{"id":2761,"date":"2024-01-05T23:45:21","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T23:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2761"},"modified":"2024-01-06T00:30:40","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T00:30:40","slug":"evensong-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2761","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 91"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The line that jumped out at me in this psalm was YHWH’s pledge to reward his followers not with afterlife in heaven, but with long life on earth \u2014 a direct quote from YAH Himself.

\u201cBecause [My follower] has set his love upon Me,\u201d says YHWH, \u201ctherefore I will deliver him. \u2026 I will be with him in trouble. \u2026 With long life I will satisfy him, \/ And show him \u2026 salvation.\u201d

So let me get this straight: In simplest terms, our righteousness may be measured by our age? Is the flipside of YHWH\u2019S promise true \u2014 that only the bad die young? So insulting.

I was raised to be a fundamentalist Christian like my father \u2014 the one here on earth, not the one in heaven \u2014 and so was my brother, who was a better little guy than I will ever be.

He was diagnosed with cancer in October of 1976 and died less than four months later. He was 10 years old. Does his death at that age imply he wasn’t a good Christian soldier?

Now, I understand that the Jews back then \u2014 like King David and his wise son Solomon \u2014 had different values and beliefs than Christ’s current followers. But Jesus was a Jew, right?

And didn’t Jesus himself say that his mission wasn’t to change Jewish laws and teachings, but to make them mean something? Didn\u2019t he die young decrying the shams of \u201cgood men\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when I read YHWH’s own words equating long life with righteousness \u2014 in the unerring, sacred book of Bible thumpers \u2014 I\u2019m sure He was dead wrong about at least one little man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The line that jumped out at me in this psalm was YHWH’s pledge to reward his followers not with afterlife in heaven, but with long life on earth \u2014 a direct quote from YAH Himself. \u201cBecause [My follower] has set his love upon Me,\u201d says YHWH, \u201ctherefore I will deliver him. \u2026 I will be … Continue reading EVENSONG 91<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2765,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions\/2765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}