Much of these have a "fire and brimstone" tone to them (as mentioned before). For example, in Psalm 18 we analyzed in class, there were a few themes that could represent various ethic issues.
The first involved a spiritual aspect, not really controversial to any ethics, but a good place to start for a psalm. Many people live by spiritual/religious ethics, it's not uncommon.
Then later we move to God's intense action, where there is intense language describing all of that is God's wrath, power and vengeance. This is where it gets to be a problem with a livable ethic. People or followers read this psalm and quiver in fear. This wouldn't be so much an ethic to live by, because this causes discomfort in followers and forces them to do the "right thing".
Then finally, we talk about God's moral oversight or qualifications. This is from a second party viewpoint (using words such as "my", "me" and "I" in this context), showing the brighter side of God, "saving me from my daunting enemies" and other good things.
The author of this psalm could have been bi-polar, talking first about dark, scary things that can happen if you disobey the Lord, and then moving to great things that can occur if you follow the Lord. Ethics to live by? Well, maybe. That was kind of an extreme comparison I just listed for a livable ethic or moral. But many religions like Christianity and Judaism use "tactics" like these listed in the psalms to get followers to do the right thing.
I think the only thing missing may be the "piece of mind" or comfort one would receive from religion.
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