The End

The children of Your servants will continue, and their descendants will be established before You.  Psalm 102:28  NASB

Not quite.  You see, there is something unusual about this Hebrew word translated “descendants.”  It is singular, never plural.  It is not “descendants” but rather “descendant.”  This oddity is confirmed by the fact that the verb associated with “servants” (šākan) is a third person, masculine, plural but the verb associated with “descendants” (kûn) is a third person, masculine, singular.  In other words, while there are many different servants, the “seed” of the children of the Lord are not many different kinds but rather one unit.  There is only one Israel just as there is only one God of Israel. 

What does this mean to the poet?  Well, we might reflect on a dialogue from Troy. 

 The question is immortality.  The Greek answer is memory.  Immortality isn’t continued existence; it is continual remembrance.  That’s why in Greek thinking how you die is more important than how you live.  Do you want to live forever?  Become a legend.

But the Bible doesn’t embrace this answer.  In fact, when David wrote this psalm, it also didn’t embrace the much-later rabbinic answer of the ‘olam ha’ba.  You lived your life.  You died. She’ol opened its mouth.  End of story. 

Except. 

Except that you lived on in all those who came after you.  In the biblical world, you were the nexus point of humanity.  Your life was the summation of all those who came before you.  You were the product of every life stretching back into the past, right to the beginning—and—you were also the origin point of all others who would come, stretching forward into the distant future.  Your immortality was your inclusion in the unit, the one people of God, for as long as God existed, so did His people, and you were incorporated into that overarching reality.

At the end of this poem, the psalmist recognizes inclusion.  His role today might be affliction.  Today he might voice his complaint, question the justice of the God of creation, declare his innocence, or praise his Creator.  But in the end, he is a thread in the great tapestry, weaving God’s purposes in the world along with all the other threads of the children of the Lord.  It is no mistake that God refers to “Jacob, my son” in the singular when He speaks of His love for the faithful.  The biblical view is not each individual struggling his or her way through the world, pleading for God’s attention.  The biblical view is that God cares for Israel, no matter what is happening at the microcosmic level, and because Israel is one, we are assured of His care, now and forever.  Amen!

Topical Index: descendants, seed, zeraʿ, unity, Psalm 102:28