Once and Twice

My soul is crushed with longing for Your ordinances at all times. Psalm 119:20 NASB

Crushed – Put in the place of emphasis, gāraš is first in the sentence.  Of course, that also continues the acrostic, but here we have a word used only once (maybe twice) in the Tanakh.  It’s a good thing a derivative occurs in Leviticus 2:14 or we might be stuck with a hapax legomenon.  But what an unusual thought penned by the poet!  What can he mean to be “crushed with longing”?  Even stranger, how can someone experience such debilitating emotion of ordinances?

I haven’t heard from my oldest son in almost two years.  I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.  No one I know has heard from him.  I even checked the obituaries where he used to live, and I called the police department.  Nothing.  Someone told me that he has shown up on Facebook once or twice and I’ve left countless messages, emails, and voice mails on a phone number that still seems active.  But it is as if he just disappeared.  And his wife too.  No contact with any family member on either side.  Nothing.  I remember praying for him.  Not exactly praying in the usual sense.  All I really could do was cry out and cry.  But I’m pretty sure God heard me anyway.

Perhaps that’s soul-crushing or close to it.  It’s just a guess because the added “with longing” is also a hapax legomenon (taʿăbâ occurs only in this verse).  Fortunately (again) there’s a close cousin in Psalm 119:40 and 119:174.  The poet leaves us a few clues, but none outside this particular acrostic.  I think his choice of such unusual words is an attempt to make the reader stop and search for an emotional connection in the reader’s experience.  You just can’t pass over this odd collection without wondering what he meant, unless, of course, you let the translator decide for you.

So, we end up with some deep, disturbing, discomforting dismay, some feeling that aches, yearns, and laments over . . . over what?  “Your ordinances”?  Perhaps this is the strangest part of the nearly doubled hapax legomenon verse.  How can anyone feel this kind of emotion over rules?  Ah, but here the English really does us a disservice.  The word translated “ordinances” is not piqqûdîm (precepts), or ʾōraḥ (way), or ʿēd^ewōtê (testimonies), or ḥōq (statute).  It’s mišpāṭ, the term used for God’s sovereign governance of all creation.  Now I get it.

When I experience the utter brokenness of the world, when humanity shows its ugly rebellious nature, when the cosmos desperately cries for order, when evil is present anywhere and everywhere, I long for God’s governance.  I’m desperate to see His hand bring peace to war, calm to chaos, healing to harm.  And when I don’t experience this, when it appears as if God has abandoned us to the open mouth of She’ol, oh, yes, then I know what gorsā letaʿăbâ means.

God help us all!

Topical Index: gāraš, crush, taʿăbâ, longing, mišpāṭ, Psalm 119:20