August 9, 2026
Series: Dwelling in the Psalms
William G. Carter
We are seven weeks into our series on the psalms. It should be clear we have a diversity of material. We have heard praises and complaints. We have encountered both memories and hopes. There are prayers that are very personal, and instruction that directs large groups of people. In commenting on the Psalms, John Calvin declared, “They offer the anatomy of the human soul.”
Today, Psalm 92 is unlike all others. It offers thanks, like many others. It warns of enemies, as a great number of psalms do. It is unsigned, as most of the psalms should be. Even if it says at the top, “A psalm of David,” old King David was probably too busy to write a lot of poetry. He had a staff to do that. They wrote the psalms; he took credit for them. That’s what kings do.
What makes Psalm 92 stand out are the fingerprints left at the top of the page. After the poem was written down, an editor added a few words in Hebrew as a matter of description. This is “a Song for the Sabbath Day.” No other Psalm gets that description. No other Psalm is pinned to a particular day of the week, much less the Sabbath.
You can hum the first stanza of this Psalm. It resounds of singing, music, and melody. The Sabbath is not intended to be silent. No, it’s a time for joyful noise, for declaring the saving grace of God by day and night. We declare with our lips and strum our stringed instruments. It’s all there in the first stanza: to say thanks, to sing praises. Sabbath is music that gladdens our hearts and sets us free to sing.
The second stanza reminds us that our singing is contested. God makes us a musical world, but some folks don’t seem to pick up the tune. Mostly they are of two types. The poet calls one group “The Evildoers.” They sprout up like weeds. For a time, they appear to get their own wicked way. The Evildoers announce with their deeds that they have no need for God. Oh no, they are a world unto themselves. They stomp along and think that whatever they do will last forever. The Eternal God looks at them and groans.
Then there’s the other group that cannot sing. The Psalmist simply calls them “stupid.” The Hebrew word is translated “dullard” or “dolt.” These are the people who just don’t get it. This has nothing to do with their intelligence; it’s something far worse. God puts a rainbow in front of them, and they look down at their watches. God gives them a world of intricate design, and they believe it’s flat, stale, and tasteless. God creates whales that leap, sparrows that sing, seas that split in two, and the dullards yawn. The Hebrew Bible smirks at such people and calls them fools.
Because, you see, our lives are about God. God gives us breath, first to receive, then to exhale in praise. God surrounds us with wonders, glorious gifts of sense and sound, some of them with saving power. Yet it’s possible to ignore all of this. The Evildoers go their own way, indifferent to God’s holy purposes.
As for the Stupid Dolts – well, maybe we shouldn’t dismiss them so quickly. One of my favorite places in the world is Banff Park in the Canadian Rockies. My wife and I have been there twice. Both times it was too much beauty to take in. By the fifth day of each trip, I distinctly remember saying, “Ho hum, another 10,000-foot-high mountain. No big deal.” I was overwhelmed. Any sense of wonder was shut down; that was the evidence of my sin.
So, Psalm 92 is our Song for the Sabbath Day. Sabbath is the time we take to awaken from our boredom, shrug off our neglect, and open our hearts to God’s holy extravagance. It’s the time we take to move ourselves out of the supposed center of the universe and to let God rule gently and firmly, especially over those situations that we cannot control.
The Quaker mystic Howard Thurman encouraged this in his writings. In one book he writes,
How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self
pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic:
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
while something deep within hungers and thirsts
for the still moments and the resting lull.
With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense
of order in our living;
a direction, a strong sure purpose
that will structure our confusion and bring meaning to our chaos.[1]
This desire to “turn on
the quiet” points us to the last stanza of the psalm. There are three
remarkable verbs: flourish, grow, planted. The well-balanced life
is compared to three trees.
- The righteous flourish like a palm tree. Ever see the lushness of a tropical palm? They
are so full of life they have to be trimmed so they can flourish even
more.
- The righteous grow like the cedars of Lebanon. These cedars were the legendary trees of antiquity.
They grew tall and straight, were reported to have medicinal powers, and
were cut for the great temple of Solomon.
- Then
there is the tree laden with fruit, described as still productive
in its old age. Old age in the time of this Psalm, by the way, was
somewhere after fifty. If you were fifty, you were old – but you could
still be productive, still green, still full of sap, and still pointing to
the Lord, the source of all life.
Psalm 92 pushes us to ask ourselves what it will take to flourish, to grow, to stay planted and to remain productive. These are the Sabbath tasks, the Sabbatical tasks. The poet of Psalm 92 believes that Sabbath rest makes room for us to flourish and be fruitful.
Now you’re not going to hear that from the Evildoers or the Dullards, especially in our culture. We live in driven times, with 24-7 accessibility and demand. How many times have you heard it? I called you on your phone, why didn’t you answer?
Or the friends that try to schedule a lunch date. They pull out their phones, look at their calendars, and say, “What do you have available in the second week of November?”
Or listen to the retired person who says, “I am busier now than when I was working.” Well, I’m starting to listen, and I wonder what’s that about? If retirement is about flourishing, growing, staying planted and productive -- good for you. That is the blessing of God!
But lest we fall into the obsessions and addictions of our culture, we need the word that God speaks in the Ten Commandments: “Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy . . . Remember you were slaves in Egypt, and God brought you out of there.” That is why we rest from labor – to show that we belong to God, and not to our labor. It is proof of our freedom from slavery.
This is especially important if we enjoy our work. Some of us have that blessing; I love the work that I do, and I love the people that I work around. Most days, I can’t wait to get to it. Most nights, I have a hard time shutting down. It’s a blessing to love your work. But God invites us to take Sabbath, so that we can realign our loves. We take the time to love God more than our work.
The truth of the matter is, as good as our work can be, it can wear us out. You know it, I know it. To stay focused, to keep going, to still believe there is a sun in the sky, we need to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is time, time that is full of spaciousness. As John Calvin wrote, Sabbath is time to rest from our work so that God can work in us. Or in the words of Psalm 92, “To stay green and full of sap.”
Isn’t that what we want? To get through life alive! For our souls to be free to sing! To know deep in our bones that God is the Rock upon which we stand! To keep doing the work God gives us to do with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love!
You see, God is concerned for our well-being. God gave us these lives and wants us to flourish. That’s why Sabbath was not given as an obligation, but as a gift. It is commanded of us because we forget how good God is. Yet Sabbath is always a gift. It is a gift of time for us to rest from what consumes us, a time to receive the Spirit that God wants us to have.
So, take a moment, grab a pen or pencil, and answer this question in the margin of your worship bulletin. Ready? What is it that is going to keep you green and full of sap? What will make your soul sing? Aye, there is a worthy question. And I hope it nips your heels every single day until you are overflowing with the joy of God.
May this day be for you
such a time of blessed Sabbath that you wish to repeat it over and over. And
may God make you to flourish, body and soul, in all the time that you are
given. Be gentle with yourself and I will see you again soon.
[1] Howard Thurman, Meditations of the
Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 2023) 93-94.
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