Psalm 31:23,24–“Exegetical Matters”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³Love the LORD, the all of His loved ones. The LORD guards faithful ones and repays abundantly one doing pride. ²⁴Be strong and He will strengthen your heart, all of ones hoping to the LORD.

I’ve posted several times regarding v23. Now I want to move on to v24, however, I think the two need to be kept together as they together form the conclusion to the whole Psalm.

First the exegetical matters: This is another verse (24) where translations will vary. Some will say “Be strong and take heart…” Others will say something like, “Be strong and He will strengthen your heart…” In the first, essentially we do it all. In the second, we make an effort and are assured He’ll complete it.

This is a case where I don’t see the basis for the “Be strong and take heart” translation. With all due respect to the translators who are far greater Hebrew scholars than I’ll ever be, I just don’t see whatever it is they’re seeing. The first verb “Be strong” is, as all agree, a masculine plural imperative. “Be strong” is a very good translation.

But the second is a 3^rd person verb, which would naturally be translated “He will strengthen” or “It will strengthen.” The 3^rd person verb begs the question, “Who?” “Who or what will strengthen?” Then the next thing I note is that the word translated “Your heart” is preceded by a direct object marker. In other words, whatever we do with the 3^rd person verb, its object is the heart. To then translate it, “He will strengthen your heart” is so natural, I would think it would be first choice on all accounts.

It seems to me that, in order to render it, “Be strong and take heart” requires some form of grammatical torture of the 3^rd person verb and its object. Once again, I acknowledge that the people coming up with this other translation are way more capable than me; however, until someone explains whatever it is I’m not seeing, I’ll stick with what I perceive to be the most natural translation, which in this case is, “Be strong and He will strengthen your heart.”

One interesting twist is that the words “your heart” are actually “your (pl.) heart (sing.). That is odd to me. Obviously, from the first word, “Be strong” being a masculine plural, you would think everything that follows would be plural. You’d think it would read, “[All of you] Be strong and He will strengthen your hearts.” Why would it be a 2^nd person plural possessive pronoun with a singular noun? That doesn’t really make sense to me.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that what we’re reading is poetry. Even in English, we’ll sometimes sacrifice perfect grammar to keep up a cadence or rhyme.

Or we could consider, it’s almost like he’s saying to the Israelite believers as a group, “Be strong, and He will strengthen your [collective] heart” – the heart of your nation. Certainly, with his radio broadcasts, Winston Churchill strengthened the collective national heart of England’s people; and no doubt it is true that FDR did the same for America with his “Fireside Chats” through the Depression. So, it can be done. I’m just not sure that is what is going on here. I suppose in the end it doesn’t really make any difference. I just want to be sure I’ve pondered irregularities like this and not just rushed by. Sometimes they can be significant. Maybe David, being a king, is, in his own heart, writing to the Israelites as a people. Hmmmmm?

Finally, I would like to record an observation from the last half of the verse, the words variously translated, “You who hope in the Lord,” “You who wait for the Lord,” or perhaps, “You who trust in the Lord.” Is it “hope” or “wait” or “trust?” The answer is “Yes.” The Hebrew word is a masculine plural participle of a root that would transliterate as something like “yaqal.” Yaqal is a word that paints a picture of a person who is confidently expecting something to happen, confidently waiting, basing his current behavior on the assured hope that it will in fact come to pass, like a child looking forward to Christmas morning.

In English, since we are obsessed with technical precision, we would insist that “waiting,” “hoping, “ and “trusting” are three different things, and I suppose they are; but in a Hebrew picture-painting language they really aren’t. As usual, the Hebrew words don’t mean anything different than their English translations – just so much more. I suppose, in order to be the most accurate, we’d have to translate it, “Ones waiting and hoping and trusting” in the Lord. Of course to do that in every case would turn our English Bibles into a five-volume set, so we just have to pick one of these English words and understand the others go with it.

In the end, we get a verse that follows “Love the Lord,” with something like, “Be strong and He will strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord.”

 

Psalm 31:23 – “Yes”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³Love the LORD, the all of His loved ones. The LORD guards faithful ones and repays abundantly one doing pride.

As I said earlier, I’ve enjoyed this Psalm so much, I’m loathe to leave it; so I’m dragging my feet. Actually there are a few more thoughts from my study which I’d like to post anyway, so ...

I’ve translated above, “Love the LORD, the all of His loved ones.” My “His loved ones” gets translated in many ways, such as “His saints,” “His faithful people,” “His godly ones,” “His righteous ones,” “His merciful ones,” etc., etc. 

I suspect the problem is no one really knows for sure what David meant. The Hebrew word would be transliterated something like “hasadim,” which is the name of the ultra-orthodox Jewish people today. I think today, if someone asked of that group, “But what does ‘Hasadim’ mean?” they’d get the same answer, “Well …” It basically ends up just meaning “followers.”

For me, the thing is that the basic meaning of the word “hesed” is love, which is why I translated it “loved ones.” Unfortunately, even that is debated. There was quite a movement in the 20^th century to play down the idea that the word means love. For the sake of brevity, I’ll just say I found their arguments unconvincing. It means “love” and so I’ve translated “hasadim” as “loved ones.” But, having done that, I acknowledge it could, even by David’s time, have become just a general designation for followers of the Lord. So, we’ll just leave it lie. One way or another, it’s simply referring to God’s people.

And then we notice what David refers to, which he thinks calls forth this love to the Lord. It is the plain simple fact that He guards the faithful ones and pays back the proud one in full. We believers enjoy the enviable privilege of knowing all day every day our Lord is “guarding” us. It’s back to His “hedge” about us. David started the Psalm saying, “In You I have taken refuge.” As I have often lamented, this world is a very scary place and certainly we believers are not immune to its endless cruelties. We do pass through the fires. We get hurt; we get sick; we slip and fall and break our arms; we get cancer and die; we get robbed; we may be bereaved of children; we may or may not suffer every misery in the book – to which David referred in vv. 9-13 – but, as he concluded then in v.14, “But I trust in You …”

The simple, wonderful fact is that I live “guarded.” It seems like I’ve spent my life learning to trust His promise, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Of course if I was graded on my success, I’d no doubt get F’s all along the way, but I can say it has been wonderful always having promises like that to fall back on. I think I can honestly say it has been a pleasure struggling to believe that promise, to look above my miseries, and then always, always, always, always finding Him faithful to me. While I got F’s, He always got an A+. He has been gloriously good to this undeserving, struggling sinner! I agree with David – just to sit and ponder it all moves my heart to love Him more!

… And it is also true that He pays back the proud one in full. As we observed back in vv. 17,18, I’ve lived long enough and enjoyed grace long enough so that what I really want is for everyone in the whole world to be saved. I can honestly say from my heart I wish the love of Jesus on everyone everywhere, even the cruelest and the most despicable. But. For those who will not and who go on being wicked, calling good evil and evil good, lying and stealing and killing (and running for office to do it more), I’m sorry to have to say it, but I’m glad the Lord knows who they are.

And I’m glad He does pay them back in full. I wish they could know mercy, but if they simply will not, then I’m glad they’ll face His justice. It’s interesting that in Hebrew it is singular, “the proud one.” The Lord knows their name. He see them very specifically. They may (and do) form a great crowd, but the Lord sees and notes every single one of them, and, although they sometimes seem to be the richest, the most beautiful, the most famous, the most powerful, it is a comfort to us suffering ones that they will get their due. They will be “put to shame.” They will “lie silent in the grave.” Their lying lips will “be silenced.” Praise God.

Good is good and evil is evil. The world may not see it but our Lord does. For us and our evils, there is mercy and grace. For them and theirs, there will be justice. In this world, it’s easy to look around and say, “It just isn’t fair” – and it’s not. But it will be. It will be because our wonderful Lord is quite on His throne. When Jesus returns, a “sharp sword shall go forth from His mouth, with which to slay the wicked.” We poor stumbling believers will hear Him say, “Enter into the joy of your Lord.” There are sheep and there are goats and our Lord very specifically knows which is which.

I’m glad we’ll have all eternity to praise Him. He’ll deserve every minute of it.

Yes.

May He help us today to be constantly remembering that great goodness and do what David says, “Love Him.”

Psalm 31:23 – “Why Not?”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³Love the LORD, the all of His loved ones. The LORD guards faithful ones and repays abundantly one doing pride.

In the last post, I pondered the one thing that amazes me most about this verse – that the right response to all the Lord is and does is simply to love Him.

What I want to ponder a while this time is the question, “Why not?” As we’re talking about it, it would seem the simplest thing in the whole world would be to love God. So why does David think he needs to urge us to? Why wouldn’t I (we) love Him?

The first answer that comes to my mind would be, because we love something else. Martha loved to be busy. The Pharisees loved all their rules. The rich fool loved his wealth. Solomon loved “many women.” John Calvin once said, “The human heart is a factory of idols.” We are all naturally drawn to love all kinds of things rather than God – or should we say, in place of God.

As I ponder, I suppose that is part of the problem – that we deceive ourselves into thinking, “It’s not that I don’t love God, I just love …” We imagine in our hearts that we can love both God and money (or whatever).

 What’s important, of course, is that we do love Him.

Here’s another thought – we could sit around and beat ourselves up about what it is we really love instead of God. But I wonder if that’s really the best way forward? It seems like to me that my love for God grows in every way I get to know Him better. Just studying through this Psalm, I feel like has deepened my love for God. Even as I’m pondering these things, I tend to think somehow I need to look “deep in my heart” and discover my problems so I can repent of them – but that immediately just seems like a dark, cold, hopeless business. It is so much more encouraging just to look back through this Psalm, to see the Lord Himself in all His amazing love, and just let that fill my mind.

In my own life, it seems like the more I simply seek the Lord, the more I try to see His face, the less grip my sins seem to have on me. Even in the verse before us, He doesn’t say to us, “Love the Lord – instead of all your other lusts.” He says “Love the Lord,” and then reminds us who He is: “He guards the faithful and pays back the proud in full.” He’s a good God.

We do need to be aware that our evil hearts are drawn after everything else – as John says, “The lust of our flesh and the lust of our eyes and the pride of life” – our love of pleasures and possessions and applause. But I would suggest from my own life, we don’t conquer those things by setting about to conquer them. We conquer them because Jesus fills our heart and simply makes them less important to us. We conquer them by doing exactly what our verse encourages us to do: “Love the Lord.”

He is amazing. He Himself is the answer!

We’re right back where this whole Psalm started: “In You …”

Psalm 31:23 – “The Right Response”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³Love the LORD, the all of His loved ones. The LORD guards faithful ones and repays abundantly one doing pride.

Verses 23 & 24 wrap up this glorious Psalm and, since I’m loathe to leave it, I’ll just park on verse 23, then move on to 24! What a blessed journey this has been. I said at the beginning that for me, there is nothing like the Psalms.

In the Psalms, in particular, it seems to me, we meet the Lord in all the greatness of His glory. In a sense, the Psalms leave behind even thoughts of my own duties and obligations and it seems here we truly see His face. To see Him is to be changed. To see His greatness raises my meager faith. It opens my blind eyes. Seeing Him makes me want to serve Him better … and it just seems to me there is no other book of the Bible where we see Him so clearly as we do in the Psalms.

This Psalm has certainly been no disappointment. I love again that the entire thing starts with the words, “In You …” “In You” – that’s where everything starts! That’s where everything is and ought to be. That’s where His people long to dwell – in the secret of His Presence – all day every day, in everything we do, everywhere we go, very consciously depending on Him for our strength and wisdom and for the power to love. And, speaking of love, that is where our verse 23 begins.

Think about it this way: As David wraps up this Psalm, what should he say to pull it all together? For ourselves, having read verses 1-22, and as we would rise from our desk and go out to live, how should we be different? What would be the very best way to apply all this glorious truth from verses 1-22? What does it say now in verse 23? “Love the Lord.”

“Love the Lord, all you His saints.”

There you go.

Isn’t that awesome? Notice, He doesn’t say, “Get out there and do a bang-up job serving Him!” It doesn’t even say, “Repent of your sins!” It doesn’t say a hundred thousand other things that we might have assumed that it would or should. It says, “Love the Lord.” That is what the Lord Himself wants from you and me.

Someone may object, “But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom!” – to which I will reply, “Yes, it is – but it is only the beginning. The end of wisdom is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” If you seek the Lord for no other reason than that you fear hell, good for you. But when you find Him (or rather, you discover He’s found you), you’ll find yourself drawn into a love that goes far beyond your wildest imaginations – immeasurably more than you could have ever asked or thought.

To know the Lord is to know love. He is love. Again, we and the whole world have innumerable ideas of “what He wants from us.” But what does He say? “Love the Lord.” Mary got it right. Martha didn’t. Mary understood to know the Lord is not first and foremost to be drawn into His service. It is to be drawn into His love!

I would very much like to discuss how knowing His love is the well of grace that enables you and me to learn to love others. But I’d rather leave this post simply enjoying knowing that the very relationship that He calls me to, the response that He wants from me, the very life He wants me to live, is to love Him – to enter into a very personal, very real love relationship with my Father God. And, can I say, knowing Jesus, that doesn’t come as a surprise – or shouldn’t.

No wonder Paul wrote in Gal 2:20:

“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Love the Lord, all His people!