for word here. It's something else, and we'll get to that. So verse four, he will cover you with his pinions. And if if you're like me, I wonder what's a pinion? Uh, the NCV, the New Century Version, has feathers. So, it's probably, you know, part of the wing or something like that. Or maybe just the feathers. I don't know. I'm I'm not an authority on the word pinion in English. And under his wings, so pinions and wings must have some relationship there. Under his wings, you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. Okay, stow that away. Shield and buckler. Because the next verse again gets us into more of these terrors and threats. And again, I'll give you a little heads up. These terrors and threats along with de pestilence in the preceding uh in verse verse three, these are going to be references to names of Canaanite deities, which of course to the second temple Jewish mind is is going to be a demon. And isn't it interesting how if the passage is really talking about demons that we get references to sheltering, you know, the Lord sheltering us with a shield and buckler. Sounds suspiciously like Ephesians 6. Okay. Ephesians 6:11-16. But just hold on to that. A thousand or let let me just back up verse five here. You will not fear the terror of the night. Hebrew word is pad. Nor the arrow that flies by day. We'll come back to the word arrow as well. Nor the pestilence, there's de again, that stalks in darkness. Nor the destruction, the word there is kv that wastess at noonday. All these words we're going to spend some time on. A thousand may fall at your side, 10,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will not only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the most high. There it is again, who is my refuge. No evil shall be allowed to befall you. No plague, and this this term is generic. It's naga, so it's not one of these deity names. No plague will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you. This is the part Satan quotes. He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Satan skips the next verse. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent, you will trample underfoot. Guess Satan forgot that part. Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him with long life. I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. So that's Psalm 91. And there's some interesting stuff in there. I'm going to focus on verses 5 and 6 and verses 11 through13 for a specific backdrop. Uh it's really specific contextualizing the psalm both in terms of you know an Israelite reader and then a later you know second temple Jewish first century AD reader and new testament era. So verses five and six let me just read them again. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastess at noonday. So again, without getting into too much detail because that would be quite possible and I do want to get into second temple stuff, Dead Sea Scroll material is going to matter here. And then in the new into the New Testament, we have this reference to de for those you who are listening. It's just think of deb it's a v sound after a vowel in Hebrew. So we have a reference to that in verse three and we also get one uh later in verse six. De I'm going to quote from DDD now dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible. De is one of the three proverbial causes of death on a wide scale. It is attested some 50 times in the Bible along with war including the words sword and blood and famine and it's mainly in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Besides this empirical meaning, it seems to be used a number of times in a personified sense as a demon or evil deity. Now, we're going to get in a few moments to Habach 35 where this is a little bit clearer. And Habach 3:5 will not only mention De, it will also mention a deity known as Rashef. Um, Hosea 13:14 again has similar language and we'll get to those in a moment, but just sort of to you know prep you with this. So de again to quote DDD once more, it seems to be used a number of times in a personified sense as a demon or evil deity. So just store that away. If we continue on, we hit verse six. We have ketv. That's q t and it's the the emphatic t in Hebrew. T with a dot underneath kv. Q t. I'm going to read from ddd again. The term kv appears four times in the old testament. Its basic significance is destruction. Perhaps etmologically that which is cut off. Though the contexts suggest that other nuances are present, various scholars have translated it as plague or pestilence in the context of its parallel use with rechef or dev. The term has overtones of a divine name because and this is, you know, unless you have a little bit of, you know, Semitic linguistics under your belt, uh, or or you're really into etmology, kazv, that's qz.b B in Ugaritic Kazv occurs once in an uggeric text KTU 1.5 column 2 not line 24 who appears to be a kinsman a relative of moat and that is Moat is a very famous ugetic canite deity the god of death so th those two are mentioned in tandem and that that's that's part of the argument that KV is probably you know again another Canaanite deity and when we get to Hosea 13 and 14 again. Well, I might as well just read that because it it's probably going to help here. So, let me just go to Hosea quickly. Might factor in here. This is going to sound really familiar from the New Testament, but it's actually a citation from Hosea. I shall ransom them from the power of shield. Okay, the underworld. I shall redeem them from death. Oh, death, where are your plagues? Oh sh, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes. This is again God speaking about, you know, the iniquity of Ephraim in back in verse 12. I'm going to read verse 14 again, you know, where the Lord is is speaking again. Says, I shall ransom them from the power of shield. I shall redeem them from death. Death there is moat. Okay. Ma mat in Hebrew, but moat in Canaanite. Oh death, where are your plagues? Guess what that word is? De. Oh death, where is de? Oh shil, where is your sting? Guess what that word is? KV. Oh de, you know, oh shil, where is Kv? You know, so so you could read Hosea 13 very easily because Mo is a is again quite a well-known Canaanite deity. personified death. And it, you know, this also happens in the Hebrew Bible. Shil is personified in a couple passages and so is is death, including this one because death is addressed. Oh, death. Oh, Mo, where are your plagues? You know, where's Dev and KV? Hey, Moat, where's Dev and Ketv? You know, and if if God is saying, I'm going to ransom these people from the power of Shiel, this is a taunt. This is God, the God of Israel, saying to Moat, to death, the God of the Canaanites, "Hey, dude, where are your buddies? You know, they're just not uh they weren't too effective here because I'm ransoming these people from death. I'm taking them out of your hands." So again that you have a you have a flavor here of a of a pretty strong theological palemic that really involves or sort of revolves around taking these terms as deity figures which in Canaanite texts they were okay there's there's good indication they were so you know it it helps sort of you know frame this discussion a little bit. Let me go back to DDD and its discussion of Ketv, you know, and of course Paul, you know, picks up on this this language in in first Corinthians, but we're not going to rabbit trail there today. But back to Ketv, uh, DDD says, "The most useful information and about Ketv comes from Deuteronomy 32:24 where the following tricolon, three stanzas, occurs in Yahweh's curse of apostate Jacob. you know, his people have apostasized in Deuteronomy 32:17, of course, which we we reference all the time on the podcast here about um Israel, you know, going after, you know, other gods, the the Shadim, these territorial entities. Again, referencing the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. Uh Israel is, you know, runs into apostasy. They go into apostasy. And so if you look at Deuteronomy 32:24, let me just read it to you uh in the ESV because DDD is going to take it apart a little bit in uh in terms of the Hebrew wording here, but let's just get the flavor again. God is judging, you know, his his people, you know, for their apostasy. Verse 23, we'll start there. I will heap disasters upon them. I will spend my arrows on them. Okay, disasters is rah. Arrows is just a familiar word for arrow, but it's going to become important here in a moment. They shall be wasted with hunger. This is verse 24. Rahab, and devoured by plague. There's rashef and poisonous pestilence. There's kv. So basically, God is going to send these disasters on his people. But the terminology again in the wider Canaanite world was again these these hostile supernatural forces. So, back to DDD. It says, you know, the the useful information Deuteronomy 32:24, here's what we read when Yahweh curses apostate Jacob. It says in again in Hebrew, mev or mazav sucked dry by hunger. That's one description. And then rashev and devoured by pestilence. Devoured by rashev. DDD says thus hunger is probably an epithet of moat because death you know had been mentioned earlier the god of death le devoured can also be construed as fought against and then it references the arrow metaphor of verse 23 that we read reference to the to the arrows pestilence is personified as rashef the plague god and here's here's the important line rechev in ugaritic is represented visually as an archer he shoots arrows. Okay. So you have Rashef again this this canite deity/demon figure you know for in second temple you know parlance who is you know an archer. So that's going to become important when we when we see references to arrows along with kv endeavor and moat in other passages. All right, let's go in fact to Habach 35. This is a good time to reference that. Mentioned it earlier, but Habach 35 is kind of important for this. This is one of these passages where Yahweh marches from the south. You know, we we spent a lot of time talking about these in the Exodus series in verse five in the midst of, you know, Yahweh coming from Timon and the holy one from Mount Pon so on and so forth. That's verse three. When you hit verse 5, it says before him, that is before God, you know, like marching ahead of him. Before him went pestilence, okay, it's de and plague followed at his heels. You know, kind of coming up from behind. That's Rashef. So before Yahweh went de and Rashef followed at his heels. And that that's kind of an interesting verse. And we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, why. And if as you're thinking about that, let me go back to the Hosea reference here and just read that again. So in Habach 3:5, we've got, you know, two of these figures sort of in tow, you know, marching, you know, under Yahweh's command as it were, under his authority. In other words, they're not independent deities. They are lesser and subservient. Okay? Then you go to Hosea 13. And I shall ransom them from the power of shil. I shall redeem them from death. Moat, oh death, oh moat, where are your plagues? Again, where is deor? Oh sh, where is ketv? Okay, so you have, you know, these passages like this that personify these things. And scholars again have who you know muck around in these texts have again noticed that hey the these same terms you know are actually some of the gods of these surrounding nations. Okay. And and naturally they're rivals you know to the status of Yahweh of Israel. And and a couple of them get referenced in Psalm 91. Again that's the point. A couple of them get referenced very directly. You know, we we we had, you know, de there and let's go back to, you know, the psalm here just to pick up here again. So, in in verse verses five and six, we have for sure de and kv, but then we have a reference to the arrow that flies by day. And is that Rashev? Well, it might be because Rashev is an archer. Might be an oblique reference to him. So, there there's some kind of strange stuff going on in Psalm 91. And then if we, you know, if we loop in Habach 3:5 and if we loop in Hosea 13:14, we've got a number of these terms and they're, you know, they're personified even in the Hebrew Bible, but they're all under Yahweh's authority. I mean, he is clearly the superior in the picture. So, I'm going to go to DDD again and read read you a little bit about Rashef. DDD says this, "The tradition of Rashef as a god of pestilence is attested in Deuteronomy 32:24 and Psalm 78:48. The first text, a passage of the song of Moses, deals with those who provoked God to anger and were unfaithful. They were apostate. They are punished with hunger and destroyed by Rashef and KV." You know, quote, "I will heap evils upon them. My arrows I will spend on them wasted with hunger devoured by Rashef and Ketv the poisonous one. That's how DDD renders Deuteronomy 32 23 and 24. Continuing it says in the Old Testament bar that's another term we haven't encountered yet. Barad occurs in Psalm 78:48 in a passage which concerns the seventh plague of Egypt where barad occurs in parallel with the reefs. Barad is lightning. Okay. And then it quotes the Hebrew text, you know, he that is Yahweh gave up their cattle, you know, the Egyptians cattle to bar, you know, it's lightning or or hail or both. You know, it's traditionally, you know, we look we look at that as a as a fire. If you remember back to the plague episodes, you know, this this these fiery hailstones. Again, the fiery part could be a way of describing lightning, lightning storm that yields hail. In other words, so he and Yahweh gave up their cattle to Barad and their herds to the rechefs. Again, lightning bolts as arrows. Okay, think of arrows. You're you're we're using the language, the visual encounter, visual appearance. And then in the ancient neareastern world, this is going to get theologized because they don't know meteorology. They don't know, you know, modern science or anything like this. So they see a lightning bolt, you know, this is this is from the gods and it's a bad thing, you know, and what what the Bible's going to correct, it's going to it's actually going to push back on this in a couple of regards and we'll we'll get to that in a moment. But the notion that, you know, like if you were not just an Israelite, but really anybody that that this is random and haphazard and so on and so forth and you know that the gods are like, you know, fighting against you and and you know, against themselves and this competing interest. I mean, think of the, you know, like like the Greek gods and whatnot. You know, Zeus with the thunderbolts and all that, a similar idea. You know, there there's a certain randomness to it and and capricciousness to it. That's one point that that the Bible's going to push back on. But it's also going to uh essentially, you know, kind of dethize the, you know, the weather stuff, but we we'll get to that in a moment. But here back again, the description is because, you know, it's written in the language of an observer. All right? Right. And so the observer is going to interpret what's happening here as the wrath of God, you know, and and that that's true. God, you know, can step in and manipulate the weather and control it and use it as a judgment. I mean, that that's just a given in biblical theology. But if it's God doing this, then it's not independent deities, okay? That that's the dethologizing part. Um, so these these these things are in in God's hand. They're not like, you know, he he he doesn't need to go ask, you know, hey, you know, can you come into work early today? I got a plague, you know, can you can you show up and eat? No, it's not like that. It's not that kind of thinking uh where God has to sort of send an evil spirit so that lightning works. Again, we we know that isn't the case. And again, the Bible, you know, pushes back on on that idea a little bit, but this is a very common concept, you know, in the ancient world. So back to DDD, you know, in Psalm 78, Yahweh gives up the Egyptians cattle to Barad, you know, lightning or hail or both, and their herds to the Rashefs. In Isaiah 28:2, Barad is paralleled with a demon in the service of Yahweh. Ketv, okay? And Ketv is under Yahweh's authority. Uh again, the biblical writers are using this notion, you know, think of it this way. They're using this notion that is widely held that these forces are again entities, these supernatural entities. But what what the theological point the biblical writers are trying to make is that no, you know, God just God just does this. He can do this in judgment or he can withhold it, you know, in mercy. This isn't this isn't sort of a, you know, a pan. It's it's not like a superhero pantheon of different forces like Storm, like the X-Men or something like that. So, the Bible again actually pushes back on a little bit of this, but it it it it uses the same language because that's what connects with the audience. Again, this is this is going to be very familiar. So, DDD says in Habach 3:5, we have the description of a theophony and the attendant natural phenomena. God is described as a divine warrior, a lord of light. Before him goes deor, master of epidemics, while rashef, pestilence, follows on god's heels. Psalm 76:4 mentions the uh doesn't have a vocalization here, but we've got the the plural of rashef and then cashet. Okay. An expression which could be interpreted as the rechefs of the bow like an like a bow and arrow and be related to the imagery of the god armed with bow and arrows. And then it quotes the psalm in Zion. God shattered again the rechefs of the bow, the shield, the sword, the weapons of war. Job 5:7 it goes on to say is a very difficult text inserted in a passage dealing with the need of need for man of absolute trust in God. Here the quote sons of Rashef the Benet Rashev are mentioned and it says and the sons of Rashef fly high. They seem to be winging demons. Particularly if we think of Psalm 9:5 where the expression, okay, Kates, again, the arrow that flies, Kates Yao, could be an illusion to Rashev. Again, that's just a smattering of of material from DDD about Rashev. So again, what what we've got going on here, you know, is this, you know, the Bible's dipping into and using again a a matrix of ideas here about natural forces and natural disasters and weather and so on and so forth. And again, instead of affirming that, yeah, you know, they're they're like specific specific dudes, you know, in the spiritual world that are in charge of that, basically, it says, no, the all of these forces in nature are at the command of the God of Israel. And it it uses military language. It uses, you know, the the the visualization of a retinue and and all these things. You know, the biblical writers do these things. But their point is that, you know, the way that the Canaanites really think about this is is not the case because, you know, the Canaanite deities that you think are in charge of this really aren't. You know, they really aren't in charge of of of anything like this. God doesn't have to sort of fight them to get them to not do these things or to do these things. They they don't actually have any control over this. Again, that's the theological point that the biblical writers in these smattering of verses are trying to make. Verses 11 through13. Read this again. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. And that that should be very familiar from the the temptation of Jesus by Satan. You will tread. Again, here's the part that isn't quoted. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent. you will trample underfoot. Now, there there's a number of of kind of interesting things going on here. Uh, you know, obviously the the serpent imagery is what grabs you right away. You know, we we have these these same terms again, these these serpentine terms mentioned in Deuteronomy 32 again about, you know, about the enemies of Israel, both both in terms of human enemies and, you know, supernatural enemies. Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps, you know. So, there's a generic reference in Deuteronomy 32. The more interesting one to me is Psalm 58. And and I'll tell you why it's interesting. Psalm 58 is considered by many scholars, we we actually ought to do an episode on Psalm 58 and Psalm 82 because Psalm 58 is sort of a it's viewed as a psalm that picks up themes from Psalm 82. And I'll just read you the first verse. This is ESV. Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Okay, the Hebrew is LM. and and basically I don't want to say every because there's always an exception but I'm you know pretty much every scholar every Hebrew scholar Old Testament scholar believes that lm here is actually an old form of of the plural of l in other words gods like alim even though it's not spelled that way because we have in Psalm 89 the benm or ben alim you know it just depends on you know the the manuscript tradition and so on and so forth Um, and and I I I tend to agree with that because just just listen to to parts of the psalm. Do you in in indeed decree what is right, oh you gods? Do you judge the children of men uprightly? No. In your hearts you devise wrongs. Your hands deal out violence on the earth. Does this sound like Psalm 82:es 2-5? Yeah, it does. You know this because this is what they get accused of. And then it goes on and and you know it says in verse four, I'll just read. You know, the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or the cunning enchanter. Oh God, break the teeth in their mouths. Tear out the fangs of the young lions. And you can see the the serpent and the lion imagery here that that is operative in Psalm 91. But you can also if you're thinking Psalm 82, you know, scripture has this notion that extends from Deuteronomy 32 and Daniel 10 that the things that go on with wicked people, wicked rulers behind that is actually, you know, wicked supernatural beings that that influence that chaos that goes on on earth. They don't do anything about it to correct it. You know, they they either permissively let it go or if we take the wording of this psalm, it seems a little more intentional. No, in your hearts you des you devise wrongs. Your hands deal out violence on the earth. If you go to the end of the psalm, this is another reason why people look at this as sort of a kind of a maybe a dim mirror of Psalm 82. The way it ends, mankind will surely say or or will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God like a real God who judges on earth." And if you actually look in the Hebrew text, we have surely there is Elohim who judges on the earth. And interestingly enough, the the the verbal there, it's not actually a finite verb. Again, I'm sorry for the grammar elapse here, but you know, I just have to get into this because somebody's going to look at this and say, "Oh, you know, Mike, it should be gods, you know, in verse 11. Surely there are gods who judge on earth." Well, that's what he's saying isn't happening in verse one. So, that there's a problem right there. Well, it has to be plural because the the verbal here is is the plural participle chauffeetim. Well, that that that's true. That's true. It's not a finite verb for one thing and therefore a participle which is classified as a verbal adjective which can be used substantively. In other words, functioning as a noun can be used as a plural of majesty. And that's what you have here. There are a few of these in the Hebrew Bible where a participle functions as a plural of majesty because precisely be precisely because it's doing service as a noun. Okay? in in in a in what would be called a verbless clause. Okay. So again, just to to lapse into that a little bit just so that that the listeners out there know that yes, we can cover these bases. What you have here is a very similar call to the way Psalm 82 ends. Arise, oh God, and you know, judge the earth, you know, take the nations, you know, that that kind of wording, however you want to translate that. So there there's a similarity there. And again, my point is that here you've got a psalm that has stuff in it that sounds like Psalm 82 and yet also has this serpent language, this adder language, and this this lion language from or not from but but that we also encounter in Psalm 91 and elsewhere, you know, the en the chaos enemies of of earth, okay, are are cast this way as tanin, you know, sea sea monsters or serpents. You you've got Pharaoh, okay? You got Pharaoh in Exodus 29 and Exodus 32. You've got the whole incident with Moses and Aaron in front of Pharaoh with with the serpents, you know, the staff becomes a serpent devour the other two. You got some of these words in there. You got Psalm 74 that uses the language, you know, of the sea monsters, you know, God slays the sea beasts. And Isaiah 51:9 is another one. Isaiah 27:1 is probably, you know, the most famous esqueological one. I'll just read it again just to give you a flavor for the kind of language that's here. In that day, the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. Leviathan, the twisting serpent. I mean, there you get the serpent language. You've got you've got Nikkosh there a couple of times. He will slay the dragon that is in the sea. That's Tanin and that's the word that it occurs in Psalm 91. So, this terminology is used again for chaos agents. you know, either either supernatural, emblematic, or human. I mean, the again it's a matrix of ideas, as I as I often say. So, what you have in Psalm 91, again, focusing on verses 5 and 6 and 11-13, is a lot of powers of darkness language. You've got a lot of supernatural chaos language. You've got connections to Deuteronomy 32. You've got a peripheral connection to Psalm 82 going on here. Basically, supernatural bad guys are are littered in among the verbiage of Psalm 91. And that's going to matter when we get to the second temple period. And that's where we're going right now. Now, I came across a couple of articles here and the links to these articles are going to be on the episode web page. You probably already know that if you if you use the website, you know, to get your podcast, but if you don't, go up to the episode web page and you'll get links to these articles. These are available online. So, I'm giving you the links. One of them is by Craig Evans. Again, Evans is a very well-known New Testament scholar, and he had an article back in 2009 on Psalm 91, and it's called Jesus and Evil Spirits plural in the light of Psalm 91. Now, the initial source for that was Baptistic Theologies Volume 1, 2009, 43, pages 43 through 58. It's also published in a book called Celebrating the Dead Sea Scrolls, a Canadian contribution. It's edited by Peter Flint, the late Peter Flint, and a few other people. Uh, which you could, you know, get that book in book form and you'd have the chapter. But anyway, you can get the essay on a link on the episode web page. Craig Evans himself was nice enough to post this. You know, I don't know when he did it, but he did it. So, it's up there. Now in this article, Evans starts on, you know, very early with this comment. He says, "Commentators have long suspected that this psalm was understood as offering assurance against demonic affliction." Uh, chances are very high that when you read Psalm 91, just, you know, in your Bible reading at some point in life, like me, I wasn't thinking about demonic affliction at all. after listening to the first half of this podcast, you could see why they would think that way because it is okay. This is this is how they look. This is the worldview. All right. So again, Evans says commentators have long suspected that this psalm was understood as offering assurance against demonic affliction. He says, "However, the discovery at Kuman, this is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found of Psalm 91, and here's here's the key. In combination with exorcism psalms, has pretty well settled the matter once and for all. Psalm 91 apparently was understood in the time of Jesus as offering divine asurances of protection against demonic powers." So you the point even then really wasn't specifically you know some of some of the the natural things that we would associate there were people who who read them you know quite transparently as demonic you know attacks from demons and and so this was this psalm at Kuman was actually grouped in among other exorcistic psalms that are not in the Hebrew Bible but they're you know they're nevertheless you know it was part of this group. So again, that's interesting, especially because Satan is going to is going to try to use this. But I should also add that it was also understood as a psalm of David. Now, if you go in your in your English Bible and you go to Psalm 91, this one doesn't have a superscription. Doesn't say Psalm of David, Psalm of Assaf or anybody else. Okay? Well, at Kuman in the Dead the Dead Sea Scroll version of the Psalm and and it's the psalm. It just it has a superscription and it's a psalm of David which gives it the messianic flavor, does it not? Okay. So, again, there's another little thing running under the surface that's kind of interesting. Now, you know, we could I'm gonna I'm going to link out. In fact, I'm going to go to uh just open up with my software here. Um, I'm going to go to the Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. And Evans, just going to back it up here. Okay, I found it. Uh, Evans is going to, uh, reference 11Q, let's see, 11Q 5 first, and then he's going to go into 11Q11, which is this collection of exorcistic psalms. I I'll read here 11Q5. uh when I say the word blank, it just means that there's there's a gap in the text. All right? So blank, you know, initially and then the the editor presumes that there's some note about these are the compositions of David because the the line that first line that actually shows up is and David son of Jesse was wise and a light like the light of the sun and learned blank and discerning and perfect in all his paths before God and men and blank line four. Yahweh gave him a discerning and enlightened spirit. And he wrote Psalms [Music] 3,600. That's a lot more than we get in the book of Psalms, by the way. So, David writes 3,600. And he wrote songs to be sung before the altar over the perpetual offering of every day. For all the days of the year, 364. And for the Sabbath offerings, 52 songs. and for the offerings of the first days of the months, and for all the days of the festivals, and for the day of atonement, 30 songs. And all the songs which he spoke were 446. Okay. So, we got a 3,600 number. We've got 446. And this is this is the end of line nine. And songs going into line 10. He also wrote songs to perform over the possessed four. The total was 4,050. All that stuff altogether 4,050 items that David wrote. Verse 11. All these he spoke through the spirit of prophecy which had been given to him from before the most high. Okay, that's 11 Q5. So we learned David was quite prolific and among the stuff that he produced were four songs to perform over the possessed. It seems these four psalms were discovered providentially, coincidentally, however you want to look at that. These four psalms were discovered in the same cave. They were labeled 11 Q11. There were three new psalms in this group. and Psalm 91. Now, the ones that are not in the Hebrew Bible are very clearly exorcistic psalms. They're all fragmentaryary, but all of them mention demons with confrontational language. And then you get Psalm 91 in among them. And I'm going to read you again. A lot of this is fragmentaryary. This is 11 Q11 first column. Uh we get a reference in line 40 to Yahweh. Line five contains the word dragon. Uh you know, then you have the earth. we get the word exercising as as in exercising demons in ver in line seven. Uh line 10 is the word demon. I mean these just a few words. Column two is a little bit more and interestingly enough it mentions Solomon. Line two says there's a blank and then Solomon he will invoke and then a blank and then next line is the spirits and the demons. You know blank on either side. So again you you get this. Okay, we got Solomon looped in here. Well, it's the Psalm of David and okay, it's Davidic and the line of kingship, not in demons. All right, so you get a little feel for that. Column three again is is kind of more of the same thing. I want to get to uh the fifth column here, column five, it has, you know, it's got a got a good amount preserved, but it's it's really interesting. Line three, it says the volunteers of blank. And then it actually names Raphael. Okay, the the archangel Raphael has healed them. Line four of David against and then a long blank and it ends with Yahweh. Line five, the heavens when he comes upon you in the night, you shall say to him, "Who are you?" And you're going to love this. Line six, who are you, oh offspring of man and the seed of the holy ones? Does that sound familiar? Can you say with me? Probably if there's children in the room, you probably want to say this, but bastard spirits, demons. Okay, this is this is a Genesis 6 language, you know, connection. Who are you, oh offspring of man and of the seed of the holy ones? Your face is a face of delusion and your horns, your horns are horns of illusion. You are darkness and not light. Line eight, injustice and not justice. The chief of the army, Yahweh will bring you down. And then verse 9, to the deepest shield, he will shut the bronze gates. I mean again, does does this sound familiar? Uh this is again part of this material in 11Q1 in which right after this in the next column we get Psalm 91. you know, in its entirety. It's not completely identical because Solomon, well, that's a tarum. I don't want to say that, but there are there are Aramaic translators that read into a little part of this, but but it's it's it's very very very close, you know, to to the Psalm 91 that we have. It's basically identical, but not not completely, but it begins this way of David. Okay? you know and we get we get this this of David and they they have it you there it is bracketed here but but the Septuagent of this psalm you know has the superscription so that that and the Septuagent is going to align well with this and so they're figuring this is this is sort of the Hebrew original here uh in the shelter of you know the most high shadow of the almighty so on and so forth so you get Psalm 91 there and it goes down through about verse parts of verse 14. So Psalm 91 again this is this is why scholars look at this and they go sure looks like in the words of Evans the appearance of Psalm 91 in 11Q11 strongly suggests that this psalm was understood not only at Kuman as an exorcism psalm but was understood this way among the Jews in the time of Jesus and I agree I think Evans is tracking you know well on that. So couple of specific items again I looped in the Septuagent. So the Septuagent attributes the psalm to David. Again you through the the the fancy and wonderful world of textual criticism the the the material at Kuman here in Psalm 91 aligns very closely you know with little idiosyncrasies we'd get in the Septuagent uh you know as opposed to the MT. And so it it odds are very high very high that uh this would would have been the Hebrew underlying Septuagent. And so the scholars feel quite confident in saying, you know, this one had a superscription as well because the Septuagent one surely does. Again, you know, maybe it didn't, but it's it's a good argument. It's it it's sound in its reasoning. The another thought is again, one of these exorcistic psalms, okay, one of these exorcistic psalms, I didn't read all of them, the whole lot of them, one of them mentions Rashef by name again. and and we and we have again the reference in Psalm 91 to the arrows which we talked about earlier. So what I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to create sort of a a picture context a framework for how people in the first century when you you if you were doing the sword drill Psalm 91 what's that about? You know chances are there's going to be somebody in the crowd probably more than one that would say demons you know exorcism because this content is in there. Um, again, it's it shouldn't be it wouldn't have been a foreign thought again to somebody in Jesus' day. But, you know, to us, we're not, you know, we're we're we're reading this filtered through an English translation. So, it's really hard to pick this up. And plus, you know, we wouldn't have the context of Kuman and all this other stuff and the Septuagent. We need to get give the Septuagent some due here. So, Evans also writes, "The content of Psalm 91 readily lead lends itself to an exorcistic function. Verse three promises deliverance from the deadly pestilence while verse five promises the faithful person that he will not be afraid of the terror of the night or the plague that rages at noon. Uh by the way that is not the way plagues actually work. You know natural forces they don't like time themselves. The creatures mentioned in verse 13 you serpent sea monster and the like were sometimes understood as demonic beings. As already mentioned, the seam monster and tanine in verse 13 also appears in line five of again one of these exorcistic psalms. So these exorcistic psalms have the same vocabulary as Psalm 91 and Psalm 91 is lumped in there including you among them. Uh Evans also throws in a note here that I you know I think is is worth mentioning that the Aramaic translator the Tarum translator of verses 5 to10 in it didn't it's very clear that he took it as an exorcistic psalm and he loops Solomon into this. I'm going to read you the the Tarum translation that Evans has uh referenced in his his article. You will not be afraid of the terror of the demons. It actually puts the word in there. You will not be afraid of the terror of the demons that go about in the night, nor of the arrow of the angel of death that he shoots in the daytime. You can see how the Tarum is is expansive here. Nor of the death that goes about in the darkness, nor of the company of demons that destroy at noon. You will call to remembrance the holy name, and a thousand will fall at your left side and 10,000 at your right hand, but they will not come near to you to do harm. You will only look with your eyes and you will see how the wicked are being destroyed. Solomon answered. And this is what he said. Because you, the Lord, are my refuge. In the most high dwelling place, you have set the house of your Shakina. The Shikina Shakina. The Lord of the world responds. And this is what he said. No evil shall befall you and no plague or demons shall come near your tent. If you compare, you know, what what's going on the Hebrew and the Aramaic, it's it's, you know, first, you know, couple of verses, uh, sort of already set the stage for this Solomonic language. Here's the first couple two verses two and three. Hebrew has, he will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust, for he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. The Tarum says, "David said,"I will say to the Lord," then there's a a gap, an ellipsus. Verse three, "for he will deliver you Solomon, my son." You know, it puts Solomon right in there, "From the snare and the obstacle, from death and confusion." So, it takes line the line from verse three, for he will deliver you, this generic you, and the Tarum translator interpreted that as David speaking to Solomon, his son. That's how Solomon gets looped in there and he gets looped back, you know, later on as we read. Now, again, let's let's sort of pull all this data and think about Psalm, you know, 91 and how to how to read it and then we'll we'll get into uh you know, what what happens with with Jesus real briefly. You know to me it is important that we have a tradition that there's a superscription here in the Septuagent and again very very very likely at Kuman for this being a psalm of David again which certainly gives it a messianic feel. It's also really important that Psalm 91 is lumped in with exorcistic psalms at Kuman and those other exorcistic psalms in which it is bundled have again very clear you know demonic, sinister, you know, powers of darkness language in them. Some of which is also in Psalm 91. And I think that's important. Um the the name, you know, the inclusion of Rashef and that other stuff I think is important. Um again, just the ancient neareastern the Canaanite backdrop that we talked about earlier, uh is important. I mean the to me these things need to inform how we read Psalm 91 and then how we understand its use and and Jesus' rebuttal in Matthew 4 and you know just accounts of the temptation there. So in biblical days you know in the wider ancient near east I think we could say this you know natural disasters and disease you know were linked to demons because they were a threat to human life. They're, you know, they are chaos forces that just happen to people and and again that's going to get, you know, linked to the notion of supernatural chaos forces. There there's an Old Testament scholar from the Netherlands, Dr. Garrett, and I'm hoping I get this this name right, uh, Vuggden Hill. I'm not sure that's correct, but you can also find a paper, a short paper that he wrote uh online. We have we'll have this link on our website as well. uh demonic doom, Psalm 91 and the threat of evil spirits and demons. It's also very good, very interesting. His short article actually sort of sketches out his own research. He has a he has a book coming out um on Psalm 91. It's not it's not shipping yet. I actually looked it up because we we have corresponded briefly. Um it's it's published by Brill, so it's really expensive, but you know, hopefully it'll come back in paperback or if you're at SPL this year, you can get it at a discount, but uh it's a book specifically on Psalm 91 and and this demonic aspect, demonic, you know, orientation of the psalm. In his in his short paper, when he's talking about his research, he, you know, he he describes some of the things that he investigated, he writes this. He says in chapter 3 we you know he he's using the editorial we in chapter 3 we asked which place do demons have in the worldview of the of ancient Israel what do the Israelite men and women think of demons did they play a part in everyday life on which fields of life do they experience the activities of demons so he's asking these worldview questions then he goes through um one at one point in the article and of course the book he goes through Jewish incantation texts or Jewish magical texts as scholars like to refer to Um, these are, you know, they would write these in bowls and cups, you know, we have pieces of pottery or sometimes the whole thing. Um, or pieces of jewelry, things that you would wear on on your person, on your body. Um, they're, you know, I hate to use the word spell, but but, you know, I guess that's fair. You know, incantation sounds a little more neutral, but they're um they're they're short written prayers, and I guess you could call some of them spells. that's probably fair uh to ward off demons. And he actually gives an example of one u again this is Jewish material uh of of one that comes from the again he's uh at Cairo in this short article and he writes this the amulet mentions the name of the woman who was wearing this thing bent zorah. It is possible that amulet was worn as a kind of necklace or that the amulet was located near the place where she would give birth to her child. On the first column, the purpose of the amulet is stated, namely, quote, to drive away all kinds of demons and demonesses. Lise and less evil diseases, harmful male spirits and harmful female spirits and evil spirits, male and female. I mean, she just run running the gamut here. So that she hurt the baby be healthy and protected. Well, it could be the baby or the mother. I mean, we'd have to we'd have to read the full book, I guess, to determine how that determination is made. So that she be healthy and protected from any harm for all time. Between the lines of the incantation, we find on the first column a reference to Psalm 91. The psalm is cited according to the principles of notarakon. And Dr. Vuggden Hill defines that for us in a footnote. I'll read the footnote. Uh Ruggen Hill writes the word notarakon is borrowed from the Greek language and was derived from the Latin word notarius which means shorthand writer. It is a method of deriving a word by using each of its initial or final letters to stand for another word to form a sentence or an idea out of the words. So I mean this was just sort of a I don't know if I don't I don't it's probably not a memory technique. Maybe it would become that if you know you made one of these and then you just you know you you prayed through the psalm or you recited part of the psalm and this would help you to do that. Or it could be supplemental you know you you could be kind of uh you know orienting a prayer around uh in this case Psalm 91 and adding these other details you know based on you know your your your memory cue would be the first or last letter of a line and or a word in the psalm. So these are the kind of texts that um he deals with in this book. But what it shows is again that that there were people who quite obviously again considered Psalm 91 to have something to do with protection from demons as opposed to protection from a cold you know or you know something like that. I mean it it was it was it was more supernatural uh to to them. Now you know for my own take you know as with other matters of you know biology and understanding of nature and whatnot you know they you know it's easy for us to look and say well they didn't have you know tools of science you know we know how weather works we know how disease works we know how contagions work you know all that sort of stuff and we do we do so I I think it's obvious that science has informed us how diseases and weather works um again I I talk about this kind of thing on my FAQ uh when when when we get comments like this, you know, from people living in the second or the first millennium BC or the first century again and we do have tools of science that we can evaluate what they're saying about the natural world. That's the key thought. We can evaluate what they're saying about the natural world. That doesn't give us permission to evaluate what they say about the supernatural world, which doesn't conform to the tools and methods of scientific inquiry. Those are two different things. even though the ancient person married the two. Those are two different things. So, we could say, well, you know, hey, we know how the weather works and and it, you know, it's not empowered by a demon, you know, we get that. But that doesn't mean that the demons or the gods or again these these supernatural be entities, it doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means that that certain people misappropriated an ability to them. Okay, that that's what it means. So, you know, a lot of people want to throw out the baby with bathwater. Again, you know, again, me, you know, this a, you know, this this this podcast, we don't do that here. Uh, we we we try to be fair, uh, with the worldview and with the data. And in this case, uh, you know, these passages weren't designed to tell us how the natural world works. Uh, they just weren't. You know, God chose writers who didn't know these things and and he knew that. So, they're not doing science. they're doing theology. And so we don't have the authority to use science, a thing they're not writing about, to dismiss a thing they are writing about. And that and that scripture affirms again a supernaturalistic worldview. So I think I think Habach 3:5 actually helps here. It doesn't, you know, sever a link between what's going on in the spiritual world and the human world. It, you know, it doesn't do that. uh you know God can you know do something to influence the weather as a judgment or as a blessing. I mean you know God can do these things. They're not they're not you know out out of the purview of divine activity. But the point is that it's God. It's not lesser inferior beings you know who are who are doing this. And again I think Habach 35 helps there. Um you know such things scripture affirms operate under the sovereignty of God. to get the message across and to get that message across. You know, Habach 3:5 has the Canaanite deities or the demons again in second temple thinking, you know, recall that Dimmon, you know, has sort of a generic term for a lot of these entities. Uh it it has the Canaanite deities that were thought responsible for such things held in check by Yahweh or in some sense displaced uh by Yahweh as to their presumed abilities. Now, from my demons book, I'm going to read a little paragraph here. I write, "In addition to symbols representing the encompassing reach of chaos, biblical writers use the names of deities from Canaanite religion attached to specific natural phenomena and illnesses. Unlike their polytheistic counterparts, they did not have distinct deities acting independently of the true God in charge of those forces. Just as death itself was under the authority of Yahweh, so were disease and natural disaster. Yahweh was the lone sovereign. For example, when Egypt was punished with plagues, it wasn't because Yahweh had to request the services of a deity or a demon. The Most High either acts unilaterally or dispatches a supernatural underling to dispense judgment through such disasters. In other words, he's the one in charge. So again, that's from the the New Demons book. You know, the end result is that it shouldn't surprise us that ancient people presume the gods or demons were behind natural forces. You know, that shouldn't surprise us as Christians. You know, we can affirm the general idea, you know, God is in control, but deny that demonic entities are are the ones like, you know, pulling the levers here. Biblical theology has God in control of such things. But as Jesus himself points out in Luke 13, and we need to loop Luke 13 in, this is not the temptation. This is something I blogged about on my website. As Jesus himself points out in Luke 13, it's not like we should think God is pushing buttons on every event in the natural world. or aiming at wicked people when things happen. Some things just happen. Okay, that that is the way the world works. Imperfection is part of the created world at the beginning and its imperfection is made worse by the fall and its curses. The fall didn't result in demons being assigned to diseases and disasters. Nor is there any biblical indication the world was created that way. You know, Habach 3:5 is an example where the biblical writers try to push back on the common thinking and I think correctly frame these things. But again, we'll link to the to my thing on Luke 13 as well that I wrote recently on on the episode web page. So, let's get to Jesus and ask ourselves the obvious question. You know, we'll go to Matthew 4 here just so that we get u the flavor, but this is a really common uh passage. I think all of you are going to be familiar with it. Let's just read this. So he, you know, Matthew 4:1 that Jesus, Jesus was led by the spirit in the wilderness. Other gospels say he was compelled by the spirit to go out into the wilderness. Of course, that's where you would find the devil, the the domain of death and and and chaos, that which is anti-Eden. All right? He goes out there, he fasts 40 days, 40 nights, and he's hungry, and the tempter shows up. Satan shows up, and then he starts, you know, talking to him. We get this conversation. And in verse three, the tempter, Satan, says to him, "If you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he, Jesus, answered, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Verse 5, then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, this is verse six, "If you are the son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. So that's where he quotes Psalm 91. Now again, the obvious question is why would why would he pick that psalm? You know, why would he do this? Again, my take is that Satan knows the content of the psalm. He knows how people think about the psalm. People think about Psalm 91 as an exorcistic document that Yahweh and David and the son of David, the Messiah, has command over demons. And and surely surely if this is the case, I could ask you to throw yourself off the temple, you know, off the pinnacle of the temple and his angels will keep you from harm. So let's see. Let's see if you're really the Messiah. you should be able to jump right off here and get rescued by angels and then we'll know that you in fact are superior to demons to the guys who work for me and and even me myself. So let's see that. Now there are a couple of ways you could look at this. You know, one is he's using the psalm to have Jesus prove the point and quote unquote win the confrontation. You know, show your mastery over the powers of darkness. Show your status as as the son of God. You know, show your status as being, you know, really equal to Yahweh. And when we get right down to the rest of the Old Testament theology about the son of David, you know, you're you you know, the Messiah is God. Let's see that. Show us that you're superior to de and KV and Rashef. Oh, you know, we want to see that. Prove it. Prove it. Now, what what does Satan have to gain? You know, I I look at this and think it's a fishing expedition. Let's say that Jesus says, "Okay, here we go." You know, Geronimo, you know, and he takes off, you know, over the over the pinnacle of the temple. Now, you know, think about you got two outcomes. One is that angels show up, catch him, and okay, point proven. You know, like like what does that do? The other one is Jesus hits the bottom and dies. Okay? And and you know, God has to raise him up to make the plan work. Oh, and wouldn't that be interesting? Because if that happened, Satan would know that if this guy dies, God's going to bring him back to life. And and I would I would assert that God and Jesus don't want Satan to know that. All right? And the first option that Jesus jumps and is caught by angels, that isn't the plan. And not only that, isn't that the plan? But Jesus is not the monkey to Satan's organ grinder. Okay? He is not here to perform for Satan or anyone else. He's on a mission. He knows what the mission is. Frankly, your request, Satan, your challenge can be safely ignored. Okay? It can be safely ignored. It serves us, me and my father, no purpose to entertain you or inform you in any way. So what does Jesus do? He responds with scripture and says again, it is written, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." Which to me, I read that as a double onandon. you know, he he's he's saying, "Look, I'm not going to put God to the test." And and it's also kind of it can also be read like, "You shouldn't put God to the test, and you're putting me to the test. Do the math, dude. Do the math." But he just he's not going to perform. He's not a performer. He owes him no information and no entertainment. And I think, you know, for our application, you know, why even mention this? I mean it I think in our in our day and age and we're going to end with this you know that the point is not again just arcane knowledge about Psalm 91. I wanted to do all that to to make the point that yeah yeah you know Jesus is you know in theory you know Jesus could have jumped off been rescued and yeah I proved the point I am superior to all these things. I am I'm superior to every every knucklehead every supernatural knucklehead named in Psalm 91. There you go. But Jesus doesn't do that. He does not presume to act in a way that is contrary to what God wants him to do and that ultimately is contrary to the point of the psalm. And and I would just suggest, you know, to to us that it might be a good idea to think of Psalm 91 the way it's supposed to be thought of. I mean this is a protection from supernatural darkness. So it you know that what we've said today about Psalm 91 and Psalm 91 itself this the general teaching point here is not that this material is supposed to give us a video game or a professional wrestling analogy for the pecking order of the supernatural world. That's just not what it's supposed to be and it's not what we're trying to do here. You know, we we shouldn't over literalize the material for the purpose of analyzing, well, which disaster I did I hear about on TV? Was demon caused or not? You know, like, okay, you know, is the virus, you know, the work of Satan or demons or, you know, okay, if you're using Psalm 91 to do that, that is as much a misuse of the Psalm, you know, as, you know, as a misuse of any other passage. I mean, it it's just not what it's there for. Rather, the psalm is a messianic psalm about David's David's agent, his his ultimate son. Okay? The Davidic Messiah's power over forces of darkness. That is what the psalm is about. It's also not a psalm that teaches us we won't get sick. The psalm is about the victory again over supernatural darkness. You know, God is in control of the forces of nature. He is not powerless to protect us as though he isn't in control of nature. But Psalm 91 is ultimately not about, you know, specific calamities and forces of nature. It doesn't guarantee you won't get sick or won't get hit by a hurricane or will never live in a place that gets an earthquake or, you know, fill in the blank. It doesn't guarantee those things. Ultimately, it's about the Messiah's victory over the powers of darkness. And all who are in the shelter of the most high all who are in Christ in New Testament parlance will overcome the evil one and the evil ones through Christ. You know, it's his faithfulness at the temptation in this regard that is it's crucial. It's crucial to what later happens. Had he had he tipped off had he tipped the hand, okay, in the temptation account here and sat had Satan learned that, oh, if you kill him, God's just going to bring him back from the dead or God won't let him be killed. See, that that changes tactically what the powers of darkness will do about the Messiah. see what what God needs to happen, what the endgame is is that Jesus does die. So, we're we're not taking that we're not putting that card on the table for Satan to learn anything. So ultimately Jesus' faithfulness here in Matthew 4 which involves this challenge drawn from Psalm 91 is crucial to Jesus' later faithfulness in going to the cross where he does get raised from the dead and ascends to the seed of power once more so that we reap those benefits and so that we you again are in the shelter of the most high. We are in Christ and we have victory over all of these evil ones. I mean, it's a coherent, sensible portrayal, you know, not not only in terms of the Old Testament, but also just just kind of what the terms become in Matthew 4, you know, in the temptation scene. God either won't let him die or if he does, he'll raise him from the dead. Again, if I'm a if I'm the cosmic genius of the supernatural evil world, therefore, killing the guy isn't the solution, but that's exactly what needs to happen. And so Jesus is not putting the card on the table. So, it's actually really interesting. I mean, Satan kind of knows where to hit him, but at the end of the day, you know, Jesus is, we don't owe you anything. We're not going to presume, okay? You should not put the Lord your God to the test. We owe you nothing. No entertainment, no information. So, it it's really a good chess match when you really think about it. And again, the context of Psalm 91, I think um colors it in the right way. Mike, can you speak about um Solomon in the second temple period, their literature? I guess they didn't the second temple Jews didn't freak out when they saw Jesus casting out the demons because they've been reading about Solomon as an exorcist. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. If you recall, you know, we did an old episode um on this. It's number 87. Man, that seems like a long time ago. Google has episode 87, exorcism of demons as part of the messianic profile. There you go. You know, because in that episode, if you recall, we we ask the question just exactly like you put it, like why when Jesus runs around, you know, casting out demons and that gets used to reinforce the idea, you know, his identity as as the Messiah, like this this has to be the Messiah. Look at that. Okay. Since there's no really, you know, to our our reading, there's no really clear element like that in the Old Testament. you never read about like there's no episode in the Old Testament where a demon gets cast out of anybody. I mean, nobody like much less, you know, David or the son of David. And and so it it creates this sort of disconnect like that detail doesn't make any sense. It's it must be something new that the New Testament writers made up, but it's not. And just like you said, they're talking about this way about Solomon. They have this tradition about David and and so when Jesus starts doing this, it's like, okay, you know, you know, he he has just become part of the discussion, you know, about who the is he the Messiah? So, it's it's actually a big deal. All right, Mike. Well, that was a good one. That's basically uh probably a chapter out of your demons book. I would imagine this. It actually isn't. It is not. It actually isn't. I I do. No, it's not. I I do demon stuff and then and the natural world, you know, a little bit, but I I don't have like a chapter on Psalm 91. I reference it, but this is this is new content. So So now I I've spilled Unseen Realm 2 content here on the onto the podcast. That's all right. I tell you, uh love it. Anytime we can get that to happen, I'll take it. You can squeeze that out of me, right? Absolutely. All right, Michael. Well, that was a good one. We appreciate it. All right, guys. Well, uh, with that, I want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the NakedBible podcast. To support this podcast, visit [Music] www.nakedbibleblog.com. To learn more about Dr. Heiser's other websites and blogs, go to www.br.com. [Music]