Bible TimePsalm 91: Funeral For Ted Kennedy
1500 invited guests, including US President Barack Obama, gathered in Boston for a funeral for Ted Kennedy.
Psalm 91
Theoretical Time:
- 13000-08-10 DH 21:4:09 AA
- 2009-08-29 14:28:00 TMMT
- 2009-08-29 12:07:06 GMT
- 2009-08-29 08:07:06 EDT
Psalms 91
1He who lives in the protection of the most high, will stay under the shadow of the almighty.
2I will say of Yahvah, He is my refuge and my fortress; my god; in him I will trust.
3Surely, he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from vain gossip.
4He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will trust; his truth will be your shield and buckler.
5You will not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flies by day,
6nor for the conspiracy that spreads in darkness; nor for the pestilence that wastes at noonday.
71,000s will fall at your side, and 10,000 at your right hand; but it will not come near you.
8Only with your eyes you will look at the reward of the wicked.
9For you, Yahvah, are my trust; you have established your habitation in the highest.
10No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your dwelling.
11For he will give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.
12They will bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. (41:4:6, 43:4:10)
13You will tread on the viper and adder; you will trample under foot the lion and the great dragon.
14Because he has loved me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known my name.
15He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.
16With long life, I will satisfy him, and show him my salvation.
Kennedy Funeral
Kennedy's death was the subject of the previous Psalm 91 and now 1500 invited guests filled a cathedral in Boston for his funeral. The time of this event was a few hours after theoretical. The 8:00 AM local time expected for this Psalm was at the start of the process to move Kennedy's body to the Cathedral, essentially a match.
Unexpected large gatherings of people are common fulfillment venues. In this case the 10s of 1000s had visited his coffin or lined the streets on the route to the Cathedral or to his final burial place in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC are all part of the unusual gathering that marks the fulfillment. (Those counts of people who visited are hinted at in verse 7.)
The Cathedral was filled with invited guests including former presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr. and Jimmy Carter. Numerous other national politicians were in attendance including Hillary Clinton and John McCain. There were also numerous members of the media who had been invited. A veritable who's who of US national politics with the major TV networks providing live coverage from within the Cathedral.
Matches
The question that surrounds a death like this is does God look positively or negatively on the work of the person who has died. The previous Psalm 91 had indicated that the "Kennedy Curse" was really God's wrath on the entire Kennedy clan. Further evidence of that position can be seen here.
Kennedy was repeatedly called the Lion of the Senate, the term was used several times in the funeral itself, and can be seen in the text of the Psalm in verse 13. The text says that the lion (as well as the serpent) are trampled under foot by God himself. This is both a match to Kennedy as a fulfillment and it is equating Kennedy and his clan to enemies of God.
With this match, the other verses in the Psalm indicate that Kennedy is some sort of negative example, though perhaps the best example within the clan, the only one to have lived long enough to have died a natural death.
Verse 10 discusses how no plague will befall you, and by extension those who stay close to you. The "you" in this case being God himself. Verse 11 indicates the mechanism that God employs to prevent plagues, and that is the dispatching of angels to look out after his people.
Kennedy, in contrast, had a life filled with plagues, including a plane crash, a car accident where his passenger was killed, 2 sons with cancer, a bumbling political career and a divorce. These were all plagues that he did not need to suffer if he had walked closer to God.
Verse 14 continues with the mechanism of deliverance, how the love of God causes God to return that by keeping his people from plagues. This is an opposite match to the Kennedy experience.
Verse 15 deals with how God answers those who call on him, how God will deliver and finally honor them. In the case of Kennedy, there was a funeral where God was called on, but where there was little if any answer. The honor afforded Kennedy was the honor before men, not honor before God.
Verse 16 says that one reward for a life of following Jesus is a long life. The reference age was given in the previous Psalm 90, where a standard age range is given, 70 to 80 years. Ted Kennedy's brothers never made it even to this range, so in a sense Kennedy was longer than them. But Kennedy only fell in the higher end of this standard age range, what Psalm 90 indicates is due to strength. Ted Kennedy's age at death of 77 years was not a long life, which would have had to be longer than 80 years to reach the promise given here.
The earlier verses of this Psalm deal generally with how God protects his people. The examples given are particularly political, including gossips and snares, even conspiracies. The 1500 guests represent some of the heaviest conspirators in the country, and Ted Kennedy was obviously surrounded by it. He was not particularly delivered from it.