Psalm 116: 1-4 – “Then …”

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

¹I love the Lord, because He heard my voice [and] my prayers. ²Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call. ³The cords of death encompassed me and the terrors of Sheol found me. I found distress and sorrow. ⁴Then I called in the name of the Lord, “I beg, O Lord, deliver my soul!”

In verse 3, the psalmist gives some idea of what has moved him to the expressions of thankfulness and love in verses 1 and 2.

What is noteworthy in Hebrew is the intensity of the language here. Interestingly, the words themselves admit of a variety of translations, which explains what appears to be significant differences in various Bible versions, for instance:

“The ropes of death became tangled around me. The horrors of the grave took hold of me. I experienced pain and agony” (God’s Word Translation).

“The sorrows of death have encompassed me: and the perils of hell have found me. I met with trouble and sorrow” (Douay-Rheims Bible).

“Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave overtook me. I saw only trouble and sorrow” (New Living Translation).

“The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow” (NIV).

What all the versions share, however, and what is important is the picture being painted: deep misery! “The cords of death encompassed me!”

I don’t think any of us have a problem relating to the psalmist’s lamentable estate here. Sometimes it feels like this is where I live. “The terrors of Sheol found me … and I found distress and sorrow!” Trouble seems to hunt me until it finds me and although I certainly am not looking for it, I find it anyway. I’m reminded of Psalm 143:3, “The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in the darkness like those long dead.”  

The picture being painted (and with which we are all too familiar) is that of finding ourselves not just inconvenienced, not just in unpleasant circumstances, but rather in situations where we feel like we’re going to die! Whatever it is, it hurts to the very depths of our soul. And not only does it hurt but it is utterly beyond us. As David said in Psalm 142:6, “I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me.”  I can’t do this. I can’t take this. I see no way out. It is all utterly beyond me.

What on earth are we to do in such straits?

“Then I called on the name of the Lord.”

Matthew Henry said, “We have many reasons for loving the Lord, but are most affected by His loving-kindness when relieved out of deep distress.” What can we say? So many times He has done exactly that – relieved us “out of deep distress.”

I’m also reminded of Psalm 107:10-13, which says, “Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness, prisoners suffering in iron chains, … they stumbled, and there was no one to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress.”

^“Then I called on the name of the Lord.” What a simple thing to do. And what a privilege.

What a day it will be to finally meet face to face with this One to whom we have so often cried in distress, this One who so many times “answered by setting us free!”

Psalm 116: 1,2 – “Again and Again”

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

“¹I love the Lord, because He heard my voice [and] my prayers. ²Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”

After studying verse 1, I am really enjoying practicing thankfulness and letting it feed love in my heart. We know from Galatians that a fruit of the Spirit is love – which means that love will grow where He is present. We don’t have to know ahead of time “how.” We just know it will. And here’s another place where I see it happen in my own life. I’m just studying the Bible and all of a sudden in one little verse of seven (Hebrew) words, He shows me a “secret.” He shows me that as I choose to think thankful thoughts, I actually become more loving. That is so awesome and liberating. Words fail me to express the wonder of it all. It just makes me want to study more. The Word of God is alive and powerful. It’s not just dead words on paper. It’s as if it lays there and breathes with life. As I touch it, it infuses me with hope. It changes me for the better. It shows me the way that I cannot see. Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light! My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose went forth and followed Thee! Amazing Love, How can it be? What can I render unto the Lord for all His goodness to me? As I said, it just makes me want to study more … which brings us to verse two:

“Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”

Where do we begin? After more than thirty years of answered prayers, what do I want to do?

Pray more.

And that’s how it should be. All that matters is to know God. And to know Him at all is to want to know Him better. We come to Him blind and deaf and crippled and rotting in the leprosy of our own sinful self-destruction. We come to Him barely even comprehending at all Who He is. We only know we need … and something awakens in our heart to know it’s Him, whatever that means. We crack the door of our burdened, broken hearts with our feeble, fumbling, moaning prayers and even a single ray of His light suddenly infuses in us hope. I’m alive again! And every little glimpse of His beautiful face only makes us hunger for more. The more we know, the more we want to know. He is altogether lovely. As Jeremy Camp sings, “You can have all this world, Just give me Jesus.”

“Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”

What a wonder it is. The Almighty stoops to hear this beggar’s whimpering whispers. The Almighty cares. The Almighty cares about me. In our lives, other people quickly tire of our neediness. But not our Lord. He is saving God. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” He doesn’t save us because we need to be saved. He saves us because He is a saving God. That’s Who He is. He doesn’t say “Come in your best clothes.” He just says, “Come.”

And so we bring our neediness to the throne of Grace and find that we “obtain mercy and grace to help in our time of need.”

What a wonder it all is. It’s inexpressible.

What ‘s also a wonder is how even after all of this, after over thirty years of the wonder of Who He is, after over thirty years of amazing answered prayers, my evil heart still stands in the path and whispers in my ear, “It’s no use to pray. It won’t do any good.”

“Evil” isn’t a bad enough word.

No. A thousand times no.

“Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”

Rise up, my heart, and call on Him who is your hope! And do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day.

Psalm 116: 1 – “Reciprocity and Thankfulness”

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!

Galatians 5:24-26 – “Putting It Together”

Once again, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²⁴Now, those of Christ crucify the flesh together with its passions and lusts. ²⁵If we are living by [the] Spirit, by [the] Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives]. ²⁶Let us not be becoming conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.

As I look at these three verses, I think I have to understand them together, as a logical progression of thoughts. That might not be the case, I suppose. One could maintain that they’re three independent (though intimately related) assertions; but it makes sense to me to take them together. In verse 24 we’re dying; in verse 25 we’re living. In verse 24 it’s our passions and lusts that drive us; in verse 25, it’s the Spirit. Then verse 26 would be like a practical outcome of it all(?). Makes sense to me, so that is how I’ll proceed. (Just trying to be honest with myself and acknowledge the exegetical choices I’m making).

As I noted in the last post, in verse 24, it is true of Christ-followers that they characteristically “crucify the flesh” – they realize their real problem is their own rotten heart and the evil passions and desires it produces. In a very real sense I must constantly kill me. v25 then addresses the natural question, “But then how am I to live?” If me dies, what is left? As Paul said earlier, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me” (2:20). As Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die …” (John 11:25). This is one of the cool paradoxes of faith – in dying, we live. God literally warned Adam of sin, “In dying you shall die,” yet now in Christ, in dying we live.

I kill me, yet I live. And though me dies, notice that it is clearly me that lives. It is true that “Christ lives in me” and it is true here in verse 25 that I live “by the Spirit,” yet it is still me. I live. This is totally a God-thing. In dying to me, what I lose is my evil heart. What God gives back to me is me, only with the Holy Spirit present, not to somehow suppress me, but rather to allow me to be the me I was made to be – a me, with all my same aptitudes, same talents and abilities, the same me I saw in the mirror yesterday – yet now with the freedom to be all of those things without self-destructing and ruining everything that matters to me. Is this not the very hope of Heaven itself? I want to live. Yet I cannot go on living the way I am. Something is horribly wrong. In Heaven it will all be fixed. My evil heart will be gone forever. I will get to live, to enjoy God and all my friends without that evil me always ruining everything!

But the good news here in these verses is that it doesn’t wait until Heaven; it starts now. Oh, it works imperfectly here; it has to be a faith thing here, a learning thing here; but it does start here. We actually can “crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts” (kill our rotten selves) and we can “live by the Spirit” (live, in our relationships, love and joy and peace). Is that hope or what?? To keep this all in context, I need to insert here once again that this is not a law thing. That is the whole point of this whole book. The believer’s hope is not new and better rules, it is a new heart. For now, it is my same old rotten heart, but the third Person of the Trinity has taken up residence there and offers to be my spirit, to be in me a holy spirit, to make my desires and passions the right ones – to effectively give me a new heart!

That is all the hope of it all. Back to our passage, Paul then says to us, “If we are living by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives].” It is all possible. It can happen. But it is something we must be constantly choosing. Because the Spirit indwells us, we are living. Yet we must consciously be allowing Him to guide us, by Him to be “ordering [our lives].”

(I acknowledge here that the “ordering [our lives]” is an awkward translation but this is another place where I don’t quite know how to express the Greek. All there is here is a verb. It has no object, which is why the “our lives” is in brackets – I’m inserting the “our lives” just to try to make it make sense. The Greek verb itself means properly “to advance in a line” or metaphorically, “to frame one’s conduct.” It basically refers to the business of ordering our lives, so that is what I’m trying to bring out. I get the point; I just don’t know how to say that in English without adding a lot of words).

An exegetical note, for whatever it’s worth, is that the structure of verse 25 is chiastic. The “by the Spirit” is in fact, in the Greek repeated right next to each other. I tried to retain that structure in my translation, “If we are living by [the] Spirit, by [the] Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives].

He concludes with the practical implications of these choices. If I don’t order my life by the Spirit, what will happen? Interesting there are two basic consequences, pride and broken relationships: “Let us not be becoming conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.” “Conceited” probably isn’t the best translation, but once again, I’m at a loss for a better English word. The word literally means “empty glory ones.” I think the old English word was “vainglorious.” That is actually a very good literal translation, but we don’t use that term in modern English. You could also go with “boastful,” but my problem with conceited or boastful is that when you use those words there is the implication there may be truth to it. A guy might be boasting about something he really did do. The word here again is literally “empty glory ones” so I rather suspect it has more to do with our delusions of grandeur, our imagining ourselves better than others. Either way, what it comes down to is pride. It is us, like the devil, always trying to “exalt our throne above the stars of God.” It is the ridiculous childish fetish of always wanting others to like us, to be impressed with us, to realize that I truly am God’s gift to humanity.

I have lamented for years that the sin of pride seems to me like my skin. It’s so much a part of the very fabric of who I am, I almost cannot escape from it. It is really hopeful to me to realize that the indwelling Holy Spirit is actually there to deliver me from it. That is what it’s going to take – the third Person of the Trinity!

And so, as we would “by the Spirit order our lives” He will first of all be helping us not to be falling in pride. Then He will help us not to be self-destructing our relationships, not to be “provoking one another and envying one another.” Pride is such an evil monster. When it is controlling me (unfortunately my natural bent), I say things that provoke or goad other people, though I may not even realize it. I think it is true of each of us that we are all too aware when someone thinks they’re better than us, when what they’re saying is “putting us down,” when they’re being boastful or conceited, and we don’t like it. It wounds our pride to sense their pride. And so, when we’re doing that, even as we speak we are self-destructing the relationship. Also, as we interact with those people, because we’re proud, it really goads us if we think they have more than us. That is the “envying” part. I understand that, in the Greek word translated “envying,” there is even an aggressive sense. It is apparently not just that it goads us that they have more than us, but there is some kind of determination to “get it” from them! Very ugly stuff. But unfortunately that is the very evil that destroys our lives.

No doubt, if the Galatians were embracing legalism, that is exactly what would have been happening in their church. Where there had been love and joy and peace, suddenly there is strife. Suddenly it would seem that everything anyone says provokes and irritates others and animosity hangs in the air. When that is true, everyone may wonder, “What’s wrong? What’s gone wrong?” Paul is here succinctly diagnosing the problem. It is none of the things you might think. It is a plain, simple problem of flesh vs. Spirit. When animosity hangs in the air, it is a sure sign we are not crucifying our flesh and “by the Spirit” ordering our lives. Whatever we may think the problem is, we as believers need to go one step deeper and realize the real problem is going on in the throne room of my heart. “Desires and passions” have usurped the throne. The only “answer” that will really work is to crucify them and let the Holy Spirit resume His rightful reign. Only then will we once again enjoy in our relationships love and joy and peace. Only when we are in fact “putting it together” God’s way can we hope for the life our hearts so deeply desire.

Love. Real relationships. I hope I never get over the wonder that this is what the Lord desires for us. People think religion is about rules. That so absolutely totally completely misses the whole point of it all. “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” The closer I get to God, the more I understand the heart of Jesus, the more I allow His blessed Holy Spirit to reign in my heart, the more he helps me to treasure other people. The OT closes with the words, “…and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and children to their fathers.” Real religion means real relationships, “that it might go well with you and with your children forever.”

What an awesome God He is. Oh that we could see all day every day that all He wants for us is to bless us. If only my heart could live uninterrupted singing, “Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way. Hold o’er my being absolute sway.” Love and joy and peace await us!

This brings me to the end of Galatians chapter 5. I am so looking forward to studying chapter 6. Right now, as I read it, it almost seems like an arbitrary bunch of verses all thrown together. It will be really fun to study it and see how much that is not true. I rather expect to find it a very natural, logical, and enormously helpful application of everything Paul has taught in the first five chapters. However, I think it will have to wait a bit. I feel like I have been too long away from my Hebrew, so I need to go back and study for a while in the Old Testament. Not sure what I will do, just know that whatever it is, I will meet an awesome God. “For this is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou has sent.”

²⁴Now, those of Christ crucify the flesh together with its passions and lusts. ²⁵If we are living by [the] Spirit, by [the] Spirit let us also be ordering [our lives]. ²⁶Let us not be becoming conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.