[aron]

I would like to make 3 more comments. I will start with another verse from Psalm 119: verse 120.

"My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws." (NIV)

This verse, like most of Psalm 119, gets no comment or cross-reference in the RecV. In no way, evidently, is this indicative of the coming Christ, who "In the days of His flesh... offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety." (Heb. 5:7 NASB)

In Psalm 119 WL saw, at best, the piety of the psalm writer. Not the piety of Christ.

Second, in spite of numerous NT references to Jesus Christ as revealed "in the flesh" in the psalms, where WL did see Christ in the text it was as "Jehovah God". As in Psalm 23: "Jehovah is my shepherd, I shall not want, etc". To Lee, this meant that Jesus/Jehovah is our shepherd. Perhaps, but what about the Father shepherding the Son, in the days of the Son's flesh (incarnation)? Evidently not considered.

If WL was not forced by existing NT exposition to read the text as showing us Christ in the flesh (incarnated, suffering, resurrecting, glorified), then he either saw the writing as indicative of the psalmist's natural (uninspired) inclinations or at best a revelation of Jehovah/Jesus. But Jesus the persecuted and suffering and faithful Nazarene was not sought for.

I would like to correct this tendency by using the hermeneutic (interpretive strategy) which Peter displayed in his speech, standing with the eleven: "Brothers, we all know that this word (by David, of being saved from corruption) could not have been fulfilled by him, as we have his grave with us to this day. It was rather fulfilled by his seed, Jesus, the Son of David, as we have all witnessed." This is my paraphrase from memory; see Acts 2 for the exact words.

I argue that the Psalms are most importantly the words of Jesus Christ our Lord, not merely words about Christ or to Christ (though both do exist) and even less the words of a well-meaning, sinful psalmist. To WL they were predominantly the latter. He really only saw Jesus Christ where he was absolutely forced to.

Third, I would like to go back to the idea of keeping the law, and being righteous. I believe this was the big stumbling for WL; he dismissed this, and therefore the bulk of the text, out of hand. I say not so fast: we do see Jesus clearly fulfilling the law, down to the proverbial 'jot and tittle', and we do see Jesus telling His disciples that "if you love me you will keep my commandments". Faithfulness and obedience are NT characteristics as well. If we believe in Jesus the righteous one we are supposed to try and follow him.

Today, our "law" is the law of the Spirit of life, and not the law of letters engraved on stone. But our law still exists. The Father speaks, and we (should) obey. "Your word, O Father, is eternal; it stand firm in the heavens" Psalm 119:89

In Psalm 1, the introductory psalm, Lee categorically states that no one can keep the law. I do understand his point but this unfortunately became his basis for effectively dismissing the whole book. His dismissal, however, couldn't make it through the text of Psalm 1, much less the next 149 chapters. To the 'righteous man' in Psalm 1, WL retorts, "There is no righteous man". Then, when the "assembly of the righteous" appears later in the same chapter, he ignores it. But the psalmists' "assembly of the righteous" is quoted by the author of the epistle to the Hebrews! It is the church!

But WL already said that "there is none righteous; no, not one" so he had to dismiss the assembly of the righteous. And so on for the next 149 chapters; in order to keep his premise WL essentially had to rid the Psalms of any meaning.