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Psalm 75 When I shall receive the congregation I will judge uprightly. Psalm 75:2 I think this is one of the most interesting verses in the Psalms. The word translated "Receive" here is a Hebrew word most often translated in the sense of "to marry", but could also mean "to take to oneself a valued thing (or a precious treasure)". The revelation of this verse is completed by the substitution of "church" for the word "congregation", and exploring the sense of the word, "when". It's a truly romantic notion, but in the act of taking a wife to himself, a man is receiving to himself a precious treasure, and even presenting her to his entire family as a treasure won, in effect, by the entire household. As to choosing the time appropriate for the nuptials, however, the choice is never made by the bridegroom, but must be made by his father. Choosing the appropriate moment of elopement is the exclusive prerogative of the Jewish father, and no other man may usurp his right to assign it: As Jesus said, "No man knows the day, or the hour..." Certainly, we already know that much, but what this verse says actually goes a bit further - saying, in essence: "As for choosing the time appropriate to receive the church as a bride for my son, my justifying rationale shall be deemed unassailable." There can be no doubt that this psalm is prophetic, nor any doubt that the event in view is the "promotion" of The Church in its "Rapture". The remainder of the psalm describes various cataclysmic events to accompany this main event, such as the lava flow and pillars of smoke associated with the eruption of volcanoes. As for the dissolving of the earth's inhabitants... I might prefer to offer the term, "de-composing", or perhaps, vaporizing - or both. In all of this, according to this psalm, God is in absolute control. As Paul tells us, "the dead in Christ shall rise first...", and it is my feeling that their bodies may be "molecularly-reassembled", as in Ezekiel 38, while others are disparately "molecularly-rearranged", by cataclysm. It's hard to grasp things so far beyond my experience, as the resurrection. I would urge a companion word-study on the use of the word "receive", used in a similar manner in Psalm 49:15, describing the status of those dead-in-Christ (the psalmist including himself in the category). psalms back home |