As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:
“I
love the Lord, because He heard my voice [and] my prayers.”
I am in the middle of my study of the book of Galatians but
have been away from my Hebrew for too long, so am taking a break and doing this
study back in the OT. I have particularly enjoyed Psalm 116 over the years as I
stumbled around through the book of Psalms and so finally get a chance to
actually study it.
Like everyone else, I suppose, I spend most of my prayer
time telling the Lord all my woes and begging for deliverance. I’m in good
company, of course, as the same is true of the entire book of Psalms. Most of
the Psalms are cries for deliverance in one way or another. That is totally
okay with God, as He knows we are needy people, and He is a saving God. But, on the other hand, in
all His saving, there is a time for His people to pause and thank Him, to
acknowledge that saving grace and His constant faithfulness to in fact deliver
us.
That’s what I like about this verse. Many times, the reason
I’m in the Psalms is because I’m distressed about something and enjoying how
the Psalms so perfectly express my aching heart to the Lord. It is my inspired
book of prayers. But in the middle of my moaning, my eyes fall on this verse
and I’m reminded that, yeah, things can get really bad here, yet my heart
always knows it’s true, “I love the Lord, because He [already has] heard my
voice and my prayers.”
So this is a unique Psalm in that it particularly celebrates
the deliverance that we have already enjoyed. It’s not that the battle is over
but rather pausing in the middle to be thankful. As Jesus said of the ten
lepers in Luke 17, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the
other nine?” This Psalm is in essence saying, I want to be that one who came
back. I want to “come back” and say thank you.
And so we embark on this pleasant journey!
Perhaps the Lord will teach me much about thankfulness. I’m sure I need it!
First of all, the exegesis: the original
language here is quite interesting. This verse is one of those places where the
Hebrew words look “out of order” to our Western minds. It literally reads
something like, “I love…because he heard…the Lord…my voice…my prayers.” What on
earth do you do with that? Some have suggested it should be translated
something like, “I love” or “I am well-pleased, because the Lord heard my voice
and my prayers.” This leaves the word “I love” as an intransitive verb with no
object. This translation is perhaps suggested by the literal word order as it
is. But I don’t agree. First of all, sentence order (subject-verb-object) meant
almost nothing to the ancient mind. Their language gave them considerable
freedom to completely rearrange the words in order to produce other desired
effects, particularly emphasis.
In this case, I think it very interesting
that “the Lord” is the middle Hebrew word in this verse, and the verse is made
up of exactly seven Hebrew words, with exactly three before and three after and
“the Lord” (YHVH) in the middle, and this being the first verse or “heading” of
the entire Psalm. I think, looking at all of this, the writer is artistically
placing the Lord on the throne in the middle, in a sense chiastically “high and
lifted up.” The Lord is very deliberately the focus of the verse, in a way we
simply cannot express in English. As I see this in my mind’s eye it almost
makes me want to take off my shoes!
Another reason I feel free to suggest this
translation is because I cannot find a single instance of this Hebrew word “I
love” occurring without an object. Even in English, the verb “to love” is
almost inherently transitive. Even in English, you cannot say, “I love” without
begging the question, “Who? What?” It simply demands an object. I see no
support for translating it as an intransitive “I am well-pleased” or simply “I
love” and leaving it without an object. Rather, because the Lord is high and
lifted up and the very focal point of the verse, I think it completely
reasonable to see Him as the intended object of the verb. And so I think it
entirely reasonable to offer the translation, “I love the Lord because …”
Then there is an exegetical issue with the
“because.” As I indicated above, the literal Hebrew at this point is something
like “because He heard…my voice…my prayers.” Some suggest this should be
understood as a Hebrew “Construct” relationship, resulting in a translation
something like “because He heard the voice of my prayers”. In Hebrew there is a
particle ahead of “my voice” which flags that word as a direct object, and then
there is no copulative between “my voice” and “my prayers.” Apparently these
are the reasons for suggesting the Construct relationship. My big problem with
this is that I don’t think I have ever anywhere seen a Hebrew Construct expressed
like this. If it were a Construct, I would expect to see the substantive
written something like, “[the] voice of my prayers.” I’ve never seen the pronominal
suffix “my” added to both the Construct and the Absolute. I may of course be
wrong but, based on my current knowledge of the Hebrew language, I simply
cannot accept translating this as a Construct relationship.
So [deep breath], I offer the translation,
“I love
the Lord, because He heard my voice [and] my prayers.”
Exegesis finished, now I can ponder the meaning.
First of all, someone suggested it very mercenary to say I
love the Lord because He hears my
prayers. Mercenary? Oh, come on! Is it mercenary to say, “I love my
parents. They’ve done so much for me”? Is it mercenary to say, “I love my wife.
She’s so good to me”? Love is by its very nature reciprocal. When we say any of
these things, we have no intention of saying this is the only reason I love them, because they’ve done this or that for me. But
love begets love. That’s the beauty of it. Love is inherently and endlessly
reciprocal. “We love Him because He first loved us” …and there is everything
right about that!
Someone pointed out that “voice” represents just our general
communications while the word translated “prayers” has to do with perhaps more
formal and specific requests. I suppose this is possible as prayer certainly
involves both. We’ve all known times like Isaiah described when we could “barely
whisper a prayer” (26:16), when all we could do is weep in the Lord’s presence.
And there are certainly those times when we compose ourselves and actually make
very specific and deliberate requests. It is certainly wonderful, as the Psalmist
says here, that the Lord hears both! We can approach Him in dignity as if
appearing before a King or we can fall in His Fatherly arms as complete
babbling messes. He welcomes us either way.
And does He answer our prayers? My mind instantly remembers “exceedingly
abundantly” and “immeasurably more.” In this regard, I think a bank of years is
to our advantage. My wife and I were just discussing recently how amazing it is
to look back over 30 years and see just how much the Lord has done for us. Way
back thirty years ago He said to us, “Delight thyself in the Lord and He shall
give thee the desires of thine heart.” What’s so amazing is that He’s known “the
desires of our heart” more than us and answered accordingly. In a million
different ways, I didn’t even know what I was praying for but He answered again
and again and again in ways “exceedingly abundantly above anything we could
have asked or thought.”
What a good God He is. What can I say except, “I love the
Lord because He heard my voice and my prayers.” My heart goes on and wants to
ask, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” There you go. Reciprocal.
Love begets love.
This is exactly where I want to be – so enamored
with the Lord’s love I can do nothing else but love Him in return. I confess it
is difficult to keep this mindset. But perhaps that is our very problem.
Perhaps we think we need to “womp up” a love for God, when instead we should be
reminding ourselves of all His goodness and let love beget love.
The thought strikes me that this is one
very important reason why I need to constantly practice thankfulness and
appreciation – because love begets love. When I’m focusing on all the Lord’s
kindness to me, it seems it is almost “easy” to love Him in return. It strikes
me this is true in my human relationships too. If I focus on what someone doesn’t
do for me or on what I perceive to be their hurts against me, it is very
difficult to “womp up” any love for them. As soon as I focus my mind on the
good they do me, then all of sudden I don’t need to “womp.” The love seems
natural.
Hmmmmmmmmmm. This seems really significant
to me. I’ve never seen this before. I know, of course, all that really matters
in life is love. But I’ve never really thought about how the practice of
appreciation actually fuels that love. The failure to appreciate, the failure
to be thankful, to actually say, “Thank you,” the evil of focusing on what I
don’t have or don’t like – all of those things actually rob me of the only
thing that really matters: love. Rather, I need to embrace the reciprocity of
love, choose to think on what good others do to me, refuse to think on the
negative, and let those positive thoughts fuel love in my own heart.
Now that’s cool.
Off to work I go. I’ll see if I can
practice this!
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