Bite the Dust (1)
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 NASB
Crushed – One of the joys of teaching English to Italian businesspeople is explaining English idioms. Every language and every culture has its own idioms. Italian, for example, has a lovely idiom about keeping a secret: acqua en boca, which literally means “water in the mouth,” a perfect description of something you can’t say. English, of course, has hundreds of idioms (my list is now 355 items), many of which are incomprehensible in literal translation, like “kicked the bucket.” But the idiom “bite the dust” just might have some Hebrew in its etymology. Here’s why:
The Hebrew word dakkāʾ means both “crushed” and “contrite.” However, it has a second root spelling exactly the same way which means “dust” (that which is crushed). It’s used in Psalm 90:3 to describe God turning man back into dust. There are other interesting facts about this word:
God is frequently the subject of the verb. He is the one who crushes the oppressor (Ps 72:4) and the wicked (Job 34:25), but he does not crush the prisoner underfoot (Lam 3:34). Job requests God to crush him and put an end to his misery (6:9). According to Isa 53:10, God did crush his servant. Verse 5 indicates that he “was crushed for our iniquities.” This emphasizes the emotional and spiritual suffering of the Savior as he became sin for us (cf. Ps 51:8 [H 10]).[1]
TWOT also notes that “‘crushed’ can also have the positive nuances of ‘humble, contrite.’ “God is close to those who are brokenhearted and contrite (Isa 57:15: Ps 34:18 [H 19]). He condemns Israel for her failure to humble herself even after Jerusalem’s collapse (Jer 44:10).”[2]
Our idiom, “bite the dust,” is about failure or death, but perhaps somewhere in the background of this phrase is the Hebraic idea of contrition, humility, and submission. When we say, “He bit the dust” we mean something negative, but perhaps underneath all this is something quite positive, namely, the opportunity to discover spiritual growth in humbling experiences. Maybe “bite the dust” is a necessary preamble to repentance and restoration. In Western thought, failure is anathema, something we wish to avoid at all costs, but in Hebrew thought failure might just be the one thing we must experience before we can truly appreciate our standing before God. Perhaps the way up really is to be taken down.
Topical Index: bite the dust, humble, crush, dakkāʾ, Psalm 34:18
[1] Wolf, H. (1999). 427 דָּכָא. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 188–189). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
