A Corrected Beatitude
“Give heed to my cry, for I am brought very low; deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me.” Psalm 142:6 NASB
Persecutors – “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.” That familiar phrase found in the teaching of Yeshua in Matthew, chapter five, should have been translated according to David’s use of the Hebrew verb radaph.[1] “Usually the term refers to a man or group pursuing another for purpose of making war or taking revenge.”[2] TWOT also notes: “In the well-known phrase from Psalm 23, God’s blessing itself is said to ‘follow’ (KJV and RSV, v. 6), which is not strong enough for the sense of the root. It should be more active. ‘Only goodness and mercy shall pursue me’ is the preferred reading.”[3] This significantly alters the reading in Matthew (along with a change in the subject and the removal of the initial verb). What Yeshua had in mind in Hebrew is probably much closer to David’s psalms than the Catholic Church’s blessing.
This means we need to appreciate the anxiety and fear accompanying David’s idea of “persecutors.” “Deliver me from what pursues me,” cries David. He might just as easily have said, “Deliver me from what follows after me.” In fact, the word me-rodephay isn’t a noun (like “persecutors”). It is a participle, a plural verb. David focuses on the action, not the subjects. He wants rescue from what is chasing after him. He cries that whatever it is, it is too strong for him to deal with.
There is no question that David had physical enemies. Saul is the perfect example. But David did deal with his opponents, so I suggest that David’s poem is not about wicked people persecuting him. I suggest that what David desperately needs is rescue from the consequences of sinful choices. What follows after him, and each of us, are the consequences of our acts, and when those acts are wicked, the consequences are overwhelming. They are too strong for us to handle. Furthermore, each choice enhances the pathway of the consequences. Each time we act to protect our fragile egos, we increase the possibility that we will repeat that act, and each time we do, the inevitable consequences increase until one day we can no longer keep the flood away and we are shipwrecked by our sin.
“I am brought very low,” says David. Isn’t that exactly what happens when the tidal swell of past sins finally reaches our shoreline? Don’t we need “deliverance,” the Hebrew verb nasal (physical and spiritual rescue)? Those choices we made have become a part of us. How can we possibly defeat them? Now we need rescue. We need to be snatched out by someone else. “Give heed,” says David. “Lord, please pay attention to me. Only You can deliver me from what I have done to myself and others. Rescue me from the tsunami of consequences that is about to drown me. I can’t do it, Lord. What I need is deliverance from me, the person I have become as a result of all those ways I tried to protect myself. Now I am humiliated. Now I recognize my deprivation. Now my strength is gone. Hear my cry of sacrifice toward You.[4] My cry should be one of joy, Lord, but now all I have is the piercing cry of sorrow. Pull me out, Lord, before I die.”
Topical Index: radaph, pursue, persecutors, Matthew 5:10, Psalm 142:6, nasal, rescue
[1] If you are really interested in the Hebrew context of the Beatitudes, read The Lucky Life, available on my web site.
[2] White, W. (1999). 2124 רָדַף. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
[3] Ibid.
[4] The Hebrew verb, ranan, is used in Leviticus 9:24 in connection with sacrifice.
This comment is not about today’s word is about yesterday’s. I read most of the comments and all have truth in it. But the more I think about it more I understand that what yesterday’s word is about is our behavior now, the way we live now, no matter if God is God today, yesterday, tomorrow, or forever. I am alive today what my future may come to be depends on my today so God is God of the living even before Christ died on the cross.
Sometimes our heavenly Father has to bring us to our knees, for us to trust, and believe that he I our all that ends all, every step and breath we take is ordered by him we have to believe, have faith, and be obedient to his commands and when we mess up ask for his forgiveness SINCERELY
Skip, I heard you in Tacoma, and this sounds so similar to what Jacob wrestled with. It is so interesting to see and hear how the men of God, back in ancient times, wrestled with themselves the same as I do today. I am a result of my past choices, but praise be to God, all things will work out for good – and this life time to boot. Thanks for your good words.
Sowing and reaping: sometimes we reap what we didn’t sow; sometimes we need to beg for crop failure rather than a 100 fold return.
We bear the consequences of our choices, but we also bear the consequences of choices made by others. Perhaps learning to be human involves learning how to clean up the consequences; it doesn’t much matter who made the mess. I used to spend a lot of time arguing with God about who made the mess, but I learned that He was more interested in whether I made the effort to clean it up. I didn’t have to do all the clean up alone, I just had to start. David didn’t end this psalm with the despair of verse 6. Neither should we.
Yes and Yes! For me, this was my introduction to the path of life. This was the intersection of sovereignty, relationship and responsibility or is collision a better word.
A little over three years ago the reality stuck that we are the current representation of all that have gone before us. As this unfolded I could see the dynamic in the natural, the spiritual, in family and culture. Even genetically we carry in our bodies the results of past generational choices. Then one day it just seemed natural to recognize this and to pray and stand for myself and all past generations and I said lay it to my account. Was that my out-loud voice? This lay it to my account was a life changer; it brought entering his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise to life. Courts? Judgements? Justice? AND! Praise was so hard and at times, a lot of times, like a clanging gong, mechanical and insincere at best and emotionally self-centered at worst. It was intimidating to stand guilty as the current representative of generational relationship to sin and ask for his judgements. It was the end of selective hearing and seeing. It opened up the good the bad and the ugly. I was shocked at what was following me and it sure wasn’t all goodness and mercy. In fact a lot was repulsive and even horrific. The slugfest between yetser hara’s desire to protect and yetser hatov’s desire to praise was on. This was my initial introduction to becoming chesed and connected chesed with justice and one aspect of justice being the working out of judgements. (Psalm 19)
This was also the stepping stone in my learning to trust God with salvation in continuum not as a past event. It also brought salvation as a relational and communal aspect. I was (and will be continually) learning to trust, to stay and squirm and be agitated, be afraid, be alarmed, and every other emotion available but also to trust, wait, hear and obey. As Brené Brown shared..”it was a slugfest and I lost”. I was having my senses trained by reason of use. This not only brought deeper repentance it brought me to deeper intimacy. I had to face my own insincerity and learn to be truly sincere. Sincerity not only acknowledges the fault and takes ownership but it seeks reparation and not a reparation that is self-motivated or determined.
His dealing with my life as an expression of my generational line gave me the precedence to start coming for my family and others; as Skip would say give them the free card and become chesed and lay it to my account.
It helps me to embrace the image of Abraham and Isaac on the mountain as a picture of Yetser hatov and Yetser hara and acknowledging Yetser hatov’s role in identity and Yetser hara’s role in identification has begun to bring sincerity to praise.
Brother Stephen C,
I believe you are on a journey beautiful beyond description and one that takes my breath away. He is truly the Intimate One! I celebrate with you and rejoice greatly in the One who has you on this path of and to life.
I find myself in an earlier stage of the pilgrimage you describe. Your rich details give me courage to stand in “identification” with my past and the past of my ancestors; however, I can still move gloriously forward in my “identity” with Messiah which speaks far greater than the lies, twistedness, destruction, and bankruptcy of my past and that of my ancestors.
Messiah is faithful to finish the work He has begun in us!
A brother along the Way, Brian.
YHWH is King!
Thank you Brian and it is the journey that shapes a heart of love and compassion. Please don’t judge yourself by external standards. I have noticed the care and love you have in your comments here and celebrate with you the love already formed in you. Shalom.
Amen
Stephen, you gave me what I needed for the rest of the day! The buck stops here! It can!
I want to say that you brought some mighty depth to the notion of sincerity for me. I have realized late in life, thanks largely to Skip, I must say, that it ain’t just me: I am a culmination and a representation of not only all who came before me, but all that is around me, all that was lost because of me, and all that could be because of me! This one is going to take eternity, at least. I have already begun begging for that kind of time.
I wanted to ask if you could elaborate a little on what you meant when you said “acknowledging Yetser hatov’s role in identity and Yetser hara’s role in identification”? Where are you at with this?
let me try.
What precipitated a greater shift into praise and encouragement was to embrace identity from and through yetser hatov. Like so many other responsibilities I placed the burden of responsibility on yetser hara one for which it was neither made or capable of fulfilling. I have come to honor Yetser hara’s strength and sensitivity in identification. Sadly, when yetser hara was solely responsible for my identity it functioned in its role of identification and I believed my identity was attached to all the good bad and ugly. It was ripe for snakeskin, you know that chameleon thing where its easy to present yourself as what you think is needed or beneficial. It was fertile ground for attachments or soul ties as some refer.
The more I can distinguish between identification and identity and let go of this old responsibility and honor yetser hara’s strength the more open I become to empathy, compassion and becoming chesed.
BTW: I know the Rabbinic writings refer to yetser hara as our evil inclination and I can accept that view but want to go deeper and not stay there. I pray to be an expression of what God called good a single homogenized human being. Thankfully Skip has helped reconcile this in the Hebraic thought that we are becoming human.
Your comments about the influence of past, present and future are quite valid. I have come to perceive Christ and Sin as entities. Governmental in nature, having an administration of justice, having storehouses of memories, a past and present inclusion shaping the future, operating in a form of measure for measure. This has helped me begin to touch or grasp an identity in Christ. This is not thoroughly vetted out and presented very simply but I thought of interest given the discussion. I welcome your perspective and thoughts.
Stephen, this is very interesting to me. Thank you for taking the time to think and care.
In the interests of trying to tease out the relationship between the yetser ha-ra and -tov, I think I am hearing you say something along the lines that the -ra is occupied with an identity established by what was and is: it reaches outside itself (which we have to do to know who we are, of course) to respond to what is (which we are also made to do), but I think it is essentially a REACTOR to life; not a creator of it. This is where I think your “snakeskin” and “soul tie” analogy may come in. These are reactions and attachments to what already is, are they not? In my life, I have seen that these have just been attempts to manage chaos that has already occurred.
The choices I see the -ra make are actually not true choices (which are all about the future), but are really just reactions to what is already present, which cannot be changed. You can make choices about the past, or the congealed present, all day long, but the past and present are fixed, and so the ‘choices’ do not work. I can WISH the present were different; I can try and try to elicit a different reality than the one that got fixed by the past (even if it was just a second ago), but I don’t think the -ra has either a real grasp of the future, or even a way to connect with it. I am becoming suspicious, anyway. The -ra is doomed to follow around one step behind the chaos it tries vainly to ‘fix’, or the glory it tries vainly to acquire. It can neither establish order (which in only possible in the liquid future) or be eligible for real glory, which also has to do with credit for establishing that order. It can only regret or covet what already is.
You are right that we have a real choice between what Christ represents and what sin represents, and because sin is so powerful, we naturally think it is real (entity), but I know when I tried to chase that sucker to ground, I found something quite different than I expected. I think this little story a Jew I know told me may illustrate it best: indulge me.
In a philosophy class run by an atheist, the professor would break the ice by challenging the class that there could not be a god that made everything and still be good because if that were true, he would have had to be responsible for the evil, too. A student stood up and told him he was wrong: that there was a real God Who was good, yet made everything. The professor challenged him to prove it. In response the student asked if there was such a thing as light and dark. “Of course” was the response. “Not true”, says the student. “There is such a thing as light, but dark is just the absence of light”. Then he asked if there was such a thing as hot and cold. “Sure”, says the professor. “Not so”, replies the student. “There is such a thing as heat, but cold is just absence of heat.” Then he asked if there was such a thing as good and evil. “Of course” was the reply. “Not so”, says the student. “There is such a thing as good, and that good is God, but evil is just the absence of God.”
I like your analogy and let me ponder it a bit and explore it from a relationship perspective as well as existence. No doubt sin includes the absence of life but the fact that it has a desire raises it above existence into the realm of relationship. I think it was in Everymans Talmud where the Rabbis thought / taught that acts of righteousness released an advocate on your behalf and acts of unrighteousness released an accuser against you. This adds an element of intentionality and a form of government and administration of justice.
Thank you for being open and willing to bounce this around. Maybe this is a dovetail which is touching something even deeper; the reality of existence and relational participation. It seems at the heart of “dominion” is the revelation of father & family to the created order and the first “animal” that our -tov loves into life is our own -ra.
Let me offer an example and experience this week. As a bit of backdrop I have had dreams / encounters in which I have been introduced to aspects of Gods heart in the form of people. One of whom is wisdom. I have a memory and experience of what her sound is and what feelings. This is true of other aspects but for brevity I’ll stay with wisdom. I can identify these sounds and feelings and my -ra now joins in desire and intentionality in welcoming “her”. Before this wisdom was something I needed or used…now relationship and honor are involved.
On Wednesday morning I awoke to the smell of spring rain..that is an awesome smell but the fact that all my windows were closed and it wasn’t raining should have been a clue. I went downstairs coffee blah blah and felt to turn on a replay of GZI’s morning prayer watch that had just finished and posted. About ten minutes in one of the members jumps up in absolute excitement Wisdom…Wisdom…Wisdom is here I can smell the smell of the spring rains. OK that got my attention.
Exciting now I have a smell, a feeling and a sound of wisdom. So I did what we all do – everything is communion. I waited and asked the Lord for understanding. I’ll share what I wrote as it connects our original points on identification and identity.
Son – wisdom’s greatest treasure is not in inventions or systems of which there is a treasury available, her greatest treasure is in her delight for the sons of man. She is like in all aspects the mother heart of father God …remember this as you encounter these various aspect….like a mothers love for her own child her love is unconditionally strong and like a true/pure Ezer Kenegdo she will be close to those who share this delight and are in my will. Also like a true Ezer violate either of these and she will become distant.
I welcomed Wisdom and waited…and the tone and feeling of past dreams ..I am operating in perception..The sound changes and now it’s Stephen – as you grow in this (discerning wisdom) your past concerns, patterns and habits of needing to figure everything out, to protect yourself from others, and even gain honor for yourself all these will fade away with each new embrace of your identity in Christ.
Your identity is from old and is found as part of Christ, not in situations, events, circumstances, nor in what you do, not even in the gifts and callings that are unique to you. As you grow in this delight you will honor others regardless of what state they are in and by doing so are honoring God and honoring Christ from a heart of delight.
At this point the reality that both wisdom and the harlot stand at the gate and my love choices and life choices in self delight were glaringly obvious and I began weeping and acknowledging the dishonor and sorrow and then all at once – Make no more mention of this for what has been forgiven has been forgiven.
There were specific things I was then given instruction and then back to the sound and feelings and “voice” of Yeshua.
As I am able to discern each aspect of the character of God he reveals then I am changed in this presence. Reminds me of ish and ishish. My identity is continually changing in response to relationship. I am different after Yeshua, after Grace, after Purity, after Wisdom and Prudence, etc.
I am trying to articulate identity and identification in the midst of living it…so thank you so much for letting me even attempt this.