Lookahead: The question is—can we extrapolate the two respective types of relationships and worship styles of David and Moses…to present day approaches to worship? I believe the answer to this is…Yes and Amen. In 2025, my belief is that there are some people who think that we have to have the right format or formula in order to have a correct worship experience. On the other hand, there are others who are trying to get to know God (His Spirit) better, so they can worship…with/in a genuine, unscripted response as they revel in His Goodness and Grace. (John 4:24 again)

During one of life’s seasons, I attended a Bible Study that met every week in the condominium clubhouse. In the summer, we would see people outside, exuberantly enjoying themselves in the condo complex pool—and occasionally entering the clubhouse to avail themselves of the kitchen amenities, etc.

My thought when I saw these lotion soaked residents sporting swimsuits and tans was, “hmmm…are we seeing a dress code clash here?” I also thought, “Hey, what a great opportunity for us to get a word (God’s Word) in edgewise when the pool people were coming and going.” As a woman entered the clubhouse to use the Ladies Room, I was suddenly eager/expectant because the leader had just selected a psalm to read. So many of David’s psalms are about the deliverance and salvation of God. In this case, NOT. It was Psalm 90 and here’s a sample of what the Pool Lady heard:

For we are consumed by Your anger
and terrified by Your wrath.
You have set our iniquities before You,
our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
For all our days decline in Your fury;
we finish our years with a sigh…
for they quickly pass, and we fly away…
Your wrath matches the fear You are due.

Side Note: Hmmmm I’ll have to do a word analysis, but is this last verse saying, “the more fear that we give You, the more anger from You we get in return?” Probably it’s more along the lines of the NLT translation: (The power of Your anger) is as awesome as the fear You deserve. Regardless, how would that verse be received by someone who just came in out of the heat to “use the loo” and grab a Diet Dr. Pepper? They might feel that they just walked into a whole different kind’a heat? 😊

I was probably the only Bible Study member who had these thoughts, because when I subsequently asked the others, “Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” everyone was mystified. The impact of a strong “fire and brimstone” spin, on what had inadvertently been heard by the Pool Lady, seemed to have been lost on them. I brought up the fact that this was a very atypical psalm—and that David’s style was typically more user-friendly. I had loaned my cell phone to our leader for the teleconference, so couldn’t look up the author of Psalm 90. One member quickly volunteered, “It’s not a psalm; it’s a prayer…by Moses.”

Problem solved!! Moses was the giver of the law so he was all about the law; and I think it would be perfectly appropriate to call him (and Psalm 90) legalistic. This would have been written 1000 years before David was born. So did Moses actually write the first “psalm?”

According to the Google AI Overview:
(Psalm 90) was likely written after Israel refused to enter Canaan, and is different in feel from other psalms. (It) was written before the temple was built in Jerusalem, and before Israel’s kingdom extended from Damascus to Egypt. However, some say that it’s difficult to know for certain which psalm was written first because some psalms are anonymous.

Nevertheless, solving the clubhouse scripture mystery reinforces my scholarly argument that we don’t typically think of David as being legalistic. So many of his psalms are about God’s kindness, faithfulness, and saving/delivering power—characterized and exemplified. When I think of David, I think of someone who seemed to have a phenomenal personal relationship with God. One could say that Moses did as well, but David had the “grace takeaway.” Moses’ takeaway, was different. According to Deuteronomy 7:10, he viewed God as somebody who would requite people instantly if they strayed. In Verse 10, Moses warned the people that if they worshipped other gods, “the LORD’s anger will blaze forth against you.” Therefore, he framed the LORD’s expression of/anger as breaking forth and consuming people, i.e., the vaporizing variety. He also knew from the burning bush and tabernacle experiences, that the God’s fire could be gentle, healing, redeeming. Subsequently, when the fire was not unpleasantly blazing forth, he attributed that to God not being angry. However, I don’t think Moses ever got to David’s level in terms of appreciating/anticipating God’s grace. This was despite the fact that His grace was offered to Moses and the people time after time—as God constantly provided for the most minute needs of the Israelites—and repeatedly forgave their rebellious behavior.

But maybe it took a few centuries for people to get the “trust thing” down. With this new level of trust, David was able to write many of the “glorifying psalms” during the most dire circumstances, for example, on the run from King Saul or Absalom. One of the most worshipful songs that David ever wrote was Psalm 57 which I believe came to him in The Cave of Adullam—where David was hiding to avoid being murderously destroyed by Saul. And we know well that David knew how to encourage himself in the LORD never ceasing to believe that God would deliver him out of any difficult situation (1 Samuel 30:6). He also sensed and believed that the LORD’s spirit was with him. We know this because after the terrible sin with Bathsheba, David prayed, in Psalm 51, that God would not remove His Spirit! So one could say that David was much further along in terms of spiritual development.

And indeed, if we compare these two former shepherds, both of whom had worked third shift surrounded by the night sky and sheep:
– “worship” to Moses meant slaughtering a young bull then watching it be consumed on a fiery altar…
– yet “worship” to David meant playing the lyre while trying to find the words to express the vastness of God and His heavenly design.

The eventual roles of the two shepherds also defined their worship. Moses went from being royalty to the half-hearted leader of sheep, followed by leading two million high-maintenance slaves. Moses’ promotion was subsequently denied due to a lackluster performance evaluation.

Rather than being born into royalty, David was promoted into it. Though the promotion was delayed, David was upwardly mobile from Day One, going from “shepherd boy to king of Israel with an incomparable reign and legacy…(he) went from being a young shepherd in the Valley of Elah to king of everyone; he created the First Capital Jerusalem; he created the House of David. There’s archaeological evidence at 4 or 5 different sites in Israel; there’s a lookout and a palace where the psalms were written… mountains around part of the city…He was very goal oriented. David created the idea of how to do repentance. He embodies the shepherd and the leader, a balance of both.”¹ So maybe God just wanted different breeds, in different seasons, to lead the “Worship Mission.”

Both of the former shepherds had a different God-experience as well. Moses routinely saw God’s unbelievable glory, but he expressed his awe and thanks by essentially getting angry at those who were taking God for granted. David never took God for granted, although he also spent a lot of time petitioning the LORD for help as he complained about his current circumstances. (He also spent some time saying, “Where are You?” and basically trying to manipulate the timeline.) Nevertheless, once God came through, David could not have been more appreciative and thankful and/or hopeful that he would go from Glory to Glory in God.

Both former shepherds recorded major prophetic revelations. Moses wrote about how the people would continue to sin with their rebellion. David wrote about how God was going to send a human solution to the sin problem (even if he didn’t necessarily know what he was writing). And ironically in the end, both former shepherds were prohibited from realizing their full destiny—as I hinted at, Moses’ pride kept him from entering the Promised Land; and David’s violence kept him from fulfilling his dream of building God’s temple. Despite this, they both remained faithful to God—they knew “in Whom they had believed” and understood Who they had worshipped.

Picking up the thread from the last post, we postulated that David was responsible for revealing many of the characteristics of God for the first time—relating to His omniscience, His omnipotence, His everlasting qualities, His goodness, and His love. What was David’s source material for all this? Well, I do not believe that, as could be said of Moses, David had many, many personal encounters with God. Scripture doesn’t indicate any Moses-type manifestations for David. And yet David’s gratitude/trust levels were so much higher. Perhaps it may be true after all that, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.”

The question is: can we extrapolate the two respective types of relationships and worship styles of David and Moses…to present day approaches to worship? I believe the answer to this is…Yes and Amen. In 2025, my belief is that there are some people who think that we have to have the right format or formula in order to have a correct worship experience. On the other hand, there are others who are trying to get to know God (His Spirit) better, so they can worship…with/in a genuine, unscripted response as they revel in His Goodness and Grace. (John 4:24 again)

In the next post, we are going to explore where this—what I will refer to as—latter-case compulsion and motivation to worship à la John 4:24 comes from…and we’ll examine “worship” from the centuries-long historical perspective. Then we’ll try to understand why it has become the centerpiece of so many Christian Church services, and the subject of so many sermons and studies, today.

The underpinning of all this will be God’s will and desire…that we worship Him. After all, whether we choose to worship Him or not, God will be glorified. And, in fact, as C.S. Lewis said, “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”

So then, why is our worship important to God?

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¹https://www.facebook.com/franny.kaplanwaisman/