Sing Praise

We are working our way through the sections of the hymnal in our summer series, and today we come to the section on praise. Last week, Bev led us through thoughts on gathering and worship. There is, of course, overlap between the different themes. Praise and worship and thanksgiving are all interrelated, so those speaking on each theme can be expected to repeat some of the same ideas. That is not a problem. In fact, it is a positive benefit, since it helps us in our exploration of each theme.

 

We read two Scriptures only among the many we could have referenced. Psalm 95 calls us to sing praises to God, who is our Creator and our Salvation and our Ruler. Many of the psalms have similar shouts of praise. Sometimes they lead to an exhortation to listen to God’s voice and obey God in our lives, as in this Psalm. Sometimes they occur in the middle of deep cries of pain. Sometimes they come at the end of grief and sadness, which leave us wondering why we would praise God at that moment.

 

In every case, they remind us that praise is the lifeblood of God’s people. We praise God who made us. We praise God who saves us. We praise God who rules our lives. Praise is what God’s people do. Always and in every circumstance. You remember how the New Testament puts it: “In everything give thanks” (1 Th 5: 18); “Always give thanks to God for everything (Eph 5:20). Thanksgiving is basic to praise. Praise is the lifeblood of God’s people.

 

The gospel reading is a well-known passage in Matthew 6, which gives us what we call “The Lord’s Prayer”. I observe only the beginning of the prayer: “Our Father in Heaven, let your name be acknowledged as holy.” You can see that this is a prayer beginning in praise. The old acronym ACTS is built on this model. ACTS stands for Adoration – Confession – Thanksgiving – Supplication. Adoration is the action of praise as modelled in the Lord’s Prayer. Prayer begins in praise, as Jesus himself taught us. 

 

Why is Praise so Important? 

Here is the basic question: Why is it so important to praise God? I want to spend some time on this question, because the answer helps us to structure our lives in ways that are good for us and that honour the God who made us. 

 

We could answer that it is important, because the Psalms make praise basic to lament and to supplication and to all of the appeals we make to God. When we turn to God, we begin and end in praise. But that answer is only to say that praise is important because praise is important. So, why is it something we do when we appeal to God? 

 

To some extent, I am trying to work this out myself. I don’t understand God, nor do I understand fully what God wants me to do, but here is my effort to grasp the necessity of praise. It all begins, I think, with the way that we experience life and the way that we see reality. 

 

When we come into this world, everything revolves around us. We see and hear and learn based on the observed fact that we are the centre of our own little universe. As we grow, we learn that other people matter too, and our world begins to expand a bit. As adults, we have a fuller view of reality, but the truth is that we all still experience life first of all through our own skin. 

 

As a result of this necessary self-centredness, we think that the world is good or bad based on what our own life is like. If we experience great joy, we think that life is great. If we experience great suffering, we think that life is bad. We tend to evaluate the whole of reality based on what our own little piece of reality is like. 

 

Now surely our own limited experience of life is not a good guide to the whole of reality, but it is hard to get beyond it. When I feel sick or experience great loss, reality as a whole feels bad. I may know objectively that the world is not a bad place, but it feels like one to me. Similarly, when everything in my own experience is rosy – a good job, good family, and good community – it is hard for me to grasp the complexities of famine and warfare elsewhere. 

 

One of the ways that we move beyond this limited self-centred perspective on reality is to involve ourselves in the larger world. Some of us have worked oversees in various countries. Others of us have stayed here in Steinbach, but we have involved ourselves in the almost invisible layers of our community, and as a result our boundaries have broadened. Some of us read voraciously and our world has become much bigger. This involvement in the larger world gives us a better view of reality. 

 

The fact remains, however, that even our larger perspective is still limited. It is limited by our own finite minds, and we can easily conclude that the whole of reality is something quite different than it is. To see reality properly, we need a perspective that can see the whole picture, and none of us is nearly big enough to do that. 

 

The Place of Praise 

When we praise God, we take a step towards that larger perspective. We focus our hearts and minds on the One who really does see and know everything. We begin to get out of our own skin and see the world as God sees it. We see and express a reality that is beyond our own limited and finite minds, a reality big enough to build our lives on.

 

The whole process is similar to what happens when we look at certain paintings. Have you ever stood so close to a painting that all you can see are individual blobs of colour? Then, as you back up and can take in the whole canvas, the blobs of colour turn into a picture of startling beauty and clarity.

 

A similar effect – contrasting what we see close up and what we see at a distance – appears in the picture we used for our Gathering Sunday hanging on the wall in our foyer. Close up, so close you could touch the picture, you can see the names of individual people in the congregation. As you back up, you can take in the whole picture, full of wind and waves. If you are actually living within one of those names, you cannot even see the wind and the waves of which you are a part. We live close up, and we see what is right around us, but we also need the perspective of standing back to see the whole picture. 

 

Think about that image for a bit. The little blob of paint in which you live your whole life may be a blob of particularly dark and stormy paint, so that all you can see is hardship and struggle and pain. If you could step back, however, you would begin to see the bigger picture in which there is joy and beauty and delight beyond imagining. Praise is the act of stepping back and listening for God’s voice, beginning to see with God’s eyes. Only so can we discover the reality on which we can build our lives. 

 

A Musical Illustration 

You may heard of Tolkein’s great trilogy, “Lord of the Rings”. The story is set in “Middle-Earth”, and Tolkein constructed a complete history of his world, complete with a creation story. His prehistory of Middle-Earth is found in The Silmarillion. It begins with Iluvatar, the name that Tolkein uses for the Creator God, singing a wonderful melody that brings all of creation into being. I will describe what happens, using our own names for the process.

 

First there are the Ainur, Tolkein’s name for the angels and archangels. The angels and archangels begin to sing with God, filling out the melody with the harmonies God puts within them. Then the greatest of these beings decides that he wants to sing his own melody. His name in Tolkein’s story is Melchor. We could call him Lucifer, the Son of the Morning.

 

Lucifer, whom we have come to know as Satan, begins to sing a different song, one that destroys instead of creates and brings harsh pain instead of joy and delight. Soon others of the angels begin to sing with him, and darkness grows within the song of joy and beauty and wonder that God is singing with the hosts of Heaven.

 

God hears Satan’s song of pain and destruction and takes the harsh melodies, weaving them together into a new song greater and more wonderful even than the first song. These combined melodies and harmonies are of an almost unbearable beauty. Then the angels – good and bad – see that the combined melodies have brought into being, the whole of our created order.

 

Tolkein has given us a picture of what he thinks happens in creation. The picture is one of great delight, but it contains scenes of unspeakable pain. This past week we have heard again of the pain that besets our own country, with the rediscovery of 751 unmarked graves in southeast Saskatchewan. We are reminded of the deaths of so many children in the residential schools of our country.

 

This reminder is only one of many dark places in our history. Sometimes we feel as though we are caught up in Melchor-Satan’s countermelody of grief and destruction. We are reminded that Jesus said of Satan that the thief comes only to kill and steal and destroy. We are trapped in that trail of destruction – until we begin to sing again our songs of praise. Haltingly, almost afraid to praise God in the middle of our heartache and heart break, we sing to God. In the act of praise, we begin again to hear the larger melody that God sings. Gradually, our voices strengthen, and we become able to see the joy and beauty of life, greater than all of our sin and failures. 

 

Voices Together 

Praise reconnects us with God. Praise reconnects us with the greater reality of God’s presence and work in our world. As we praise God, we begin again to hear God’s voice and feel God’s heart. We rediscover the strength we need to live as God’s people in this world. Praise does not eliminate the pain and hurt of our lives, but it connects us again with the strength we need to live in this world.

 

Our new hymnal, Voices Together, has a strong section of hymns of praise to help us in this great task of healing our souls. Some of the hymns are old and well-loved; some are new and will need learning. Some old hymns have new words, which can help us grow in our understanding of who God is and who we are. They are in English and German and other languages from Africa and Indonesia. Together they give us the resources to rediscover God and to begin to see reality again with God’s eyes. They help us build the foundation of our lives anew so that we can live fully the justice and peace that God brings into our world.

 

Hear just two examples. First, the old 606 (#118 in the blue hymnal) is now #70. This version of the doxology – Praise God from whom all blessings flow – is a hymn to sing when all seems dark around us. Voices raised united in praise to God remind us that even unmarked graves are not the end. God is present and God gives us strength and wisdom to find new paths when our own strength and understanding fail.

 

Second, a hymn in the closing section of the hymnal – “Sending” – reminds us that God receives our praise but does not need our praise. Here are the words from #814.

 

O God beyond all praising, we worship you today,

and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay;

For we can only wonder at every gift you send,

at blessings without number and mercies without end.

We lift our hearts before you and wait upon your Word,

we honour and adore you, our great and mighty Lord.

 

The flower of earthly splendour in time must surely die,

its fragile bloom surrender to you, the Lord most high.

But hidden from all nature, th’eternal seed is sown,

though small in mortal stature, to heaven’s garden grown;

for Christ, your gift from heaven, from death has set us free,

and we through him are given the final victory.

 

Then hear, a gracious Saviour, accept the love we bring,

that we who know your favour may serve you as our King.

And whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill,

we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still;

to marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways,

and make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise. 

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church 

4 July 2021 

 

Texts 

Psalm 95: 1 to 7

¹ O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! 

³ For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. ⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. ⁵ The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed. 

⁶ O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! ⁷ For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. 

 

Matthew 6: 5 to 15 

⁵ “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ⁶ But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 

⁷ “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 

⁹ “Pray then in this way: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. ¹⁰ Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread. ¹² And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. ¹³ And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.’ 

¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

 

Looking Ahead: Why is “praising” so important in Christian worship? What’s going on when we “praise the Lord”? 

 

Focus Statement: Praise re-orients us and helps rebuild the foundations of our lives.

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s …

We are nearing the end of a challenging and rewarding series on the minor prophets. Obadiah is so short that we read the whole book this morning! I will begin with the setting in which Obadiah speaks the word of the Lord, then consider Obadiah’s message. Finally, we ask how that message carries us deeper into God’s heart, and how we are to respond to God’s heart of love.

Background

Obadiah speaks to Edom, that is, to the descendants of Esau. Remember Esau? Isaac’s first son; Jacob’s older twin. In Genesis 25, their mother (Rebekah) received this prophecy: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” So it was. Jacob took the promised land, and Esau lived in the hills South of Israel – the beginning of a troubled relationship.

Jacob cheated Esau of his inheritance and stole the oldest son’s blessing. When Esau pleaded with his father for his own blessing, Isaac said, “Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”

Jacob fled from his brother after gaining their father’s blessing and went north to Paddan Aram, where he established his family. When he returned to Canaan, he made a partial reconciliation with his brother, but there was no trust between them. They saw each other for the last time when they joined together to bury their father, Isaac. You can read the whole story in Genesis 25 to 36, which finishes with a list of the descendants of Esau (the Edomites). The list shows that the Edomites accommodated to the customs and gods of the land long before the Children of Israel (Jacob) did. They were still children of Abraham, but no longer children of the promise.

In the years that followed, the Israelites and the Edomites had the kind of relationship one could predict from their beginning. When Israel walked the Exodus route from Egypt, Edom would not help them. When Babylon carried the southern kingdom of Judah into captivity, Edom cheered. During the exile, Edom took over many of the towns of southern Judah, which the Children of Israel took back in the period of the Maccabees just before the time of the New Testament.

Obadiah spoke his prophecy just after the end of the southern kingdom of Judah. He was probably a contemporary of Jeremiah, who spoke so eloquently about the judgment coming through the Babylonians.

The troubled relationship of Israel and Edom survives in the New Testament in the person of King Herod the Great. He is called Herod the Idumean. Idumea is the Greek form of Edom, so the Herod who tried to kill Jesus in Matthew 2 was Herod the Edomite. You may recall that the Jews claimed that Herod was not really their king – because he came from Edom (Esau) not from Israel (Jacob). Given this long and troubled relationship between Israel and Edom, we turn to Obadiah’s prophecies.

The Text

·         Verse 1 sets the stage. The nations (in this case, Babylon) are getting ready to destroy Judah (that is, God’s Chosen People).

·         Verses 2 to 7 describe Edom’s own destruction. Edom lives among the rocks (that is, in the mountains – Petra, the great rock fortress, is in Edom), but their almost inaccessible home will be no protection against their foes. Even their friends will work against them.

·         Verses 8 and 9 describe the Day of the Lord, a glimpse of the final judgment, in which Edom will be called to account and destroyed.

·         Verses 10 to 14 detail Edom’s sins: They could have stood with their brother, Jacob, when the Babylonians attacked, but they stood on the side and rejoiced over Judah’s fall. Then they entered Judah’s towns and ransacked them, handing over any who had escaped the Babylonians to the invaders. “Because of your violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed forever” (verse 10). This prophesies a more complete destruction than is usually spoken of, from which we can conclude that to betray one’s own brother is worse than to fail a stranger. I suggest also it refers more to a final destruction in the Lord’s Day than to destruction in the present, since the Edomites in fact continued in the land with the Israelites.

·         Verses 15 to 18 observe that the judgment at the End will bring a complete reversal of present fortunes. Those who trust in God will be elevated; those who fight against God’s people will be destroyed.

·         Verses 19 to 21 prophesy Esau’s final failure when everything belongs to God.

We can summarize all of this quite simply: God judges Edom for celebrating Judah’s downfall. This judgment suggests a basic principle: Don’t rejoice in your enemy’s distress. Rather, reach out and help where you can. God will judge everyone alike, restoring those who choose God, and destroying those who refuse God.

I said last week that the grim warnings in Nahum are the soil in which Jesus’ teachings grow. A life of violence begets violence; those who live by the sword die by the sword. Jesus teaches a path of peace in place of Assyria’s violent ways. Obadiah also is the soil in which Jesus’ teachings grow. Jesus says that those who mourn will receive blessing. In Romans 12: 9-21, Paul expands this blessing with words that Nahum could have spoken directly to the Edomites:

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. …

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Living with the Prophet

So, God judges Edom for celebrating Judah's downfall. This judgment suggests a basic principle: Don’t rejoice in your enemy’s distress. Rather, reach out and help where you can. God will judge everyone alike, restoring those who choose God, and destroying those who refuse God.

We have been calling these warnings “God’s heartbeat of love for God’s world.” God loves eacg person so much that God will do everything possible to bring that person back into right relationship with God. God wants us also to love with God’s love. What do we do with this call to respond to God’s love, and to love the world around us with God’s love? A few words first about what we mean by love.

Some people think of “love” as a warm fuzzy emotion that bathes the recipient in a glow of warm acceptance. To put it another way, sometimes we confuse “love’ and “like”. Of course, loving someone and liking that person are closely related. If you say to me, “I don’t like my wife, but I do love her”, I will conclude that you may need to learn to like her again. Loving and liking often go together, and they should.

At the same time, loving and liking really are different things. “Like” is an emotion, a feeling, a response to people that comes and goes. There are times when parents don’t like their children, and when children don’t like their parents. But love continues throughout the whole relationship. What then do we mean by “love”?

I mean two basic things. One: I care what happens to you. Whatever hurts you also hurts me. Whatever brings you joy also brings me joy. Love includes a basic recognition that we belong together and that whatever happens to you also happens to me. This means that real love costs something. To commit myself to love you is hard, because now I can be hurt when something bad happens to you. Loving you makes my life richer, and loving you places me more at risk.

Two: I want God’s best for you. I am not satisfied with anything less than God’s best in your life. I want you to succeed – which means, find God’s will and live God’s way in all that you do. That is why I pray for my sons, “Lord, teach them to know you, and to love you, and to serve you.” My life is bound up with theirs, and all of our lives are bound up with God.

When we understand love this way, we see it is a choice that we make to love the other person. Sometimes our feelings are in sync with our will, and sometimes they aren’t, but we love consistently and completely. I can imagine the Edomites saying, “Why should we put ourselves in danger for the children of Jacob? Jacob cheated our father, and his children deserve whatever happens to them.” Through Obadiah, God says, “Love your brothers and sisters. Act for their good. I know that you have bad feelings about them, but they are your brothers and sisters, and you care for them.”

Love is a Choice

You see then that love is a choice we make, not a feeling that overwhelms us. Of course, sometimes feelings accompanying love do overwhelm us, and our culture has an idea of romantic love that sweeps you off your feet, but God’s love is deeper and more profound than a simple understanding of romantic love. God loves us, and so we love God and each other. God cares for us, and so we care for God and each other. God hurts when we hurt, and so we hurt with each other. God loves it when good things happen to us, and so we celebrate when good things happen to people we love.

This means, of course, that God wants us all to love God and live with God. Peter, a disciple who lived so close to Jesus, wrote in 2 Peter 3: 8 and 9: “Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Jesus wants everyone to live! God loves everyone. “God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten so, so that whoever believes on [trusts in] him should not die, but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world” (John 3: 16f).

This truth raises really difficult questions. If God loves us so much, why do bad things happen to anyone? This question gives birth to another hard question: Why do we not receive from God what is good? God does not want us to suffer. God wants us to know and experience good, but God has also given us the incredible power to say no to God.

John Wesley wrote a powerful hymn asking why people do not turn to God: “Sinner turn, why will you die?” He wrote 13 verses. Here is just one:

Sinners, turn: why will you die? God, your Savior, asks you why.

God, who did your souls retrieve, died himself, that you might live.

Will you let Him die in vain? Crucify your Lord again?

Why, you ransomed sinners, why, will you slight his grace and die?

This is deep mystery. There are answers, but they are not easy to express or to grasp. All I can say this morning is that God endured our grief and pain on the cross. God enters into our suffering and hurt at the deepest levels. Last Sunday I told you the story of Kim Phuc, the Napalm Girl. You remember her words as she considered the story of Jesus: “I had never been exposed to this side of Jesus—the wounded one, the one who bore scars. I turned over this new information in my mind as a gem in my hand, relishing the light that was cast from all sides.”

One part of the mystery, then, is the question, “Why do humans choose evil?” This ability to choose is remarkable and dangerous gift. God evidently thought it worthwhile to let you and me choose to do God’s will and love with God’s love. Or not. We can decide to live for God, or to live for ourselves. As C.S. Lewis put it in a book on Heaven and Hell called The Great Divorce:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.

That’s what the prophets are getting at: The heartbeat of God is the heartbeat of God’s love, and God wants us to say yes to God and love with God’s love.

Conclusion

God has put us here to sing and play God’s music. Jesus lived and taught and died and rose to bring us into the great choir (or orchestra or band) to sing God’s song. The trouble is that we are a generation that wants God to say, “your will be done” and does not want to say to God, “Your will be done.” We want to sing our own song, not God’s song. As one of favourite groups, the Mamas and the Papas, sings,

Nobody can tell ya there's only one song worth singing,

They may try and sell ya, ’cause it hangs them up to see someone like you.

But you’ve gotta make your own music, Sing your own special song,

Make your own kind of music even if nobody else sings along. (1968)

This is hard. I see real value in individualism, but it must be my own song within God’s song. Jesus put it this way in John 12:25, “Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.” Or, to put it in terms of singing the Lord’s song, those who insist on singing their own song and not harmonizing with God’s song will find that they lose the gift of music altogether, but those who sing God’s song will have an eternity to make the most joyful music of all.

Obadiah describes what happens to people who insist on living only for themselves. Jesus shows us another way, loving God and loving each other with perfect love – caring for each other and desiring God’s best for each other. Love is a choice, and God wants us to choose love.

 3 June 2018

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Obadiah’s Vision

¹ The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom—We have heard a message from the Lord: An envoy was sent to the nations to say, “Rise, let us go against her for battle”—² “See, I will make you small among the nations; you will be utterly despised. ³ The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ ⁴ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord. ⁵ “If thieves came to you, if robbers in the night—oh, what a disaster awaits you!—would they not steal only as much as they wanted? If grape pickers came to you, would they not leave a few grapes? ⁶ But how Esau will be ransacked, his hidden treasures pillaged! ⁷ All your allies will force you to the border; your friends will deceive and overpower you; those who eat your bread will set a trap for you, but you will not detect it.

⁸ “In that day,” declares the Lord, “will I not destroy the wise men of Edom, those of understanding in the mountains of Esau? ⁹ Your warriors, Teman, will be terrified, and everyone in Esau’s mountains will be cut down in the slaughter. ¹⁰ Because of the violence against your brother Jacob, you will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed forever. ¹¹ On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. ¹² You should not gloat over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble. ¹³ You should not march through the gates of my people in the day of their disaster, nor gloat over them in their calamity in the day of their disaster, nor seize their wealth in the day of their disaster. ¹⁴ You should not wait at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives, nor hand over their survivors in the day of their trouble.

¹⁵ “The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head. ¹⁶ Just as you drank on my holy hill, so all the nations will drink continually; they will drink and drink and be as if they had never been. ¹⁷ But on Mount Zion will be deliverance; it will be holy, and Jacob will possess his inheritance. ¹⁸ Jacob will be a fire and Joseph a flame; Esau will be stubble, and they will set him on fire and destroy him. There will be no survivors  from Esau.” The Lord has spoken.

¹⁹ People from the Negev will occupy the mountains of Esau, and people from the foothills will possess the land of the Philistines. They will occupy the fields of Ephraim and Samaria, and Benjamin will possess Gilead. ²⁰ This company of Israelite exiles who are in Canaan will possess the land as far as Zarephath; the exiles from Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the towns of the Negev. ²¹ Deliverers will go up on Mount Zion to govern the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will be the Lord’s.