Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
The next topical group of verses that mention the desert in Psalms seem to be to be talking about the Provision of God...starting with the verse that I had originally grouped w/ verses about the emotions of the psalmist, then realized it really didn't work well there once I read it in context, which I will include here.
You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with bounty; and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing. (Ps. 65: 9-13)
Even the desert is included in the joy of God's blessing, which is not normally the way one thinks of the desert. Grasslands in the desert? Yet...sheep were grazing in the area when we visited the overlook pictured above; if you look closely, you can see the faintest sheen of green on the hilly foreground. Grasslands in the desert, indeed.
The other verses are in Ps. 107. There are several different situations mentioned in that psalm, with the refrain, 'Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered (saved) them from their distress." (Ps. 107: 6,13,19, and 28), followed by another repeated thought, 'Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men.' (Ps. 107: 8, 15,21, and 31). So, with that in mind, we find the following desert references:
Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. The were hungry and thirsty and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. (Ps. 107:4-7)
He turned the rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground, and fruitful land into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who lived there. He turned the desert into pools of water and parched ground into flowing springs; there he brought the hungry to live and they found a city where they could settle. Ps. 107:33-36
Taken together, it seems that the city to which God led the group mentioned in v. 4 was a city that had been populated by wicked folks mentioned in v. 33, who had been starved out of the area by a drought, which then was reversed so the wanderers found a suitable place to live, given the repetition of the phrase at the end of both passages.
Talk about long range planning. The drought would have had to hit the area well in advance of the sojourners looking for a place to settle...so that the folks there left, and then the rains came and the area became fertile again just in time for the newcomers. The drought may even have hit the area before the wanderers were wandering.
This reminds me of the earlier passage we looked at in 2 Kings, in which the rain likely was falling in the mountain watershed well before the instruction was given to dig trenches to hold it...the concept that God has the provision worked out and on its way before we even know we need it.
Kinda crazy for me to worry about where and how when God has it all arranged ahead of time.
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