Psalm 85; 32:1-5, More on the Flood and Atonement

In my recent reading I discovered a couple of things in this Psalm relative to God’s plan of salvation.  First, in 85:2, having been brought back from captivity, the Psalmist notes that the LORD had forgiven and covered the sin of the people.  These same two truths are found in Ps. 32:1 where David extols the blessedness of the one whose sins are forgiven and covered. 

There is apparently a “play on words” in that the two Hebrew words are nasa and kasa.  To forgive is to carry the sins away.  To cover is to hide them from God’s sight.  And in Ps. 32:5 David declares that he, David, has not hidden (kasa) his sins, because that does not hide them from God.  Rather he has confessed or acknowledged them, so it is left for God to cover them.

We have mentioned before the idea of “atonement” in the Bible, that it has this idea of “covering” them.  The word often translated “atonement” in the OT is kephar.  This word has its roots in Noah’s ark where Noah was told by God to cover the outside of the ark with pitch, kephar.  In other words, for Noah to be safe from God’s judgment there would need to be something that would guarantee that the ark would not allow water to seep in from the outside.  Thus, as Peter said, a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water (1 Pt. 3:20).  The water carried the ark and kept them all afloat no matter how violent were the things happening outside.

But here is another interesting fact.  The roots of kasa (to hide something by covering it) are also in the flood.  In Gen. 7:18,20 (the first uses of this term) we see that the water covered all the high hills and mountains.  So, inside the ark was salvation; outside the ark was judgment for sin.  Through His judgment the LORD covered all the sinful earth/earthlings.  The LORD had seen that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth (Gen. 6:5-6).  I’m sorry if you have soothed your view of God by proposing a flood that was not over all the earth.  It just doesn’t fit.

And if you wonder about this kasa word, the next use of the term is in Gen. 9:23 where Shem and Japheth walked backwards with a blanket to cover their father’s nakedness.  Again, there is a covering for sin and shame.  We should not be surprised that the flood provides the backdrop for such powerful and blessed and gracious understandings of our salvation.  Not only do we have a secure salvation in Christ; we have one that has totally dealt with our sin that separated us from God.  Praise His holy name!