Hidden treasures of the 119th Psalm. So we are going on a treasure hunt and the gold we are seeking in this treasure hunt is actually the face of God.
Pure light. So join us taking this deep dive mining with King David in the 119th Psalm. So how fun today we get to the 8th verse as we talked about as we were mining the 8th verse.
When we just began the whole study that it's really cool that David wrote this as an acrostic for each of the letters, 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And then there are 8 verses in each one. And as we talked about, the number 8, sort of this number 8, is what we call the 8th verse. And then there are 8 verses in each one. And as we talked about, the number 8, sort of this number of infinity, is the idea of you try as hard as you possibly can to do what you need to do to meet God's law and that kind of stuff.
And when you come up short by your faith, right, Jesus is going to push you over the finish line. So we get to go over the finish line for Aleph today on the 8th verse. Wonderful, wonderful verse.
I hardly wait to share all this with you. So the 8th verse reads, I will keep your statutes. Oh, forsake me not utterly is the way that reads in the King James version.
We're going to get into all that. I don't know that I would translate it that way, but that's the way that King James did or the people that did the King James Bible. But meanwhile, I love, love, love how the verse starts. And of course, every one of these verses starts with the letter Aleph.
And this particular verse, since it's the 8th, you know, it's kind of neat as he's going to push us over the finish line. It starts with a word called et in Hebrew, which is an Aleph Tov. And so for me personally, every time I see an et, I think essentially Jesus is wicking at me because Aleph Tov would be the way you would say in Greek, the alpha and the omega. OK, because it's the beginning and the end of the Hebrew alphabet. And it's in some really cool places. And time and time again, every time I see that Aleph Tov, it's like Jesus is winking at me like here I am again.
Not that he isn't in every single letter of the word itself, but it's very, very cool, especially when you do a little study on this word, you're going to find that it's in so many neat places. But we'll just start off with the first one. You're going to find it is in the Genesis one one right in the beginning. God at Aleph Tov, the heavens, and then at the earth. And so right before it says heaven and right before it says earth, there's this word at. And so clearly we know Jesus did. Right.
He created the heavens and the earth. And so but however, if you were to look at this as a Hebrew, they're going to tell you that the word at is not translated in English. You can't translate it. In fact, if you look in a concordance of some kind, you'll see that it says there's no English equivalent because it's essentially from their standpoint, a piece of grammar. That word at is there to tell you that the following word, the word that comes after the at is the object of the verb in the sentence. And so it's they consider it to be a piece of grammar. Of course, the beauty of that from my perspective, and I've heard no one teach on this.
So you're just in there with my muddy boots, looking at it, going that I just think this is absolutely beautiful. Who is always the object of the verb? Well, that would be Jesus. So, you know, when we start off with Aleph Tov, that's certainly the beginning and the end of the Hebrew alphabet. And that's the way this verse starts, which just happens to be we're crossing over the finish line here with this at and the at, which is the verb in the subject. This verb in this particular sentence is right, I will keep or I will guard.
Right. These statutes, which we talked about, were the hardest of the commandments from their standpoint, from the Jews standpoint, in order to keep the ones that are holy, the ones that are so above our intellect that we don't know exactly how to keep them, like the one where Uzzah touched, you know, the Ark of the Covenant and got, you know, killed as, as, as David, you know, clearly is, still, I would say, based on this verse, he's still remembering that incident quite well. So here we just start out with this idea of I will keep these high, hard, you know, difficult statutes. Well, how are we going to do that unless Jesus pushes us over the finish line? In other words, you got this Aleph Tov saying, it's kind of like for me, it's saying, here's how you're going to be able to keep the statue.
This is how you're going to be able to get there. And essentially, it's Jesus, okay. And he's going to push us over the finish line as David knew all well. And then we have the end of this verse, which is very tricky, and a lot of commentators struggle with this, because like, where did this come from? Well, King David had, and the Jews teach this is beautiful, had this concept of Biddle, meaning, you know, to an ascent, he saw to a, to a certain point of view, he saw himself as a worm, as the lowest of low, not unlike Paul, right? It's the same concept of Biddle, meaning that, like, I don't deserve any of this stuff that I'm, I didn't deserve the kingdom. I didn't deserve so many different things that God gave him because, you know, I'm the sinner, which, you know, King David clearly, you know, set up the thing. So Uzzah got killed, and several incidents in the Bible, you can see that David was very open on the fact that he struggled.
Well, so do you, so do I. That's the good news of this verse. And so this last part where it says, Oh, forsake me not utterly, to translate that the way I would translate it for you, just using the Bible to translate it.
The word forsake is the same word that God used in Genesis when he said you will leave your father and mother. In other words, that's leaving. Okay, God's leaving. Not good. God, don't leave me.
All right? And then to add passion to it, he ends the verse with the same word that's there in Deuteronomy 6. We've talked about before, meowed, which means greatly, or in this case, it's translated utterly or with all your all. In other words, he really put some passion behind the fact like, God, don't forsake me with all you got. You know, this this is the end of, you know, love the Lord your God with all your soul and all your heart and all your might is the way that that's translated there.
They're meowed. Well, this is a very passionate word. And so it's fascinating to me that he says, look, I'm going to do it, God. Don't turn your back on me with great, you know, with greatness. And again, that word meowed in the Bible to give you some ideas of where you find that word is when God, you know, made all these different things in Genesis 1. It said and they were very good. Well, that meowed means very good.
OK, the very and very good is the meowed. And then when the waters exceeded on the earth, you know, there's another place that this water is exceeding greatly. Like and here's a picture of what I think David's getting that man. Don't let the waters take me out here, because the word starts with a man and which means Messiah, but it also means living water. And so, you know, King David is clearly at this point in time, he's he's he's come to the height of praise and all the stuff that we've climbed this mountain. But now that he's on top of the mountain, he knows all too well who put him there. He didn't feel like he deserved it, as I'm sure I I don't feel like, you know, if I can get down to my heart to heart, how in the world did I get a chance to see the wonders of this particular psalm, of this particular verse, of the Aleph Tov that's at the beginning of it? I mean, to me, that's just absolutely spectacular. It's like when Jesus came to John right on the Isle of Patmos, he's like, well, I'm the Aleph Tov, you know, you've been wondering what that word meant. But here I am. I mean, it's absolutely a spectacular view of how we can see how we cross the finish line. But we know all too clearly it was Jesus that held us over the basket so that we could. Thanks for digging with me today.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-09-15 03:14:27 / 2023-09-15 03:18:35 / 4
