Lonely people, prisoners and sunburn.

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Psalm 68:6, New International Version - "God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners in singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched earth."


God sets the lonely in families.  Another translation reads that he sets the desolate in a homeland.  It is very easy to read over this verse and not appreciate the intense implications of the Lord's heart towards His people. We learn a great deal about the Lord from this one verse.

Firstly, for the Lord to set the lonely in families or the desolate in a homeland, He must intimately know the details of our lives and then take action regarding those details.  Without much theological research or debate, we are able to combat the heresy of deism.  Our God did not create the world and its inhabitants and then remove Himself from active intervention in the world.  He is actively involved in humanity and is very much aware of our inner thoughts and meditations.  How can He know who is lonely or who is desolate without actively searching our hearts and hearing our thoughts?  The word "set" is a verb and in this context it means "places."  God places the lonely in families.  God is doing something and someone who is inactive cannot be doing something in our lives.  Within the first two words of the verse we are able to make some major theological assertions: God is active and God knows the emotions, thoughts and experiences of humans.

God's action of setting the lonely in families suggests that God Himself desires that humanity exist in community. God does not desire isolation for people.  Notice though that God does not set the lonely in any type of community.  The Scripture does not read that God sets the lonely in a workplace or a commune.  No, God sets the lonely in families - the closest and most intimate of sociological units known to man throughout history.  God does not simply desire us to be in community with others, but He desires that we would participate in an intimate fellowship of deep bond to others that breeds love and acceptance.  While no family is without its quirks and its problems, the notion of family implies a sense of permanency as well.  No matter how much a person dislikes his sibling, he and his sibling are family forever.  Yet we must remove sin and any result of human error from our understanding of this verse because God did not define family as dysfunctional.  God sets those who are lonely, without companionship or sense of belonging, in permanent groups of intimate connection with others where acceptance and love are the major forces uniting those involved.

I am not sure how many readers have spent time in prison, but God led me to spend a couple summers in prison (relax, I was doing ministry).  Prison is awful.  Those involved in the politics of corrections will say that prison is free food, gym equipment, shelter and a mattress.  I can conclude that if forced to choose between prison with all its supposed amenities and homelessness, I would choose homelessness.  Prison is a place filled with spiritual darkness, psychological distress, and demonic presence.  There is a heaviness in prison that weighs upon its prisoners.  This heaviness causes emotional distress, great depression and high levels of anxiety.  It does not cause singing.  Readers can rid their minds of chain gangs singing "Old Man River" to encourage one another.

Yet the Scripture says that God leads forth the prisoners in singing.  Once again, we see the first two words ("God leads") of the phrase indicate that God is active in the affairs of humanity (not adultery, the events and on-goings).  The inclusion of the word "forth" in the verse really impacts the implication of the verse.  God could merely have said that He leads the prisoners in singing.  Most of us are are okay with the choir director image of God.  Yet in context, the word "forth" indicates that God is leading the singing onward and possibly onward from a place of inaction or concealment.  In a ordinary sentence, we might say "The murderer came forth from his hiding place."  The idea here is that something or someone comes forward or moves onward from a place where he or it were concealed or unknown.  Singing in prison is unknown, yet God inspires and leads singing out of darkness and hiding.  The implication in the verse is that these prisoners are perhaps some type of religious captives, those who are innocent and yet are held against their will or those who have repented of their malicious ways. We understand this implication based upon the concluding phrase of the verse described below.

The rebellious live in a sun scorched earth.  I am not sure how many readers have spent time working in a sun scorched earth, but it is awful.  When working in the hot African sun of Rwanda, many of my team members began to feel faint, dehydrated and nearly lost consciousness.  Their bodies were weak, feeble and unable to accomplish the work at hand.  There is no shade in a sun scorched earth, no place to find respite and refreshment.  There is never enough water to quench the thirst of those dehydrated by the burning sun.  Though those who rebel against God, who disregard His truth and His righteousness, may appear to prosper, their lives are like those who toil in a sun scorched earth.  Their spirits cry out for relief and they find none.  Their souls long for respite, but there is no rescue.  God does not do this out of His cruelty.  If God were genuinely cruel, He would not set the lonely in families nor would He lead prisoners in singing.  He does this to lead the rebellious to repentance.  We see such stark contrast between the conditions of those who honor God and those who disregard God not because the righteous ought to be proud they receive mercy, but to humble the righteous because they received a family when they ought to have received a sun scorched earth.  He also does this to appeal to the rebellious by revealing that paths of rebellion lead to death while paths of righteousness lead to peace.

From one verse we are able to understand so much about our God.  He loves family, He loves unity.  He delights in Sunday dinners and small group meetings.  He loves to see intimate communities fueled by acceptance and love.  He can lead people from the darkest of situations and the pains of oppression to singing.  He brings out hidden praises from the concealment of suffering.  And He does not delight in rebellion and sin.  He hates it and allows those who delight in sin to experience the harshness of sin's wages: death.

As a man without much family, as a man who has spent time praying with prisoners and leading worship behind bars, I thank God for His undying affection for His children.  I pray the rebellious repent from their sin so that they may experience this genuinely overwhelming love and mercy.  And I am thankful that God has worked in my life, because I am no greater or better than those who labor in the sun scorched sun.  Without God's active intervention in my life, I would be the union foreman of the sun scorched labor party.  True story.