Nearing the End (3)
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-12 NASB
Cast me away – Broken tablets. That’s the imagery David recalls with the use of the verb salak. Moses sees the sin of the people and throws down the tablets with the handwriting of God. Smashed. Useless. Finished. The commandments destroyed. The instructions gone. The constitution of the nation obliterated. That’s what David sees happening. The prophet comes down and sees the sin of the king. The “tablets” are thrown. The kingdom is smashed. The line is finished. All of the effort, the hope, the waiting—ruined. David is broken.
“Do not cast me away,” he says (‘al taslike). In English we do not distinguish between ‘al and lo. Both are translated “no” or “not.” But there is a difference and the difference is important. For example, lo is used in the Ten Commandments. It is the strong negative, indicating a condition that cannot be changed. “You shall not” has no flexibility. But ‘al is different. ‘al expresses preference, something that might be otherwise, something that could be altered if the subject chooses. David is not asking for God to change the rules of the game. He is not pleading for adultery to be excepted from the code. He is asking, if it is possible, for God to alter the penalty and consequences. “If it is possible” depends on the will of the provider. “If it is possible, do not cast me away.” “If it is possible, do not let me drink this cup.” On one occasion it was possible. On the other it was not. God decides.
So David appeals to God’s mercy, the possibility that God may change His mind. Not that God will change the rules. They are not (lo) flexible. But being cast away, being thrown out because of disobedience—that is possible to change. Mercy overrides consequence. It does not override commandments.
Notice that David does not ask to be excused. He asks not to be dismissed. He knows what he needs and what he needs is the presence of YHVH. Maybe that’s what you and I need—desperately. Maybe what’s missing from the routine of our existence is not more rule-keeping or rule exemptions. Maybe what we need is the presence of YHVH. The word in Hebrew is appropriately Hebraic. It is paneka, literally “your face.”
“Lord, I want to see You. That’s what I need. Just to see Your face turned toward me. Yes, I know I don’t deserve it. Yes, I know that I have sinned. I have abused Your confidence in me. I have ignored my responsibility. I have tread upon Your rules. But now, Lord, now I need to see You. You don’t even have to smile. I don’t expect that. I just need to know that You will still look at me. I want our eyes to meet. Yes, I realize that I will see disappointment, sorrow, maybe even anger. But that is enough, Lord. To live without seeing You, even if it is a moment of condemnation, is torture for me. Please don’t walk away. Please don’t dismiss me without glancing toward me. Please don’t leave me in the dark.”
“If it is possible, just look at me.”
Topical Index: ‘al, lo, no, salak, cast away, throw, paneka, face, Psalm 51:11
I believe the Lord sees us all the time.
The question is, how much time do we look
to see Him?
In David’s case, he knew that God was justified in not seeing him and this was frightening. His appeal was for God to look upon him, just a glance. This is not a generic “seeing” but a specific look. I am with David. I do not deserve even a glance, but please, Lord.
Show me your face Lord , show me your face!
I went through a time when i couldn’t forgive. Because i couldn’t forgive, i believed i couldn’t be heard if i prayed. Because i believed i couldn’t be heard, i didn’t pray.
I felt thrown away. Expendable. Every one wanted me to hurry up and get over it. Move on. Forgive.
I couldn’t. I tried, but it felt fake. I hate fake.
I was cleaning one day and i had a flash of a thought “you are not expendable to me”.
Mercy.
The rules hadn’t changed. I still hadn’t forgiven, still couldn’t even talk about things with out it being a rush of anger and accusation.
But hope had showed up. Just a little, tiny sliver.
When i wake up now i pray, but it’s about what i’m grateful for in my life today, and it’s a question “how may i be a blessing to, you, YHVH”? That might sound really sanctimonious, but it’s a way back home.
THANK YOU! This is quite significant.
These past three entries have been timely for me. Our little assembly meets each erev Shabbat for fellowship and has recently grown to 12 members. My friend has been sharing his understanding and recent thoughts about the temple, the alter, kosher, sacrifice and the Spirit. He has been applying what he reads in the torah about these things and asks the obvious question: if each of us is now a temple of the Holy Spirit, how can we expect the Spirit to dwell within us if we’re defiled? If we’re to witness the power of the Spirit in our lives and in our midst, surely this will require torah observance. And once we are fit for His presence, and the alter is ready within us (Happy Hanukkah btw) isn’t it proper to pray the father reveal what should be offered?
My friend suggests we put our sin up there, our habitual tendancy for crookedness unique to each person, walk-on forsaking whatever you placed there.
Doesn’t sound like a kosher sacrifice to me. Sounds like inward alignment with one’s outward observance. Perhaps it’s me that’s supposed to be on the alter. Maybe by denying my own agenda, I climb on the pyre myself.
There is a theory about relative speech that says we do not hear the negatives and we have been wondering how this fits when we come to the Ten Commandments in our English Bible. My husband and I have been having a conversation about this and found your “Today’s Word” timely. As we all know, some of the Ten Commandments use the word “not” and as we have learned, humans respond better to positive statements like, “Be careful” rather than, “Do not trip over that rock.” What are your thoughts on this? (Are we being Greek?)
I believe (and will some day write about it) that Paul’s “love statement” in 1 Corinthians is really the Ten Commandments in positive form.
We will look forward to some day and may it be soon!!
Certainly God’s commands are a combination of positive and negative statements — but I must question the common assumption that humans really respond better to the positive rather than the negative commands. The first commandment was that Adam eat freely of all the trees in the garden, and that he must not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I wonder if he would have responded better to the “must not” portion, if God had said to be careful around the tree? The command to keep the Sabbath was a positive command, but that doesn’t seem to have generated any better response, even when it was further explained with the negatives, “not to do” any kind of work.
Maybe the problem is with our idea of response. “Responding” implies that we think a reply is indicated, that the commands of YHVH are somehow open to discussion. I don’t think that God gives a directive and then expects me to reason it out (though, that is what the Church seems to have done.) I can attest that for myself, whenever I let MY thoughts or feelings dictate my behavior, my behavior tends toward disobedience. Reasoning, in that sense, has not served me well. I think that obedience or disobedience is a primary choice, not a secondary reaction to either an external or internal stimulus. Of course, often the secondary reactions will lead me to the choice of walking righteously, but I wonder if it isn’t more pleasing to God to simply chose obedience from the start? I was always thankful when my children turned from going their own way and obeyed my directions, but it was more pleasing when they chose to do so from the beginning.
Is that Greek vs. Hebraic thinking? Maybe, I’m certainly no expert in discerning the difference. There are only two things that I know for sure in YHVH’s plan: He lets me choose my path, and He has gone to great pains to help me make the right choice — with both positive and negative commands.
Happy (Gregorian) New Year. We do have a lot to learn about application. 🙂