July 19, 2008

• Wo De Xin, Ni Yao Cheng Song Ye He Hua

  我的心，你要稱頌耶和華

  I like Xanga's future posting feature. I realize that posting multiple entries per day lowers your readership by a lot, so I'm using the future posting to spread it out. By the time you see this, I will already be flying across the Pacific and perhaps be in Shanghai already.

  I shared this song with some people when I came back from Taiwan in Winter 2006, and apparently Abe Choe really liked it, so that he posted it too.

  The song is based on Psalm 103, and the chorus is from v. 11-12, with powerful music to match the words. It proclaims:

  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
  So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
  As far as the east is from the west,
  So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

  This psalm is a song of redemption, a song of praise to the glorious God Almighty, who shows grace, mercy, and compassion on pitiful, wretched sinners like you and me.

  This is a psalm that praises God, because the ones singing praise are so undeserving, so unworthy. It may be that this psalm follows a chiastic structure:
  - 22 verses, split in two halves and a climactic declaration in the middle: vv. 1-10, vv.11-12, vv. 13-21
  - It begins and ends with an imperative, a calling, a solicitation of praise.
  - vv. 8-10 and vv. 13-16 talk about God's character and actions -- who He is, and what He does -- He is compassionate, and shows lovingkindness
  - vv. 3-7 and vv. 17-19 talk about God's dealing with His covenant people. The first half of the psalm focuses more on Israel, and the second half foreshadows and depicts the relationship God has with those of the new covenant.
  - vv. 11-12 is doubtless the climax--amidst the solicitations, exclamations, exaltations, and proclamations of praise, it is a declaration of God's power and His might, His mercy and grace--it states simply God's awesome, marvelous, praiseworthy, and sovereign solution to man's greatest problem--sin.

  It doesn't talk about how God did it, but that He simply did. Just like that. Boom. Done. Case-closed. It instead uses figurative language and hyperbolic similes, barely scratching the surface of describing the magnanimity of what God has done.

  "As high as the heavens are above the earth"--if you've ever flown in an airplane on an international flight when it reaches 49,500 feet or 15,100 meters, then you know that's pretty high up. If it was only that high, that is already a greater height than my mind can even comprehend. Imagine looking down from that height down to the earth. A person would be less than a speck, probably smaller than a picometer (10^-12). Yet is this talking about the inner earth atmosphere merely? The Bible refers to the heavenly bodies collectively "the heavens." Then, perhaps, the sun, moon, and stars? And when you think about the galaxies that are millions of light-years away... "So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him." Realistically, I don't know how long a light-year is. I've been taught that. I don't even know what I'd do if I had a tape-measure half of a light-year long. The psalmist is saying--if it could be measured (which it can't)--God's lovingkindness is still greater. Remember when you were kids, and you played the game of coming up with the biggest number? "Six-hundred million billion trillion, seven-hundred and ninety four zillion, three-thousand and seven." ... "Infinity." "Infinity plus one!"

  "As far as the east is from the west"--they most likely didn't know that the world was round, so without getting all technical, that's why even Jesus can say phrases like "to the ends of the earth." But, if the world was flat like the people in Columbus' day thought, then east from west is also an infinite distance. Mathematically, it's like a series function that never converges, but diverges. Infinity plus one. That's how far God has removed our sins and transgressions from us, and how He views us as righteous in His sight because of His Son. "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy" (Titus 3:5).

  The song (excuse the out-of-rhythm guitar playing):

  Download PDF of transcribed, Pinyin, and Chinese
  Download MP3 - Psalm 103 - Chinese Song

  Edit:
  I haven't been able to access my OCF webserver for a while now, you can download it from my other webserver
  PDF
  MP3

  Check out song lyrics with pinyin on Maskil: 我的心，你要稱頌耶和華 on Maskil.

  • 2:32 pm
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