The Law of Grace
If Your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have revived me. Psalm 119:92-93 NASB
Affliction – Does this verse as it is translated make any sense? How can delight in Torah rescue someone from death due to affliction? Did Torah keep people alive when the oppressing armies invaded? Did it spare the innocent and the righteous from torture and crucifixion? The obvious answer is, “No.” There must be something wrong with the way this verse is translated. Even David knew Torah wouldn’t save him from the arrows of his enemies.
The problem is the word beonyi. It is the preposition be, the noun ‘oni and the possessive contracted suffix i (for ani). “from ‘oni my.” But what does oni mean? It is a derivative of ‘ana, the third root of this spelling. The root means, “afflict, oppress, humble.” The noun, ‘oni, means, “poverty, affliction.” According to TWOT, “This word expresses the state of pain or punishment resulting from affliction.”[1] But context suggests something else for this verse. “The primary meaning of ʿānâ III is ‘to force,’ or ‘to try to force submission,’ and ‘to punish or inflict pain upon.’”[2] What circumstances of forced submission or pain are relieved by delight in Torah? I suggest it is not the outward hand of the enemy. It is the inward agony of death by addiction.
It’s true that sometimes YHVH does rescue His people from the enemy’s arrows, but that doesn’t seem to be a result of Torah obedience. In fact, in most biblical cases, YHVH rescues in spite of Torah disobedience. He rescues because He is compassionate and He honors His covenant. Those who delight in His Torah are not magically exempt from trials and tribulations. But they are exempt from another kind of oppression—the oppressive power of addiction. To paraphrase Gerald May, “[Addiction], then, is not just ignorance or moral straying, but a kind of bondage or slavery from which one must be delivered into freedom. Freedom is possible through a mysterious, incarnational synthesis of human intention and divine grace. . . In this radical forgiveness, it is even possible to be freed of attachment to one’s own guilt for or justification of the wounds one has inflicted upon others.”[3]
What if we read this verse, “then I would have perished in my addiction?” Isn’t addiction an oppressive power that attempts to force submission to its desires? Isn’t it humiliation? A form of poverty? Doesn’t it bring death? And how is Torah related to this kind of ‘oni? Doesn’t Torah provide a way of life free from the destructive power of the yetzer ha’ra? Isn’t the purpose of Torah to align our behavior with the way we were designed to be—free to love God and each other, free from self-absorption, free from the constant need to block out emotional wounds?
David knows addiction. He didn’t require Bathsheba to share his bed on a whim. He didn’t conspire to cover up his adultery in a momentary relapse. David was a man of intensity; an intensity that stood before Goliath and an intensity that sat before Nathan. David was a man of passion—but passion is a double-edged sword. Without the instructions of Torah, without the rescue of righteous living, passion and intensity can become the fuel for desire. And Aristotle noted, “It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most human beings live only for the gratification of it.”
Passion and intensity are essential elements of true human being. Life is not supposed to be boring! But there is only one continuously unsatisfied desire that brings unfettered freedom and fully-formed life. That is the desire for God. Every other human desire will ultimately be attached to some object or person and will fail to satisfy. Every other human desire will lead to frustrated gratification and become the rationalization for addiction. How, then, will we move into the continuous pursuit of the one and only intentionally unsatisfied desire? We pursue God through the path He provides—through Torah. We become human by doing what is divine.
And we are saved in the process.
Topical Index: affliction, addiction, ‘oni, desire, Torah, Psalm 119:92-93
[1] Coppes, L. J. (1999). 1652 עָנָה. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (684). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gerald May, Addiction & Grace, p. 114.
This is very deep and very good for me, Skip. I sat in my ashes and had decades to ponder exactly WHY things were so awful, and what it was going to take to change them. I found this poem very young in life, and decided it was a major clue, somehow, and hung onto it for dear life. I still think it is.
To Althea, From Prison
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.”
I wanted that inner strength; that sense of my identity that no one could take. If you read the rest of the poem, you find that the author found that freedom in spite of cages, and in the entangling arms of a lover. Freedom is not freedom FROM engagement, it is freedom that finds itself in the middle of immersion in a larger reality – the reality of the Other. What do I need freeing FROM, then? Myself. The poet finds that freedom, specifically, in the arms of the lover, and in the midst of singing the praises of the King. In those places, you lose yourself.
I woke up this morning thinking that the limitations on my life – the real shackles I struggle with inside, were all placed by me. I am the one who makes the ‘rules’ that supposedly are going to keep me ‘safe’, and only I can change them. When I make the decision to place the responsibility for my safety (salvation) only in the hands of the Saviour, then my light can “break forth as the morning” and my health can “spring forth speedily”. Addictions, incidentally, are all places where I have chosen to place my sense of safety somewhere else.
Facing the Throne is always going to be the place where I perceive the greatest risk, but all other places that promise safety are going to be places that lie. To face the risk that love is always going to present to us – us who are suffering most of all from believing so many lies about that love – will coincidentally shrink all other risk by comparison. This action is what provides the courage that allows the one who loves to do so in the face of all other perceived danger – danger that would otherwise freeze them and scare them into a corner. To find that place of love, then, and stay there, is the only place where we are free from all other fear, and the only place from which the lies and illusions of the world appear in their true form. I cannot be lied to when I am in the place where I can see the truth. I believe David, incidentally, was addicted to the love of women because he still believed that it was a source of true love, and therefore the ‘rules’ could start there, but that belief was what got him in trouble. There is only One Source.
We fear the truth most of all, for we believe (rightly) that it will implicate us. Addictions show up in those places for we will use anything for cover from that truth. The suffering of life is there to show me that there is no safety anywhere else. When I learn that lesson, the suffering has accomplished its purpose. Saul was informed that he was the one kicking those pricks. The truth starts there.
Thanks. As always, straightforward.
Sorrow and suffering follows sin as surely as night follows day. No man (no, not one) sins against God with impunity. The wages of sin for any man and every man is death. Sin separates and divides families and friends.
The sin-sick world we live in can and will “drag us down..” – for the children of God have three enemies- “sin,self and Satan.” Satan and sin have been defeated. “Self” is the final frontier, the one remaining enemy yet to be conquered. “For I know that me, that is, in my flesh, is no good thing.” Paul, Pogo and I share the same problem: “we have met the enemy and he is us!”
How do we know these things? “It is written.” “I had not known sin except by the Law.” God says “don’t, and? I did. God says “do” and? I didn’t. “For the commandment is a lamp; and the Law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” The “quality” of our listening is directly proportional to the”quality” of our life. “if any man have ears to hear, – let him hear.”
Yes, George. “If only I’d have listened, I wouldn’t be here today. Living and dying by the choices I’ve made.” Why do we not willingly choose to obey God and listen to what He would have us do?
Trust and obey. For there’s no other way. To be happy in Jesus, we must trust and obey. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
Savior, like a Shepherd, lead us. Deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever.. Amen.
Dear Carl,
While I agree that the text demonstrates a clear line from sin/death to forgiveness/salvation, I often find that platitudes of Church-ese do not have the ring of real life struggles and victories. Perhaps we have just heard it preached so much, and experienced so much hypocrisy that the words remain flat and ineffectual. Yes, we agree, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Too many sermons. Too little vulnerability.
Meanwhle, back in the “real world?” Lol. Yes, brother Skip, I almost overlooked that most wonderful word in the title, “grace!” And He said, (to me, also) “My grace is sufficient for you!” Sufficient? Or Abundant? Lol. We report, – you decide.. “The joy of the LORD is our strength..”
One can only decide if he trusts the report, right?
“The sins (addictions) of some men are evident, going before them to judgement. The sins (addiction) of others follow after” 1tim 5:24. I now believe that its the former group that has a chance at life.
“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” Quote of CHRISToff in the movie “The Truman Show.”
How difficult it is to brush away the ‘realities’ that we grow up with. Addictions to things of death present themselves as normal and we just continue to walk in them with clouded vision. I am one of those people.
I have eyes but see only very limited truths of my maker. It’s only when someone dislodges a stage light and lets it slam to the pavement in front of me (like in the movie about Truman) that we even begin to gaze up in to the sky and wonder what is really going on.
This TW is very weighty and worthy of focus. Surely my desire for YHVH lacks and needs more addictive action rather than my other vices. My idolatry of seeking fulfillment in things other than YHVH reeks.
A few years ago I read in the Tehillim of the ArtScroll Tanach Series a differing English translation from today’s word that may be helpful or worth noting. In the ArtScroll Tehillim, the translated verse 92 reads: “Had Your Torah not been my preoccupation …” This translation is reinforced when followed with the reading of verse 16 in chapter 119. The same root Hebrew word again translated into English … “I will occupy myself with Your statutes …” The commentary states that Rashi’s view is that the root (shin, ayin. hey) means “to be totally involved in a particular subject or project.” [Therefore the term is used to describe a child so totally absorbed in playing with a toy that he is oblivious to all else …] Meditating upon this translation has forever changed how I view the English word ‘delight.’
I appreciate your input regarding the word, “preoccupation”.
CS Lewis states that the outcome of the fall of man was obvious. The “emergence of a new kind of man, a new species, never made of God, had sinned itself into existence.” Some within humanity have struggled and toiled to regain that species that was lost. Others are quite comfortable cavorting in a pigsty, beating their chest like some ape and telling anyone who will listen, how great they are. To recognize that God is in the recovery and reconciliation business, that he is the Master architect, the keeper of our DNA and that he is jealous for us and how he had created us, should give us hope that we can be fully human as God intended. And so we must act on the divine and what He has revealed to us. It’s all right there. It has been written. Others have ventured forward. It’s all a choice. And God whispers, “come, come, come unto me.”
I’m not sure I would agree with Lewis. I certainly see that the result is Scriptural, but the idea that sin CREATED a new man smacks of the doctrine of original sin (which I believe Lewis endorsed) and suggests that Man after the Fall was ONTOLOGICALLY, not just morally, corrupted.
I believe Lewis endorsed original sin, but adamantly opposed total depravity. Where he states this is in a chapter where he develops a creative “myth” about what might have happened to cause the fall. I never accept anyone full-cloth, except YHWH. And as we know, God has spoken and everything else is commentary.
Yes, indeed. But sometimes commentary is necessary if the message is cryptic.
I went over to the bible hub and was reading this in the Hebrew and noticed that a double “yod” was insinuated in the term translated affliction, perhaps noting an affliction by not only others but myself as well. But, David clears it up when he speaks of being revived, there’s very clearly a double yod in the middle of that word. A double handed revival, deliverance from others and myself. BTW, as a side note, “I will never forget your precepts for BY THEM you have revived me” by them is bet-mem, in the English that would be BAM!! a two handed living and revival.
But I love this part, vs. 96; to the whole of perfection I perceive a limit, (but) broad your command, very much! If perfection was a finely articulated racing machine and it was wound up to the point of blowing it’s engine, at the maximum of it’s capacity, and torah was it’s competition, torah would just shift into second gear. Yeaahh, light speed! 🙂 TORAH- to bring forth light and make it manifest!
YHWH bless you and keep you…..
Thanks for the linguistic insight.
SKIP is the message cryptic or is our insight into the will of God cryptic… And the reason why we need to research for commentary to get clarification…
To Psalm 119:
When we are faced with the onslaught of this world there are three things that determines what we will experience from the encounter.
1. Do we watch as spectators and wonder what happened.
2. Do we withdraw and wonder what will happen next.
3. Do we decide and do something to resolve or address that what we encounter.
As Rohan phrased it “You are either part of the problem or part of the solution – or just part of the furniture…”
Now David the chosen and anointed of God as king for Israel was not a spectator – Facing Goliath, Nor a with-drawer – Killing the bear, He was a doer that was determined to address what was faced, the problem or concern at hand – “I come in the name of the Lord” and five specifically shaped and sized stones nothing more is all God had most probably revealed David will need.
Reading Psalm 119 in total shows how David reflects on the wisdom and knowledge he found in the word of God… I do not think a translation error slipped in I believe David reiterated that when pondering on God’s will first rather than confronting issues first we overcome all. Solutions fall in place to deal with concerns, Processes fall in place to overcome enemy assaults. And it is David applauding this reality that I read of in this Psalm.
As Patricia posted the preoccupation is maybe more explanatory, but I think it would then remove the essence of checking what the Torah says before responding. And it was this attitude that saved David, his ability to acknowledge God and His will before responding…
Something I for one fail to do. Check myself before I wreck myself. That “I” as Carl referred to as SELF is what is keeping me from finding salvation as Luarita explained…
As Confucius phrased the issues: “Something was holding me back until I discovered/realized it was myself.” And “Learn to master your mind, before you are mastered by its wondering thoughts…”
Without reading David’s words I might have perished. Without seeing his passion, I might have disowned mine.
“It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” vs 71
“Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.” vs. 111
“I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.”
“Obeying God’s law is no slavery- rather it is freedom. …”
“The psalmist does not see God’s law as a dusty, rigid rulebook.”
“God’s law channels love into the poet’s life. They make new life flow into him.”
From NIV Student Bible
That’s why we love David. He expresses us.