Beauty Among Ugliness

“Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.” (Ps 68:13 AV)

It is amazing how many different opinions arise from this verse.  However, the majority of sources that I have accumulated seem to agree on the children of Israel, or a certain tribe or tribes are spoken of here.  Some think it is Israel while in Egypt.  Others tend to think it was two tribes who were content to work a common task of tending to sheep rather than help their fellow countrymen take the land of Canaan.  I tend to favor the former because of the tenor of the verse.  I don’t see any rebuke.  Therefore, my understanding here is a promise to the slaves of Egypt as they tended to the kiln pots.  They slopped in the mud and hay, making bricks for a hard taskmaster.  Yet there was a promise.  A promise that one day, they would be cleaned up, and the beauty of their holiness would show forth among the drab surroundings around them.

It is hard to understand the comparison unless one is familiar with doves.  The species of doves found in Israel are called Streptopelia Turtur.  Our midwestern and European doves are rather plain in comparison.  The Jewish dove is exactly as described above.  The chest is a silver brown.  On its neck are three stripes of white accented by black.  The wings are a bronze or gold color accented by black outlines.  It is a beautiful little bird.  Doves are common where I am.  We have mourning doves.  These little birds, compared to the others which may surround them stand out.  We used to have a bird feeder at our former house.  It was common to see dozens if not hundreds of birds around that bird feeder.  Most of them were ugly birds.  Blackbirds and black starlings were the most common. But from time to time, doves would venture in.  What a contrast!  In our verse, the writer is comparing Israel as it worked in the mud.  Mud and the Jewish dove have a bit of the same hues.  However, if that dove is cleaned off, he would really stand out!

We live in a cursed world.  We lay among the pots.  We are in the filth.  It is all around us.  But that does not mean we have to assimilate to it. There is also the future tense of the verse to consider.  The Psalmist tells us we shall be as the Jewish dove.  There is a clean-up process.  The dove that is covered in dust is a dull bird.  Doves do that once in a while.  As all birds do.  Whether it is water or dust, the bird will shake himself with dust or water to rid himself of mites.  A dove often will use the dust of a field as the means to suffocate his mites.  Then he will hit a puddle to wash off the dust and dead mites.  While he is covered in dust, he is pretty much monochrome.  Yet, when that clean water washes away the dirt, he comes forth a beautiful bird indeed.  This is the saint.  We have the filthiness of the world clinging to our souls.  The dirt of this world sullies the glory of God which lies beneath.  A cleansing of the washing of the water of His word can wash it all away.  We don’t have to live in our filth.  We don’t have to wear the filth of the world.  We can be a picture of the glory of God for the world to see and be drawn to Christ who shines forth in our lives.