For my analysis paper passage, I chose Psalm 103. Psalms is a book in the bible that focuses on coming to God to repentance and how it continues to show God’s love and compassion. Also most Psalms are often called “Laments” because God’s people will turn from their sinful ways and ask God for his help. In doing that they come up with praise and hymns, one of those being Psalm 103.
Psalm 103 talks all about gratitude and praise to God. So clearly it was a hymn to give praise to God. Even though we do not have much of a background of when this was written we can be almost certain it was written by David. If we look at the historical context of the passages before and after, mainly 90-106, we have been told that those passages were written during …show more content…
Also if we look at a few of the passages before Psalm 103 we can see that a few of them that God’s people were going through a trail but then pulled them through and helped them. So Psalm 103 had to be a passage about praise to God for prevailing them through the storm. Also if we look at the Psalms as a whole we know that it was divided into five mini books and Psalm falls under the fourth category which is 90-106 which deals with exile and repentance. This means that each one of the books of the Psalms is important in its own way and Psalm 103 easily deals with repentance and calling upon God to praise him and ask for forgiveness.
When I looked at different translations for this passage I came across a few differences. For example, in the Good News Translation in verse 15 and 16 “As for us, our life is like grass. We grow and flourish like a wild flower; then the wind blows on it, and it is gone – no one sees it again.”1 Whereas in the New American Bible it reads “As for man, his days are like the grass; he blossoms like a …show more content…
One of the words that stood out to me and that I wanted to learn more about was “steadfast love” in the Mercer Bible dictionary. It had me turn to “loving-kindness” which stated that “The basic meaning of hesed springs from interpersonal relationships inherent in family and clan society. Hesed is that mutual ‘loyal love’ or ‘kindness’ shared between relatives, between host and guest, and between friends.”8 Which this basically means that steadfast love is where we share a mutual love for someone and we continue to show them love. Another word in this passage that I was curious about was the word “everlasting”. In the Mercer Dictionary Bible, it states that “the term ’everlasting’ is used in the Bible both in the strict sense of unlimited time and more loosely of simply a prolonged period of time.”9 And when I looked further into the text it also said that “In their attempt to describe God’s distinctiveness from the created order and God’s mastery over time, biblical writers spoke of God as being everlasting. The duration of God was beyond human comprehension.”10 This basically means that the word “everlasting” is something that goes on forever and in Psalm 103 it is used to describe God’s love and compassion and how it is
Psalm 103 talks all about gratitude and praise to God. So clearly it was a hymn to give praise to God. Even though we do not have much of a background of when this was written we can be almost certain it was written by David. If we look at the historical context of the passages before and after, mainly 90-106, we have been told that those passages were written during …show more content…
Also if we look at a few of the passages before Psalm 103 we can see that a few of them that God’s people were going through a trail but then pulled them through and helped them. So Psalm 103 had to be a passage about praise to God for prevailing them through the storm. Also if we look at the Psalms as a whole we know that it was divided into five mini books and Psalm falls under the fourth category which is 90-106 which deals with exile and repentance. This means that each one of the books of the Psalms is important in its own way and Psalm 103 easily deals with repentance and calling upon God to praise him and ask for forgiveness.
When I looked at different translations for this passage I came across a few differences. For example, in the Good News Translation in verse 15 and 16 “As for us, our life is like grass. We grow and flourish like a wild flower; then the wind blows on it, and it is gone – no one sees it again.”1 Whereas in the New American Bible it reads “As for man, his days are like the grass; he blossoms like a …show more content…
One of the words that stood out to me and that I wanted to learn more about was “steadfast love” in the Mercer Bible dictionary. It had me turn to “loving-kindness” which stated that “The basic meaning of hesed springs from interpersonal relationships inherent in family and clan society. Hesed is that mutual ‘loyal love’ or ‘kindness’ shared between relatives, between host and guest, and between friends.”8 Which this basically means that steadfast love is where we share a mutual love for someone and we continue to show them love. Another word in this passage that I was curious about was the word “everlasting”. In the Mercer Dictionary Bible, it states that “the term ’everlasting’ is used in the Bible both in the strict sense of unlimited time and more loosely of simply a prolonged period of time.”9 And when I looked further into the text it also said that “In their attempt to describe God’s distinctiveness from the created order and God’s mastery over time, biblical writers spoke of God as being everlasting. The duration of God was beyond human comprehension.”10 This basically means that the word “everlasting” is something that goes on forever and in Psalm 103 it is used to describe God’s love and compassion and how it is