What God Knows (2)
For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust. Psalm 103:14 NASB
Frame – God knows we are dust, but I wonder if we do. We read the words. We know the story from Genesis 2, but I don’t think we’ve let the truth sink in. Well, maybe you have. Maybe you’ve really come to grips with your own journey, your struggles, your disappointments with yourself. Maybe you’ve found a victorious sense of living, filled with the spirit, blessed with a deep awareness of forgiveness. But in general, I have to say that I haven’t. I have the cognitiveunderstanding of the fact that God knows I am but dust, but emotionally I find this discouraging and frightening. There is a sense of defeat involved here, a resignation to my yetzer ha’ra. I identify with Job: “For man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). You know, you just can’t find a way out of this mess.
Of course, living in a world where things go wrong and where justice seems to have taken a permanent holiday is a bipolar existence. There are days when I’m relieved that instant punishment for disobedience isn’t active. Those are the days when I know I deserve to be judged and am grateful it doesn’t happen. Then there are days when I see torment and sorrow in the lives of others and I can’t stand the fact that evil isn’t conquered. Most of the time I seem to float back and forth, longing to be rinsed in son light and discovering Paul’s words are all too real (ah, if you don’t know what I’m referring to, go read Romans 7:14-24).
David tells me that God already knows all this. He knows our frame. Yes, He does, but, so what? It’s not very comforting to know that God knows how often I fail, how morally weak I am—until I look at the Hebrew. Suddenly I am shocked to see that the word translated “frame” is really yēṣer, a derivative of yāṣar, the root of another word that has special significance for me, namely, yetzer ha’ra. TWOT tells me “As with many Hebrew words of theological significance, the root yāṣar may be used of human as well as divine agency. When used in its secular sense it occurs most frequently in the participial form meaning “potter,” i.e. one who fashions (clay) . . . When used of divine agency, the root refers most frequently to God’s creative activity. It describes the function of the divine Potter forming man and beasts from the dust of the earth.”[1]
Stop! Does this mean that God knows my inclination toward self? Does this mean that when the Potter fashioned me, He already knew I was cracked? That He made me broken–like He is? Does this mean that God identifies with my desire to escape His gaze, to look away, to make the world according to my own agenda? This is a lot more than a resume. This means God sympathizes with the basic battle inside me. He knows why I hide in foxholes. Because I am dust. Because in me there really is this mortal ash, the left-over debris from my connection to the earth. He knows that I am no more than spirit-animated graveyard material. I don’t have to hide from Him, not because He’s the Policeman in the sky, but because He’s broken too.
Wait! Did I just write that? I was trained to believe God is perfect, holy, never-changing, transcendent. How can He empathize with my brokenness if He’s never felt anything like it? That’s like asking me to experience the world as a lion. Ludwig Wittgenstein was right: “If a lion could speak, we would not understand him.” The Lion King isn’t about lions. It’s about human beings pretending to be lions. How can we expect to understand a God who shares nothing about being human? “He knows our frame” implies that God experiences the brokenness of shattered relationship, the emptiness of abandonment, the despair of betrayal. If God knows my yetzer ha’ra, then He truly knows me, for I am my yetzer ha’ra in battle with my yetzer ha’tov. That’s who I am. Anyone who doesn’t know that really doesn’t know me.
Heschel’s insight is especially important to me, and, I hope, a little comforting:
“It is true that the commandment to be holy is exorbitant, and that our constant failure and transgressions fill us with contrition and grief. Yet we are never lost. We are sons of Abraham. Despite all faults, failures, and sins, we remain parts of the Covenant. His compassion is greater than His justice. He will accept us in all of frailty and weakness. ‘For He knows our drive [yetzer], He remembers that we are dust’ (Psalm 103:14).”[2]
Topical Index: frame, Potter, yetzer ha’ra, dust, Psalm 103.14
[1] Mccomiskey, T. E. (1999). 898 יָצַר. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 396). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Abraham Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), pp. 196-197.
