Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long. – Psalm 129:3

Today's Scripture Reading (September 7, 2022): Psalm 129 & 130

Some years ago, I had a friend who, every Easter, would describe the lashing that was given to Jesus before his crucifixion. She would describe the whip, encrusted with bits of bone, and how those bones would embed themselves into the skin and then tear away at the flesh. The scene would have been graphic and disturbing. One of the complaints about "The Passion of the Christ" was that it carried the beating and crucifixion images too far, making Jesus's death even worse than the original beating and gruesome death suffered by Jesus. But that is unlikely. The Jews believed that receiving more than forty lashes would result in death, so the beating given to anyone could not be more than forty lashes, according to the Mosaic Law. In practice, the Jews ensured they never gave more than forty lashes in a flogging by stopping at thirty-nine. Of course, Jesus was flogged by the Romans, so we don't really know how many lashings he had received, but what was left by the flogging would have likely been hard to see.

The Psalmist anthropomorphizes Israel and describes the nation's affliction as if the country was a person whose body was marred by the whips of the enemy. Charles Spurgeon makes this comment about this verse.

"The afflicted nation was, as it were, lashed by her adversaries so cruelly that each blow left a long red mark, or perhaps a bleeding wound, upon her back and shoulders, comparable to a furrow which tears up the ground from one end of the field to the other" (Charles Spurgeon).

Israel's injuries were deep, yet there was an absence of despair. Her enemies had scarred the land; she had been flogged and damaged. Despite the nation's wounds, there remained hope for a tomorrow with God.

There is a significant parallel between the situation in Israel and our lives. None of us are without the scars that life inflicts on us. But despite the scars and the open wounds, there is still hope for the future. Just because we belong to God does not mean that we will be immune to the attacks that life seems to bring. It means that God is with us every step of the way and offers us a path into the future through the trials and worries that the day tends to bring.

Today's Scripture Reading: Psalms 146