Due Diligence—Ten Years After

Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established.  Proverbs 4:26 NASB

Will be established – This investigation is now ten years old.  I wonder if these last ten years have really made a difference.  Let’s find out.

It’s almost time for the world’s celebration of the pagan New Year.  That means it’s almost time for the annual resolutions of self-improvement.  But this year, let’s try something different.  Let’s go back to the ancient paths, the paths that are completely disconnected from the world’s pagan rituals.  Let’s see what God says about following the straight and narrow.

The first verb in this instruction is pālas.  It means “to weigh, to make smooth, to make level.”  Figuratively (as it is used here) it implies deliberately carrying out some action that results in easy traverse.  In other words, this is the Hebrew equivalent of “Pay attention!”  But it is not simply cognitive.  This time when we pay attention we have to actually do something.  We are to take the necessary steps in order to walk securely, confidently, and consistently in one direction.  We are to remove obstacles, smooth bumps, and widen the gates so that we might travel easily.  How do we do this?  Ah, as my son Michael once remarked, “Every time you do what is right, it gets easier to do it again.”  pālas means practice.  Starting today, practice following God’s specific instructions even if it seems cognitively ridiculous, irrelevant, and unnecessary.  In the Hebraic world, the mantra is, “Try it and see what happens,” not, “Determine if it seems valuable to you before you try it.”  God’s money-back guarantee demands participation before the refund.

Of course, we know that the figurative use of derek (path) is about following God’s Torah instructions.  “Walking a path” is a metaphor for living according to a code – God’s code of conduct called Torah.  But you might be surprised to discover that derek is not the word used at the beginning of this verse.  In this verse, the word translated “path” is maʿgāl.  Everything about it is unusual.  Most of the derivatives from the root ‘gl are not about pathways at all.  They are about cows!

Cows?  Yes, cows.  To be specific, calves and heifers offered for sacrifice.  In other words, while maʿgāl means track or path (from context), ʿēgel and ʿeglâ, from the same root, mean calf and heifer.  Who can even speculate about what the connection might be?  Perhaps “cow path” isn’t so far off.  And if you know anything about a cow path, you know that you won’t want to wander far from it or you’re likely to step in something.  Perhaps the agrarian society of the author of this proverb led him to draw both a practical and a spiritual conclusion.  Even if this isn’t why the root ‘gl is found in both “calf” and “path,” it is interesting to see that the animals associated with this word are not just ordinary animals in the field.  These animals are animals for sacrifice.  The path they trod is toward the holiness of destruction.  Perhaps if we viewed ourselves as following a path of holiness, a path that leads to the altar, we might be quite a bit more careful about our walk.

Finally, notice the result of paying close attention to the path of sacrifice.  All your ways will be established.  Not some of them.  All of them!  In other words, the only ways that will ultimately be established (yikko’nû – will be firm).  Here is the verb kûn, translated “be established.”  But kûn is a bit more complicated.  In the TDOT, Koch states that this word “points to a lexeme denoting energetic, purposeful action, aimed at forming useful enduring places and institutions, with a secondary element asserting the reliability of statements.”  Furthermore, “the focus in most texts is not on a state but rather on making or becoming.  What it emphasizes is not stability but permanence and utility.  If we try to reduce the various usages to a single common denominator, it would be: ‘call something into being in such a way that it fulfills its function (in the life of an individual, in society, or in the cosmos) independently and permanently.’”[1]

Reflect on this analysis.  What does “to be established” mean in the Hebraic worldview?  It means to become of ultimate and permanent usefulness.  To establish is to become holy, and therefore, to be of ultimate use to God.  To become established is to be sacrificed for the Most High God, and to live as a sacrifice for His purposes.  Every other goal will fail!

“There are strong connections between kēn as a verb (hiphil and hophal) and the ritually correct preparations of sacrifices.  This is derived from ‘the conviction that cultic acts are the source of all life and prosperity for those who share in the cult.’  Therefore creative, purposeful preparation is necessary, on the part of God as well as the worshipper, to guarantee the success of the rite.”[2]

Why do we pay attention to the path?  Because the path leads to the altar and the altar leads to destruction and destruction leads to life and life leads to God’s purposes.  To become who we are is to follow the cow path.  Not quite the noble or elevated idea of Western success, but maybe we need a bit more humility, as the Hebrew implies.

What cow path are you walking?

Topical Index: kun, to establish, path, ma’gal, sacrifice, purpose, Proverbs 4:26

[1] K. Koch, kûn, TDOT, Vol. VII, p. 93.

[2] Ibid., p. 96.