the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Some of my recent reflections from reading through the Orthodox Study Bible. This is a shorter scripture refection post, but still one nonetheless-

Psalm 105:20 OSB – Thus they changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eats grass.

This verse is talking about idol worship as we look at the context of the verses preceding it. I find it interesting that as it is describing the Israelites worshiping something else, the verse implies that in doing so, they are ‘[changing] their glory into the likeness’ of something else – something they were not made nor destined to be or become. Putting it this way, it makes me think that to worship is to change or keep our glory into the likeness of something. As we worship God, we keep our glory as His likeness – gracious and compassionate, abounding love and faithfulness.

Psalm 105:45-46 OSB: And He remembered His covenant, and felt regret according to the multitude of His mercy; So He aroused compassion for them among all who made them captives.

The very first thing that jumped out at me when reading this is that God feels regret – which makes sense, actually, in terms of us being made in His likeness. He feels regret, and so He’s created us humans who also feel regret. And even more importantly, God feels – and God is informed by His feelings. I hesitate to say that God doesn’t act on His feeling or isn’t consumed by His feelings, because sometimes in the Old Testament it seems like He does, but those are stories I would like to read into and study more. However, what I can say for sure is that God doesn’t ignore His feelings, and Jesus was also a great example of this. And as we are created in His image and are called to be the greatest versions of ourselves as God invites us to be, I would argue that we are not to ignore our feelings – the feelings that He gave us and is informed by Himself – either.

Another thing I found interesting in this passage is that to free His people, it seems like He didn’t do anything on the part of His people – the “captives”. Instead, it seems to imply that He made their captors compassionate.

Anyways, those are all my thoughts for today. Thank you for reading (: