128 illustrations
His custom reveals a pattern that all who would serve Adonai must learn: the rhythmic alternation between public labor and private prayer.
This indictment reveals a profound spiritual blindness: Israel refused to recognize that Elohim's judgment itself was an expression of mercy.
The prophet had learned to recognize God's messengers in natural phenomena—as he wrote, the winds themselves are messengers of Elohim (Psalm 104:4).
Yet Matthew's notation carries profound weight: this was no ordinary liturgical moment.
It is a blessed loss that makes us find our Elohim!
Within this exercise, humility and hope unite with patience and perseverance, producing an agreeable serenity of mind that opposes turbulence of spirit and uneasy emotions.
Yet even this secure fastening remains subject to removal by the Lord of hosts who placed it there.
Their waiting hours—like languid summer days when aspen leaves refuse to quiver and shadows barely move on the dial—mirrored the anguish of deferred hope.
Isaiah records a sobering scene: "He shall come to his sanctuary to pray." Yet this prayer proves fruitless. The Victorian preacher W. F. Manning observed a pattern repeating across centuries—people who recognize idolatry's folly still approach Elohim's altar with hollow...
"Where are the gods of these places?" (Isaiah 36:19).
As the proverb reminds us, "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind to powder." Sennacherib's parricides fled to Ararat in Central Armenia, where Armenian historians trace the Sassimian and Arzrunian tribes from them.
Had the Assyrian king conquered Jerusalem, Jewish nationhood would have perished—absorbed into heathenism like the ten northern tribes before them.
When you restrain prayer before God, you act in opposition to your own conscience and confession of what is right.
David was no ordinary supplicant—he was a Hebrew poet of the highest order, standing upon the pedestal of all preceding poetry to elevate his art to nobler heights.
The first clause appears personal—"Thou hast maintained my right"—as if Yahweh had chosen one man's cause over many.
If we are rooted elsewhere, our life will be stunted and unhealthy.
The Psalmist's exultation in verse 4 reveals how the Divine presence transforms desperation into joy, even before deliverance manifests physically.
save me, O my God!"—expresses this dependence completely.
First, confidence in human means stands opposed to this truth.
David's resolution teaches us how to begin each day with God through deliberate prayer.
David understood what many Christians experience: the connection between bodily ailment and spiritual distress.
The *mikdash* (sanctuary) held supreme significance as the appointed location where Elohim responded to supplication.
This transition reveals the foundation upon which every meaningful life must stand.
When David cries "Return, O Lord," he invokes God's restoration through three distinct biblical meanings.