Hidden Treasures of Psalms 119: Verse 41 - And There's MORE

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Song. It's always so exciting to me when we get to transition from one letter to the next, as we get to enter into a whole new realm. And so very fun. We're going to leave the hey section and today go into the vav section. And the cool thing is that I don't know anybody who couldn't write a vav because it's just a straight line going down.

So, you know, we're just jumped on in here. I think you'll see there's just a mouthful when it comes to this letter. So verse 41 is the first verse in the vav section, which we know would be the wisdom of the vav. And you can clearly see that in this verse as it says, Let thy mercies come also unto me, O Lord, even thy salvation according to thy word.

Just an amazing amount of wisdom there. And you may note, if you want some fun, you can go to the 13th Psalm and look at the second last verse. It has this same concept of mercy and salvation coming together. And the words mercy in Hebrew, you might know, is chesed. It's like at the end of the 23rd Psalm where, you know, surely, you know, goodness and mercy.

Well, that chesed is loving kindness. And so here in this vav, the psalmist is asking for this chesed to come also, which speaks to the vav completely. Okay, because the vav in Hebrew, it means that there's a continuation or the word and is sometimes would be used for the vav. But the idea that I think expresses it better is like one of these commercials where they keep saying and there's more and there's more Johnny and so much more. And that's what the vav really is.

The neat thing about the vav is it makes up the letter ahead, which we'll get to here in a couple weeks. But it is a male energy that is coming straight down and thus a straight line coming down. And it means more. But obviously, a male energy coming down from heaven would be Jesus. Like every letter is Jesus in its own way.

This one is really cool. And it's often explained as Jacob's ladder, that Jacob's ladder was where the angels were ascending and descending on the Lord, as he pointed out. I think it's in John 151. And so the verse all comes together with Jacob's ladder when you think about that, Let thy mercies come also unto me, O Lord, even thy salvation, according to thy word. So in Jacob's case, right, he saw the ladder and he was assured that the Lord was going to be with him.

And he was assured that he was going to be okay through his journey. Yet his name didn't get changed to Israel, which starts with a yud and has that same sort of intel he wrestles with God. So you can kind of see that in his own way that he got Jacob, got the Lord's mercy and loving kindness.

And then came this wrestling match, which kind of changed everything, including his name. The one thing that Jews teach about Jacob I think is so beautiful, or Israel, whatever you want to call his name, is that he is the one patriarch in which all of his children end up in heaven. In other words, they all finished well as they are the 12 tribes as they move forward, that when we are truly, truly blessed by God as Jacob was, then our posterity, our real, and there's more and there's more, right?

Because as you look at the larger story or the great narrative, we are the posterity of obviously those came before us and there's more. And so if we keep the word of God and we ask Jesus into our heart and we're blessed to have children that do that and there's more and there's more and there's more. So as you think about his verse, it is definitely the wisdom of the vav. And the story I'm going to tell today is a little different in that as I studied this verse, I love to watch the Hebrew teaching on Shabbat.org.

And there's a rabbi named Kaplan that is just brilliant and I love, love, love his teaching. And so as he was teaching on this verse, he actually, I think he did over an hour video on it, because he just starts off very humbly, he says, I don't think I understand this verse because to me, the word tender mercy and salvation essentially convey the same thought. So I don't know why he says even I salvation because can anybody out there, and he asked the class, does anybody out there, can they give me an example of loving kindness that doesn't include salvation? In other words, if you help me out, aren't you solving my problem?

And I thought, oh man, I wish I was in the class because I'd be raising my hand and saying, pick me, pick me, pick me. Because I think the perfect example of this that unfortunately the Jews miss out on was Judas, right? He got Jesus' loving kindness.

I mean, he washed his feet there at the Last Supper. In so many different ways, Judas got his loving kindness, but he didn't get salvation, right? And therein lies a big issue, like a lot of us are accepting and loving on his loving kindness, but we have to, to some extent, like Jacob, wrestle with God to some point, to where we actually are born again, where we get the salvation, where we get Yeshua, right? And again, if you go back to the 13th Psalm, which is a beautiful Psalm, it's all this like, how long will you forget me, Lord, forever? And as you go through this Psalm, you can see how he is lamenting his struggles against his enemies, but I love that when it comes to this verse that mentions these concepts together, it says, but I have trusted in the Lord's hesed.

I have trusted in your loving kindness. And in my heart, I will rejoice in your Yeshua. So after all these struggles that King David or the Psalmist is having here, then all of a sudden, he trusts, right, his loving kindness, and then, in his heart, he's going to rejoice in this salvation.

And why? It's because, to an extent, obviously, Christ comes to live in our hearts, and then we're born again, and then we get that Yeshua that we can rejoice with in our hearts. Unfortunately for this poor Jewish rabbi, which I pray about all the time, is that he didn't see his need for Yeshua. He didn't need to see his need for salvation, because he thought he'd kept the law, he'd done all his mitzvahs, and all these things he's done all his life, right? Because, unfortunately, the way that Judaism points them through all their traditions is that they're going to earn their way into heaven.

Well, it don't work that way, right? We have to accept that we need something greater than those sacrifices that the Jews are counting on. We need our actual Yeshua, the one sacrifice that would make us righteous, which this whole psalm speaks to in so many different ways. But one of the things that I think it points out just beautifully is, wow, do you think you need salvation? I know we all want loving kindness.

Who wouldn't want that? But do you need more than that? Do you need salvation? Do you believe that you've done anything that really needs forgiving? Do you believe in your heart that when you get to heaven, he says, what makes you think you can come into my heaven that you know, oh, the only reason I can come into heaven is because Jesus died for me and covered my sin, and that quickened me in righteousness, and that brought rejoicing in my heart. I mean, this verse has everything to do with salvation, and I thought we all got to ask ourselves, even today, do I need your Yeshua, and will I rejoice with that in my heart? Thank you for studying with me today. This is an exciting section of The Vov, because believe me, and there's more, and there's more. Don't miss that it says, bring thy loving kindness also, because he's actually continuing on from the hay section, and of course it continues right on into the Zion, which is going to be so cool. So thank you for studying with me today. Thank you for studying with me today.