Hallowed Be
Psalm 79:9-10
9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake!
10 Why should the nations say, Where is their God? Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes!
Psalm 79 is a Psalm of Asaph, or perhaps one of his descendants. Different commentators suggest that this was written after the Babylonians came and sacked Jerusalem. Leading up to verses 9 and 10, Asaph laments the fact that God’s temple, His city Jerusalem, and His people are getting wrecked by enemies and that He hasn’t done anything about it! So here he cries out for help! He realizes that Israel has sinned, and he asks forgiveness for that too.
But it’s interesting to note why he asks for help. He’s not asking for Israel’s deliverance because he wants the enemy off his back. Seeing the Babylonians get crushed isn’t about being vindictive. It’s not about the fact that Asaph and his people are getting plundered and robbed. He’s not even asking for forgiveness so that he’ll feel better or anything like that!
No, Asaph wants the enemy defeated and Israel’s sins forgiven “for the glory of Your name” and “for Your name’s sake!”
In verse 10, Asaph points out something that’s killing him! He knows that the people who have defiled the temple and ruining Jerusalem are celebrating. They’re going back to Babylon and going to the temple of Marduk or whichever false god you wanna name and saying “Marduk is better than the God of Israel!” It’s KILLING Asaph to think about this! He knows his people have sinned, but he wants forgiveness not so much for their salvation (although that’s on his mind), but so that God’s name won’t be defiled!
What an interesting perspective. Do you think it’s one we should take? After all, we pray something similar quite often:
Matthew 6:9
9 Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
This is the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer. If any of you grew up in the church, you know this by heart and have said it hundreds of times. But do you know what you’re saying? What does “Hallowed be your name” mean? To hallow means to honor as holy, holy means set apart, revered, sacred, that kinda thing. So a paraphrase would be “Our Father in heaven, let your name be regarded as sacred.”
Jesus is saying that we should be praying that God’s name isn’t profaned anywhere! That people don’t trash churches or kill Christians or even take His name in vain, shouting it flippantly when they stub their toe or screaming it out when they’re frustrated! Do these kinds of things bother you? I know for me it usually does, but not all the time. Why is this?
Don’t get me wrong, I love God! But do I love Him enough that when people mess with Him, it hurts me? I’ve definitely felt that at times. I’ve heard of the blasphemy challenge on YouTube and I’ve looked at the Rational Response Squad’s site (I’d rather not give either too much attention but you can look them up if you’d like). I can’t even bring myself to watch the former and the latter saddens me. Sometimes I’m saddened because these people are missing out on the greatest truth ever known, but also because they misrepresent and abuse my God! Because they say stuff and God just takes it! I know that in the end everything is gonna be sorted out, but in the meantime I hope that God would wake these people up from their sleep.
As for me, I want to get closer to God. I want to get so close to God and love Him so much that someone disrespecting Him would make me as mad as someone hitting my girlfriend or mugging my mom. If we can get to this point, then we’re going to help glorify God’s name and help keep people from rubbing it in the dirt.
Grace and peace,
Brendan
June 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Well said. Probably too many exclamation points (haha!) but that shows the seriousness and your sincerity in regards to revering the name of God. I particularly liked when you pointed out:
[No, Asaph wants the enemy defeated and Israel’s sins forgiven “for the glory of Your name” and “for Your name’s sake!”]
He doesn’t want the Lord to be disrespected. You see Moses doing the same thing when God is close to destroying the Israelites - Moses, in effect, says: “God, don’t destroy Israel because, after all, what will the other nations think about you? They will look at the destruction of the Israelites and think that you don’t have power and authority, or even that you don’t exist. For the respect of your name, please don’t kill the Israelites.”
Moses was mindful of God being respected, which, no doubt, was pleasing to God.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Sometimes I try to regulate my exclamation points while I’m editing out all the instances of “just.” I don’t want to be TOO cliche