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Transcript of John Welch’s Classes on the Psalms April and May 2014

Old Testament - Psalms & Easter – 140417 T

J. Welch: Here we are just a few days before Easter and tonight we are going to want to talk especially about our new subject, the new book we are going to be spending the next few class periods on, the Book of Psalms. And I wanted to begin with the Psalms here because there are so many scriptures in the Gospels and in the story of Easter that relate to the Psalms that I thought it would be a wonderful place to begin and help us to get ready for Easter coming up this Sunday.

Tonight is the Thursday night before Easter. We cannot forget that tonight is the night when Jesus called his disciples together, had the Last Supper, went from there over to the Garden of Gethsemane and there atoned for the sins of the world and conquered the forces of evil. We read in the scriptures that he was in an agony. That is a strange way to say it, isn’t it? Usually we would think that well he was just in agony. Why does it say he was in an agony? Well it is because in the Greek text, which is the basis on which the Gospel of Luke was written and translated, the word agon—he was in an agon, means a battle, a struggle. What he is doing, yes he is in agony but the reason he is in agony is because he is in a battle and he is winning that war. That is what we celebrate tonight.

Of course, from there he is taken to Caiaphas, to the high priest, to the Sanhedrin. We know a lot of the story about what happened in the middle of the night.

I was thinking. I kind of doubt that the temple guard would have dared to go and arrest Jesus in the middle of the night with torches, with a large group of armed men. They would have had to march from the temple guard station right past the Antonio Fortress where Pilate was in residence, right past the Romans, who had night guards. There are people who have responsibility of the first watch, the second watch, and the third watch during the middle of the night. It would not have been unnoticed that something was going on. Makes me wonder if the chief priests had told Pilate, “We are going to do this.” Pilate, of course, was in charge of things and you would not want to do something like that without him at least being informed. He may have come rushing over saying, “What is going on here? We are going to break all of this up.”

At the same time I think, Pilate probably did not like to be disturbed in his waking up early hours. I wonder if Caiaphas had said to Pilate, “We hope that we can handle this, but if we cannot, if things do not work out the way we would like them to, will you be available at 5:00 in the morning? Could we bring someone in for you to talk to, this Jesus you have heard a lot about?” Do you think that they would have dared to knock on Pilate’s door and say, “We know it is kind of early in the morning, but can we disturb your breakfast for a few minutes?” When they bring him, Pilate is all there at the Praetorium. He seems to be ready for business. He is “open,” and when they come in, he says, “Fine. What is the cause of action that you have against this man?” It all seems so normal. It seems to me that people spend a lot of time wondering about whether it was the Jews who did it, or whether it was the Romans who did it. I cannot imagine that either of them would have been moving ahead like they did so quickly if there had not been some kind of communication, and at least some kind of pre-arrangement that this is how it very well might play out.

Well, we know what happened on tomorrow, Friday, Good Friday, with the crucifixion and burial, and all of that getting ready for the resurrection on Easter. Well how do we tell this story? How does anyone tell a story like this? I am sure that the early gospel writers wondered, “How can we best communicate to a wide audience of not only Jewish readers. People who know the

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texts of the Bible, whether they are in Judea or scattered around in the diaspora, will want to use references that they will relate to.

Use of Psalms to tell the Story

As we will see, the gospel writers turned very frequently to the Psalms. The Psalms may have been the best known of all the Old Testament books. Why? These were the songs they sang; this was their hymnbook. We have 150 Psalms in the Old Testament, but there were actually more than those. In the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, we have a whole bunch of other Psalms, and people were still writing songs down at the Dead Sea. The Qumran community produced a whole book called the Hodayot, hymns, songs of praise and thanksgiving.

They wrote these songs because, well, you can do things with music and with poetry that you just cannot do with prose. In two weeks, Staci is going to be giving us a lesson on the Psalms of music and the influence of music in our worship services. Staci, do you want to say something about the Primary songs that you are working on? Do you want to wait? Okay, in two weeks it will be a surprise. However, I have already let the—spilled the beans a little bit on that one! These Psalms are words that when you know the words to a song, they just stay with you. Words, like The Lord is my light. Well, if you noticed, the song The Lord is my light is the first line from Psalm 27. If you look at Psalm 27 verse 1, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Well, does that sound like the words we just sang?

Well, if you —do you know that there is a scripture index at the back of your hymnbook? Open up that hymnbook for just a minute and go to page 410. It is on the bottom of the page. You might wonder, well how does Brother Welch pick the hymn that we are going to sing at the beginning of each of our scripture classes? One of the places I go is right here, because it lists the scriptures, and if we are studying one of these scriptures, I say, “Let us find a hymn that relates to one of those scriptures and sing that.” Now, you can see that there are four hymns having something to do with Deuteronomy, and we spent how long…? The last ten lessons reading Deuteronomy, and what a blessing that was for me to spend that time going through the text so carefully just almost line by line with you. However, we only got four hymns out of that whole book. Isaiah has a good representation. but which book in all of scriptures has the most to do with our own hymnbook? Look at it. It starts way at the bottom of that first column and it just goes and goes. Look at all of that. Okay, now if you want a homework assignment, check each one of those. Look at the hymns; look at the Psalms, Staci I will bet you will do that. It is fun. Then when you sing these hymns, you will remember those phrases and you will tie it in with our scriptures.

Our hymns are sacred, and they were sacred to the world that Jesus grew up in, and so when the gospel writers can quote from one of their hymns, it is kind of like if we stand up in a sacrament meeting and we say, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” We do not need to sing the rest of the song, or we could say, “Come, come ye saints,” and we all of a sudden have a flood of ideas going through our minds; all the verses and words of that hymn. It is the same with the Psalms. When the gospel writers give us just one little line, we have to realize that although we do not know the Psalms that well, the people in Jesus’ day did, and to understand what the message is, we will see this in just a minute coming through even more, you have to know the whole thing. Okay? So have some fun with that.

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Psalm 118

I would like to turn our attention right now back to Easter and I have asked you to read three Psalms for tonight. I would like to begin with Psalm 118. I am not going to read it all right now, but you might want to open that up just a little. This is the Psalm that has “Hosanna, blessed is him who comes in the name of the Lord.” Easter really began last Sunday with what we call Palm Sunday and the triumphal entry, and Psalm 118 is very closely related to what the people say as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem. But to step back just a minute, let us think about what happened on Palm Sunday and remember the Four Gospels and what they tell us about this.

I am going to give you a little quiz so raise your hand when you think you know the answer. Number 1: how many of the Four Gospels tell us about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead? How many of you say three of the Gospels? No? Two? Which two? Could not say. Good guess. Close. How many say one? Yes, just one, and it is the Gospel of John. Now we will come back to this in a minute, because the raising of Lazarus had a lot to do with Jesus’ triumphal entry and the reason that he comes back to Jerusalem and so on.

How many of the Gospels tell us something about the triumphal entry if only one of them tells us about Lazarus? How many of you say two? Let us go with Brother Udall’s number. No? Three? One? Four? All four of the Gospels. All four of them tell us about this event in the life of Jesus. There are many things that Jesus said or did that show up in all four of the Gospels. That is a signal to us of how important that was.

How many of the Gospels tell us that they put Palm leaves down in front of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem? We call it Palm Sunday. So how many do you think there? Two? Two, two, two, three, three, three, one, one, one. Okay, one. You are right. It is one. Only one. It is only John who says they were Palm leaves. The other Gospels say—one of them says that they put down— they went and cut branches that had lots of leaves on them like fruit trees that would have been branched out olives, maybe, but it doesn’t say what kind.

(comment) What was that second one you said, when you said how many what? I have not got it written down; I want to write it down.

J. Welch: Oh, how many Gospels tell us whether it was a Palm branch or not?

(comment) No, the one before that.

J. Welch: Oh just about the triumphal entry in general. All four. Okay?

How many of them say that the crowd shouted hosanna, hosanna? One? Anybody say two? Okay, we are all guessing. The answer is, three. Three of them say hosanna, hosanna. How many say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? All four. All four repeat that. Now hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, which comes right out of Psalm 118. Okay? So with that in mind—oh and by the way, let me just read to you what John says about Lazarus. You remember that Lazarus had been raised by Jesus only a few days before the triumphal entry and it happened in Bethany, which is only over the hill, just over the Mt. of Olives from Jerusalem itself, so within a long stone’s throw, maybe five miles, not quite, from Jerusalem. Close enough, and all of these miracles that Jesus has been working have now been brought—they are not just up in Galilee; they are not in some remote part of the land. Finally, Jesus is doing something miraculous right here in Jerusalem, which divides the people. Half of them think this is wonderful and half of them say, “We do not know about this. We need to

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investigate. We maybe even need to stop him from doing these things and if he won’t stop them we will need to find a way to put him to death.”

It was the raising of Lazarus that was the tipping point for people. Jesus then leaves and he goes to a town about ten miles north of Jerusalem, and he may be on his way back through Samaria to Galilee. We do not know why he was going up that direction, but he learns that people are also trying to arrest Lazarus, so Jesus, I think, comes back to Jerusalem realizing that he has put Lazarus in a very difficult position. The people who do not think that Jesus did this by the power of God must think that he has done it by the power of Beelzebub, by evil forces, and that Lazarus must be somehow a part of some scheme to defraud the people.

John tells us that the decree or decision goes out that if anyone knows anything about the whereabouts of Jesus or Lazarus, they must reveal it so that they can be arrested and at least interrogated. Who knows what might happen beyond that. I think that is interesting that Jesus comes back because he loves Lazarus, and he loves Mary and Martha. Kind of reminding me of Joseph Smith who could have fled. Actually, he had gone across the Mississippi River and people start questioning his decision to put a lot of the church members at risk because Nauvoo was vulnerable and would have been attacked. Joseph says, “Alright, I will come back. If my life is of no use to my brethren, it is of no use to me.” I think Jesus has a similar kind of reaction there.

In John, and this is the verse that is not, I think, used very often, but in John chapter 12 verses 16 to 18 it says, “His disciples did not understand at first, but when Jesus was glorified,” so after the resurrection, “then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done unto him.” The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. They testified about this. Then verse 18, the reason why the crowd went to meet him. Why are they all there greeting Jesus at the triumphal entry? Was it because they had heard that he had done this sign? Now they may be there just curious, or they may have been saying, “If he can raise Lazarus from the dead, he can save us now.” That is what hosanna means. Save us now.

So in telling this story, let us look at Psalm 118 with that background, because, you know, you have to pack in all these little details. Then as you read a text, you can start seeing the ways in which the Psalm would be relevant to emphasizing what is going on in this story, and why it would have been that the people at the triumphal entry would have been chanting this Psalm or singing it. We do not know how much of the song they were singing, but let us read a couple of verses and pass the microphone along. Let us just start with verse 1.

Reader: “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good because his mercy endureth forever.”

J. Welch. So his mercy.

Reader: Let Israel now say, that his mercy endureth for ever.

Let the house of Aaron now say, that his mercy endureth for ever.

Let them now that fear the LORD say, that his mercy endureth for ever.

J. Welch: Okay, do you get the point? This sounds a little bit awkward when we read it, but if it is a song, it is kind of like the refrain. Maybe it was even what we call antiphonal where the men would say the first and the women would say the second; the men would say the third and the women would say the fourth, so it may have been an answer. This all begins with a four-fold

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recognition that God is merciful. He will give us gifts. He will be kind and generous to us. Does that sound like an Easter message to you? Do you think the people going down to greet Jesus coming into Jerusalem are saying, “We need your help. All we need thee every hour and then we know you helped Lazarus, be merciful unto us.” Okay, let us keep reading.

Reader: “I called upon the Lord in distress; the Lord answered me and set me in a large place.”

J. Welch: Okay, so even if we are in deep distress, we can call him and be set in a big place, a good place.

Reader: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?”

J. Welch: Yes, you remember these people are coming out in a big crowd. This is causing quite a public disturbance but the words of this hymn would encourage them. “The Lord is on my side. I am not going to be afraid. I am not going to be afraid of the Romans, I am not going to be afraid of the chief priests, I am going to show up, and I am going to welcome this wonderful Jesus in whom I believe and trust and I will not be afraid.” Verse seven?

Reader: “The Lord taketh my part with them that help me; therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me.”

J. Welch: Okay, and eight?

Reader: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”

J. Welch: Nine is about the same, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.” Who are the princes? These are the rulers of Jerusalem and of the political people. Jeannie?

Jeannie: Do we have anything that indicates how many people may have participated in the Palm-waving event?

J. Welch: Well the streets, the streets were small, but it does say that as he came down from the Mt. of Olives there was a crowd there that met him and followed him up. There were probably 20,000 people in Jerusalem normally; so it is not a big city. You can get 20,000 people in the Marriott Center. But for Passover, there would have been five or six times that many people, and they do not have good places to stay so they are probably out and about in the streets. This would have been the day right after a Sabbath day, so here it is, it is Sunday, but for them that is not the Sabbath, so they have spent the Sabbath just kind of getting ready for Passover. It could have been many people there without much more to do. They have come from out of town; they are there for the preparation for the Passover, so it could be a group even larger than the normal, full population of the City of Jerusalem. Many of them would have been from out of town. Many of them may have come from Galilee. Some of them could have been among the 5,000 that were fed with the multiplying of the fish and the loaves. They have heard of Jesus. Some of them may have seen him. You get the impression that it is a pretty large group of people. Let us keep reading.

Reader: “All nations compassed me about; but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them.”

J. Welch: Okay, so you know, some people are thinking, “Jesus is now going to be our king. He is now going to liberate us; he will overcome the Romans.” Wow! You can see that this very verse encourages some of that, now is the time. “Not only are we going to be spiritually delivered, but politically and physically as well!”

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Reader: “They compassed me about, yea, they compassed me about but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.”

J. Welch: Twelve. Again more compassing.

Reader:

They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.

Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the LORD helped me.

The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.

J. Welch: Now say that the way we would say that. Staci? The way we would sing that?

Staci: No thank you!

J. Welch: The Lord is my strength and my song. That is right in one of our hymns. So, keep going. Fifteen?

Reader:

The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous: the right hand of the LORD doeth valiantly.

The right hand of the LORD is exalted: the right hand of the LORD doeth valiantly.

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.

J. Welch: How about that one? The song says to these people, “You will not die.” Does that have something to do with what is coming up on Easter morning? They follow Jesus and they expect, he has said, “I am the light and the life of the world, and he has raised Lazarus to prove it.” People now have this confidence, “We can be bold. We will not die. I will not die.” Brent?

Reader: “The Lord has chastened me sore, but he hath not given me over unto death.”

J. Welch: Hmm, so I have been afflicted; I have had troubles but he is not going to turn me over to death. He will save me from death.

Reader: “Open to me the gates of righteousness. I will go into them and I will praise the Lord.”

J. Welch: And the opposite of the gates of righteousness are what? The gates of hell! What does Jesus open? He opens the gates of hell so that he liberates those who are captive.

Reader:

This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter.

I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.

J. Welch: And that verse, that gets quoted a lot. Peter quotes it. It is in Acts, coming right here out of this Psalm. Who is the stone which the builders refused? This is Jesus, the chief cornerstone, but he will become then the headstone of the corner. Twenty-three?

Reader: “This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.”

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J. Welch: Okay, so the Lord is in charge here. He will be rejected; will Jesus be afflicted? Well here we are on the beginning of this Passion Week and people know that it is the Lord’s doing. He is controlling this. Remember Jesus will say when Peter pulls out his sword and chops off the ear of the high priest’s servant, “Peter, what are you thinking? Don’t you know that I could call down twelve legions of angels and deliver me?” What is happening here is not something that Jesus is just being forced to suffer. He is voluntarily submitting, and it is because all of this is the Lord’s doing. Indeed it is marvelous. What does that word marvelous really mean? What is a marvel? We should translate that. It is miraculous. It does not just mean, “Oh, isn’t it great, marvelous?” A marvel is a wonder; it is beyond comprehension. It is miraculous. These people expect something miraculous to happen. Now how much of this did they understand might be coming? Jesus had talked fairly openly about how he must die and there are prophecies where he has been saying, “But I will overcome.” Maybe they are saying, we do not know how this is going to happen, and they probably did not have a clear idea of exactly what was going to happen, but they had trust that it was going to be a really big, miraculous thing. Couple more.

Reader: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

J. Welch: “This is the day.” Finally, we all have been waiting for this. How many years? Since when had people been looking forward to the coming of this day? At least from the time of Adam and so you can see they are starting to get pretty excited about what’s going to happen; we do not know what it is but we know it is the Lord’s day, so we’re going to rejoice in it. Then we have the great climax. This is the - the song has been leading up to this final point and what is it? verse 25?

Reader: “Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity.”

J. Welch: Yes. Translate that a little more directly. Save now— Hosanna. Hosanna O Lord. I ask you, and send now prosperity. Do they mean wealth? Well-being? Send to us your blessing. Save now. Jim?

(comment) That was a Chiasm.

J. Welch: Yes it is a chiasm. These Psalms are full of parallelism and chiastic structures that represent a kind of completeness, right? From the beginning to the end, and the end to the beginning. 26.

Reader: “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

J. Welch: Ah, did we not just say how many of the Gospels quote that line? All four. The people are saying— three of them say hosanna. But there it is, “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” And who, of course is meant? The Messiah. Finish?

Reader: “We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.”

Reader: “God is the Lord which hath shewed us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.”

J. Welch: Ah, what does that remind you of?

(comment) The Aaronic sacrifices.

J. Welch: Yes.

(comment) And Abraham did his son too.

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J. Welch: The Lord hath shewed us light. What does Jesus say about light? ”I am the light and…” Show us the light, bind the sacrifice, who is the sacrifice?

(comment) Christ.

J. Welch: Yes, and who is the Lamb? Jesus. Bind that sacrifice and some people have suggested that the horns of the altar, like the horns of an oxen are like the cross beam on the cross with the binding that sacrifice, not just on an altar in the temple, but in the crucifixion, because we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. This is something that is going to happen not in the temple, but outside.

Reader: “Thou art my God and I will praise thee. Thou art my God, I will exalt thee.”

Reader: “O Give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever.”

J. Welch: Okay, and so we have the concluding refrain that echoes back to the very beginning of the Psalm. Okay, question?

(comment) Yes, all of this where his mercy endureth forever, endureth is in italics. Is that still a good translation?

J. Welch: Well that means that word is not there explicitly. It just says in the Hebrew, his mercy forever, and we say well what forever? It is there forever, it exists forever, it endures forever, any of those words will do, but endureth forever is the way it gets translated into languages like Greek and Latin that supply verbs where the Hebrew does not necessarily have to, especially in poetry. It is the sense of the passage.

(comment) What are these little things above on Psalm 119?

J. Welch: Well when you start, we have the alephs and the beth and the gimel? Well if you will notice, Psalm 119 has twenty-two verses to it, or stanzas. That is because there’s one for every letter in the Hebrew alphabet. That is like A B C D, and it just helps them to remember how the hymn was divided. It is such a long one. It is the longest one in all the hymns; they broke it down into sections.

(comment) Well but then it goes A B but where’s the C. It jumps over to D?

J. Welch: They do not have a C - gimel is their C and then daleph is their D etc.. We will study - this is, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

(comment) Oh, okay.

J. Welch: And it is spelled out for you; it is kind of like if we were to do A like that [writes ā], B [writes bee], C [cee], D [dee], like that, okay. It is spelling out how they sound.

Rita: It is their names; it is not quite the sound.

J. Welch: That is right, and these [Hebrew letters] are not the way they sound either; these are their names. Names of the letters. Alright.

Psalm 69

Now in Psalm 69, if you want to switch to that for a minute, I only want to read a couple of verses. Let us start with verse 21 and let me just read up to a little bit there. I will start reading in verse 18, so Psalm 69:18:

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Draw night unto my soul and redeem it. Deliver me because of mine enemies.

Thou hast known my reproach and my shame and my dishonor. My adversaries

are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart and I am full of heaviness.

Now that is a word you know that Jesus will use in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I looked for someone to take pity but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.”

Okay then what does verse 21—who has the microphone? Okay, start with 21.

(comment) Twenty is the solo in the Messiah, incidentally.

J. Welch: That is right, which we are going to go hear tomorrow, and you can all hear the broadcast of it right? The Tabernacle Choir— the tickets were in such demand that the church says, “Fine, we will broadcast the whole thing live. If you want to watch, the whole Messiah will be sung tomorrow night in the tabernacle. What time? 7:00 or 7:30?

(comment) It will not be on TV or anything though, huh?

J. Welch: I am not sure whether it will be on BYU TV; I think it is going to be.

Rita: Are they going to do it live or are they going to…

J. Welch: Live! They are going to do it live. Okay, so we will watch for that verse in the Messiah tomorrow.

(comment) Then they are going to replay it until is it Sunday night?

J. Welch: Yes. I think they will be replaying it all through the Easter season.

(comment) On YouTube, and whatever, and then no more.

J. Welch: So record it. So what does verse 21 say and does this remind you of anything?

Reader: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” That is what they did to the Savior.

J. Welch: So we see something quite specific about this person who is full of heaviness, who is looking for some comfort but finds none and in fact, people will even ridicule him and will give him gall and vinegar. How about verse 22?

Reader:

Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.

Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.

Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.

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J. Welch: Their houses will be empty and desolate. That is part of what Jesus will prophesy in Matthew 24. “For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.”

(comment) Can I interrupt just a minute? Back in verse 25—you know we were looking in Conference when they were quoting from Deuteronomy. They did not but Elder Holland quoted this verse in his talk about let your houses be desolate, but he did not quote it from Psalms, he quoted it from Matthew 23 where he says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” verse 37 and verse 38, “Let their house be unto them desolate.”

J. Welch: That is right. Jesus will use this actual verse. Psalm 69 has some relevance to the crucifixion, the gall and so on. We are seeing then that it’s not just in that one Psalm 118, but in several of the Psalms that we have these prophetic insights about how the crucifixion is going to happen. Mark?

(comment) Wanting to speak to that just a little bit more. In the preface notes, it says that this is David. Is this David writing prophetically? What is the occasion?

J. Welch: Well that is a good question because it asks a broader question, what are these Psalms? The answer is that these Psalms are actually many things. The Psalms were considered to be the law, there are things in the Psalms that tell people what they should do and how they should live, and in fact, Psalm 1 begins by saying that these Psalms give us the way of life, and to the Jews that means that this is controlling , this is hegatic, or legal. So the Psalms had a legal thrust to them. They are ritual, the Psalms have a lot to do with the temple and the sacrifices that are going on there. They are wisdom literature, they give us the wisdom of the Lord; they also give us prophetic text and you know to answer your question, let us go to the Book of Acts. Open to Acts chapter 2, let me read a few verses here, and Acts 2 verse 22 is where I’m going to start. This is Peter talking to a large group of people from many different parts of the Roman Empire speaking many different languages on the Feast of Pentecost.

“Ye men of Israel,” he says. “Hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders…” Now that word approved does not just mean that he was liked or got a seal of approval, it means proven, that Jesus has been proven to you by God. How? By the miracles and the wonders that he worked, namely, which would have been the most recent in the minds of the people in Jerusalem? Lazarus, and this is only fifty days later. Pentecost is fifty days after Passover, so they have had him proved to them by these things, “Which God did by him in the midst of you as ye yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.”

Now notice here that the word counsel is spelled c-o-u-n-s-e-l. What does that mean? Counsel when it is spelled with an s e l—counsel or advice. So if you are a counselor-at-law, it is spelled with an s-e-l, but if it is a body, like we believe in Ward Councils and Family Councils, it is c-i-l. Well, we make that distinction in English although we do not always know which is which. You are not the only one. I see this in student papers and professional papers sometimes. But in Greek, the word is boulē, and boulē can mean either counsel s-e-l or council c-i-l.

(comment) I knew that.

J. Welch: You knew that. Good.

Now read this with me. “Jesus having been delivered by the determinate, or the binding, council c-i-l in Heaven, , and the foreknowledge of God….” Peter is saying, “This was all pre-planned,

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and not only pre-planned but it was laid down in the Council in Heaven.” Now, was it counsel s-e-l or c-i-l? Both! It is the wisdom, the counsel, of the Father. It is the plan. We could also translate boulē as plan. It is his advice, his plan. Peter is saying, that Jesus has been delivered by this and you have taken…

“And by wicked hands have crucified and slain him whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of his bands, the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.”

Death could not hold him. Holden means could be contained or bound. He was compassed all about but all that encompassing could not hold him down. Now, Mark, to your question. Look at verse 25: “For David speaketh concerning him.” Where did David speak about Jesus? In the Psalms. How often? A lot. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” That’s the 23rd Psalm. Who is that talking about? Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.” There is a lot going on.

(comment) Even nowadays we remember songs easier than we remember… and you remember all the Primary songs and how many things do Primary songs teach us? Everything. So even like my daughter learning the alphabet in elementary school, as soon as it was put to song, she remembered it and remembered the sounds.

J. Welch: Yes, excellent point. These words stay with us, and so David having prophesied and put those—these people can recognize what they only now can, see because they know how it turned out, and they can see that is the way it really was foretold. Now, what did…let us go back here, “For David speaketh concerning him.” And what does David say? “I foresaw the Lord always before my face for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved.”

(comment) That reminds me of Joseph Smith saying I know this, and I could not deny it.

J. Welch: That is right. Once I see, I cannot be moved. Okay, now somebody flip back to Psalm 16, verses 8 to 11, because Psalm 16, Peter is actually quoting David. When did David ever say, “I foresaw the Lord always before my face”? Well, if you go to Psalms 16, anybody have that? Read Psalms 16 verse 8.

Reader: “I have set the Lord always before me.”

J. Welch: Oh, I set the Lord. What’s going on here?

(comment) He always puts Him first.

J. Welch: Well, that is what the Hebrew says, but Peter says, “I foresaw the Lord.” It does not just mean I saw him, I saw him in advance. This is the Greek meaning of that Psalm, and it means David said, I saw all of this before it happened. And Peter is using that reading of the Psalm to say, therefore, did my heart rejoice and my tongue be glad and so on. He is still quoting from David because “thou hast made known unto me the ways of life, and thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.” That is all being quoted from Psalm 16.

(comment) Do we think of David as a prophet?

J. Welch: Well we usually do not, do we? I am here to tell you that Psalms are not only good, nice songs to sing, but they are filled with prophecy, and Peter believed that David had actually seen in advance a lot of these things that we have already been talking about.

(comment) Was Jesus born through the posterity of David? Was he not born?

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J. Welch: Yes.

(comment) Yes, that is what I thought. That is what I remembered anyway.

Psalm 22

J. Welch: Correct. Now the point that we have just made is no stronger anywhere in the Psalms than in Psalm 22, which is the one that I have asked you to read. We are going to finish with this tonight, but I would like to do just what we did before with Psalm 118 and read this one passing the microphone around verse by verse and let us see how much you think David actually saw what will happen tomorrow on Good Friday.

(comment) Where do you want to start?

J. Welch: verse 1.

Reader: “Oh my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why hast thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring?”

J. Welch: Wait a minute. Where have you ever heard this before?

(comment) On the cross.

J. Welch: Well Joseph Smith, “O God, where art thou? Where is the pavilion that hideth thy…” So Jesus on the cross will say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” How many of the Gospels tell us that Jesus said that? At least two, Matthew and Mark, and they not only say, “My God, my God,” but you remember elē, elē, they give us the Aramaic which is pretty strong attestation that this is something that Jesus really said. It is also, by the way, in another gospel called the Gospel of Peter, which was not written until a little later, and itis not one that is in the Bible. So if you thought three, I will give you credit there.

Now, how many of you think that when Jesus says, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” that he has given up, or that he sees God has left him alone and totally withdrawn from him? To some extent of course he is feeling really abandoned. I mean, this is toward the very end of the suffering on the cross.

(comment) Well he has taken on the sins of the world. Of course, it was …

J. Welch: All this weighed down, but do you think that Jesus has given up?

(comment) Never.

J. Welch: Why not?

(comment) Because he knew this was part of his life here upon the earth. That is why he came to this earth.

J. Welch: “For this cause came I into the world.”

(comment) This was known not only in our scriptures, but then as a Messianic Psalm, and all the people knew it, and this was his last testimony that this really is who I am.

J. Welch: That is right. The way I read this, as the people heard him say this, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” some of them thought because it says elē, elē, some of them said, “Is he asking for Elijah to come?” Because Elijah, elē is the short form of the name Elijah. So some did not quite understand, but I think people who were there who had followed Jesus, would have known, “Oh, he is giving the first verse, the first line, of a whole Psalm. He is causing us to

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remember and think about everything that is here.” Does this Psalm end in abandonment and grief? Or in victory and joy? Let us see.

(comment) It also separates him from the Father. Illustrates that they are two people.

J. Welch: So the Trinitarian view that the Father and the Son are inseparable, one person, has a hard time with this verse. This was one of the verses that St. Augustine could not deal with very well. But the early Christians saw this as exactly that, there was Jesus and there was the Father and God could forsake him, or at least leave him, for a moment, for a time. Jesus, even in saying this, knows that it is not the end of the story. It is a lot like Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. He says, “Where is the pavilion that hideth thy hiding place?” and what does the very next verse say? “My son, peace be to your soul.” You will suffer but it will be a short moment and then it is going to turn out different. You have to read the whole thing to see how it is all going to come out fine. So let us move on. Verse 2.

Reader: “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.”

J. Welch: Okay, let us think about that for just a minute. When people look at the crucifixion, did that happen during the day or in the night? It was in the day, right? All during the day, and they even take his body down off the cross before sundown, but he says here that, “I cried in the daytime.” That is right. Now, “I also cried at night.” Now when would that have been? In the Garden of Gethsemane. We as Latter-day Saints see the importance of both the suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross because we know that Jesus overcame two things, death and hell. Hell is defeated when? Sin is taken upon him, Gethsemane; Death is defeated when he voluntarily is able to surrender his life and then take it up again. So life and death. Do you think David maybe saw that this was going to be a two-stage conquest and so on? Verse 3?

Reader: “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

J. Welch: Yes, “but thou art holy.” Okay, already there is no reproach here. Jesus is not saying, “Father, why have you done this? There must be some mistake here.” No, “I know you are holy. And you inhabit the praises of Israel. I am not going to rebuke you. I will praise you for what you are doing.” Verse 4?

Reader: “Our Fathers trusted in thee; they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.”

J. Welch: Oh, what is that all about? Which Fathers trusted and were delivered?

(comment) Abraham.

J. Welch: Abraham, okay. The whole house of Israel. What is going to happen? Jesus is crucified; he is the Lamb that is being slaughtered and the people are all preparing for what? Passover. What does Passover celebrate? What did we read in Deuteronomy forever ago? The deliverance. Our fathers trusted you. This is right out of Deuteronomy, and you delivered them. This is a reassurance that yes, this will be hard, but we will trust, I will trust in you just as our fathers did and you will deliver us. Five?

Reader: “They cried unto thee and they were delivered. They trusted in thee and they were not confounded.”

Reader: “But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people.”

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J. Welch: So Jesus is himself saying here, “But I am a worm.” What does that mean? I am not a man.

(comment) Many times when the worm is used in scripture, it is used in connection with death.

J. Welch: And the worm is going down into the dirt, and I will go down. Some Latter-day Saint readers of this have said that this is like Jesus saying,” I will go into the depths. I will descend below all things. I will go down in depth; I will be like a worm. I will be lower than anything else, but hey, I am not a man. I am immortal.”

“But I will be a reproach of men and despised of the people.” It sounds like Isaiah 53 doesn’t it? He will be despised and rejected. Okay, let us keep going.

Reader:

All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head saying,

He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him.

J. Welch: Which passages in the New Testament fulfilled that? That we actually have, “All they that see me shake the head saying he trusted on the Lord…” and so on. This is in Matthew 27. in Mark 15, and it is in Luke 23, and it is also in the Gospel of Peter. So we have four early texts saying this exactly what happened at the cross. People were scorning and saying, “He trusted in the Lord. Let him deliver him.” Why does the Lord not deliver this person? Okay let us go on to verse 9.

Reader: “But thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breast.”

J. Welch: Okay, but now it is saying to the Father, “You are the one that took me out of the womb. You had something to do with my birth,” and in verse 10, “I was cast upon thee from the womb.” It is almost like here is a man who was there as a midwife catching this birth as he came out of the womb. In other words, this child, this person who will be suffering this way, will have been protected by the Father from the very moment of his birth. David saw something about the birth of the Messiah being a little bit different than a normal birth of somebody? I think so.

J. Welch: “Thou art my God from my mother’s belly.” Well even before I was born. Okay, verse 11, who has that?

Reader: “Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.”

J. Welch: Yes, and, “They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.” The lion is a symbol of which tribe of Israel? Judah. So we have a roaring group of Jews who have gathered around there to bring about this death.

Fourteen:

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.”

[Does this] begin to describe what is going on during the crucifixion?

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My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me unto the dust of death.

For dogs have compassed me; the assembly (the synagogue is the word) of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.

How many of you knew that was in the Psalms? They pierced my hands and my feet.

Is that anywhere in the New Testament? No. It’s in the Gospel of Peter though. It was well-known and used by early Christians as another part of the prophecy that David had given us, prophetically foreseeing what is going to happen. “I may tell all my bones; they look and stare upon me.” How about verse 18; who’s got that?

Reader: “They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.”

J. Welch: Does that happen? How many of the Gospels report that happening? Two? Four? All four and Peter, so there are five. If you want to say five, you get extra credit. It is interesting that we have two things here; they part my garments—they are willing to divide one set of clothing that he has. Jesus is wearing some inner-garment and he is also wearing an outer cloak. The outer cloak, they tear up into pieces because the fabric is worth something and they are willing to part that, to divide it. But there was another piece that he was wearing that was probably taken off him as they were nailing him to the cross, and they say, well what are we going to do with this? It was described in the Gospels as a single piece that had been woven in one single piece in some way, and they did not want to tear it because it was so unusual, and therefore, more valuable and interesting. So what do they do? They cast lots. They throw some dice and see who gets to take that home. We do not know what that might—what the significance of the garment might be, but they certainly saw it as being valuable in some way.

But be not thou far from me O Lord, my strength, haste thee to help me.

Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.

Save me from the lion’s mouth for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

Now that is a mistranslation. The horns of the bull, and again, people have thought there maybe the horns of the cross. Then look at the rest starting in verse 22. Although we have gone through this terrible, deep suffering, the hymn turns out to be a victory hymn all the rest of the way home.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation (in the heavens): I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek him; your heart shall live forever.

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All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

For the kingdom is the Lord’s and he is the governor among all the nations.” (And the word governor is shepherd).

All they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship; all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him:…

So even in the afterlife, everyone who dies will eventually recognize him as the God of the living and of the dead, t hey shall bow before him;

…and none can keep alive his own soul.

We will all depend on him to keep our soul alive.

And a seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

(comment) What does the seed mean?

J. Welch: Well it goes back to the prophecies of Isaiah and Abinadi. Who shall be his seed? Even the prophets who know, and those who follow the prophets, will become a generation, meaning they will be generated as a new group of people who are Christians, who follow him.

They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

Does that sound like Easter?

I just want to conclude by showing you a few things that you can come up and look at afterwards. I have here some real—these are authentic— ancient artifacts and they help me to realize how real, how tangible the events were that we are talking about. The things that were prophesied by David a thousand years before they happened actually occurred the way the Psalms said they would. They occurred in ways that Jesus could not have fabricated. He could not have made all these things happen the way they were prophesied. But they happened that way because it had all been planned and it was the way it was supposed to happen.

So I have here, and like I said, these are real things. This is a little bronze medallion; it is inscribed with Roman letters. This was put on the banners of the Roman Legionaries and the Centurions when they carried their flags and their standards. It told which legion they came from. We do not know which legion the Centurions would have belonged to who were there overseeing the crucifixion of Jesus, but they would have been there in uniform, and they would have had with them their little banners, and it would have had a little medallion on it like this identifying their official status. There were women there who heard what was said. We do not know what they were wearing perhaps but this is an ancient bracelet from the time of Christ. It opens up like this and you can put it on. I will not do that, but you can see maybe Mary or one of those there had something just like this.

(comment) What is the metal?

J. Welch: It is copper - bronze. It tells you that they cast lots. These are real Roman dice. They are 2000 years old. They are cast bronze and you can tell that they are each… these have not

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been manufactured by a machine. They are not exactly even, they are pretty close, but the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 are in a different order on each of them, so you can tell that they have not just been stamped out like ours. They cast lots, and maybe they had some dice like that.

(comment) There is a dice in one of those paintings at BYU of Christ there at the tomb.

J. Welch: This lead ball is a scourge ball. They would embed this in the end of a leather whip so that when they whipped, it would dig in and it would— it is heavy. You can imagine they would put three of these in each of the tails; there would be three tails on a whip. It is called a cat-of-nine-tails. It was not just leather. That would just be a spanking. But the leather embedded with these balls would have beaten him into what they had hoped, was submission. Normally they would beat a person to try to get that person to tell the truth. However, when he would not deny who he was, it only further solidified the truth and the testimony of who he knew he was.

(comment) It reminds me of before my mother died. She had a piano and she gave it to me, and she lived in Bountiful. They brought it down on a truck, and we had a sleeping bag over it to protect it. What we did not know is that when the piano got down there, where that sleeping bag was, it had some little metal notches and every time it beat on the piano, it was covered with little things that gouged holes out.

J. Welch: And you can see how much damage that did. When we know that Jesus was beaten by the soldiers of Herod Antipas, we know that he was beaten by the Roman soldiers, and then he had to carry his own cross. In a way, in a very real way, this is beyond what any normal, human being could do. Until he was ready to say, “It is finished, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” which is also coming from a Psalm, it was not yet ready to be completed.

This little coin is a Roman coin that has the name of Pontius Pilate on it. We know that Pilate was a real person and we cannot doubt the historicity of his involvement here. This is an actual Roman spearhead. And this would have been put on a long, wooden shaft, probably something very much like this that would have been used to pierce the side of Jesus to hasten his death and also then to allow both blood and water to come out as a part of his ultimate sacrifice.

Finally, I have a Roman nail. You can see it is rough; it has been pounded by a blacksmith, so it is somewhat square. It would have been about the size, I would think, of the typical nail that would have been used to pierce his hands and his feet as Psalm 22 had said would happen. So afterwards, if you would like to come up and take a look at these, please take a moment to do so.

Brothers and Sisters, let me just conclude with my testimony of the truthfulness of the scriptures; of the Old Testament that bears record of things that would happen in the New Testament and of the reality of things that were said in the New Testament, not just by one writer, but in a way that all five of these Gospels that we have been talking about, collaborate, corroborate each other.

These events really happened. We as Latter-day Saints are further blessed to have multiple reasons to believe in the truthfulness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrate this coming Sunday morning. We know that this is true because we know the Book of Mormon is true. We know that Jesus appeared in the City of Bountiful and that 2500 people were able to touch and feel the wounds in his feet and in his side. We know that resurrection really happens.

When John the Baptist came to restore the priesthood, he not only had his head back on, but Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery could feel his hands on their heads as he ordained them to the Aaronic priesthood. We have multiple testimonies of the reality of life after death, resurrected through the power and the gift of Christ, and that as in Adam all of us will die, even so in Christ,

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will all be made alive. As Joseph Smith said, after the 76th Section was revealed, “And last of all this testimony which we bare, that he lives. For we have seen him at the right hand of God.”

He is there now and he is controlling and ruling this world, and he will judge all the earth. This has been laid down from the very beginning as a part of a plan of mercy that will endure forever, that we can again be reunited with our Heavenly Father and with each other and have and enjoy life eternal. What a blessing it is and what a great opportunity it is for us to reflect on this and remember and celebrate this this very weekend.

I testify that these things are true and that the Lord loves us, loves it when we obey him, and loves it when we follow him, loves it when we love him and love his son and all that he has done for us. I testify of that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Transcriptionist Carol H. JonesEdited by Rita l. Spencer

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use of psalms to tell the storyedgemontscripturestudy.com/easter/easter and the psalms...

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