The True Foundation
Establish Your [m]word to Your servant as that which produces reverence for You. Psalm 119:38 NASB
[m]word – Notice the footnote attached to this translation. That note is to tell you that the usual Hebrew isn’t what we have in this verse. Instead of dābār we find ʾimrâ, both translated “word” in English so you wouldn’t know the difference without the footnote. What is that difference? ʾimrâ is derived from the verb ʾāmar, “to say, speak, intend, command, promise.” “The commonest usage of the verb is in direct conversation . . Of the more than five thousand uses of the root, the majority hardly need comment. They are close to the equivalent English word, “say.” Indeed, the infinitive with l becomes often just a mark of direct discourse somewhat like the quotation marks of English.”[1] This tells us that the psalmist isn’t consulting his Bible taken from the bookshelf. He’s asking (demanding? expecting?) God to speak to him. He wants to hear what God has to say in a more-or-less personal communication. Perhaps he’s reminiscing about Moses’ encounters. No matter what the history, he wants oral communication, and that should tell us something important. Do you remember the comments by William Graham?
“Scripture is widely understood today to be the antithesis of a community’s oral tradition. It is conceived as the tangible document that fixes the fluid sacred word and gives it substance and permanence. The idea hardly even occurs that a sacred text could exist for long without being written; nor does the recognition come easily that virtually every scripture has traditionally functioned in large measure as vocal, not silent discourse.”[2]
“. . . in most major religious traditions, sacred texts were transmitted orally in the first place and written down only relatively recently.”[3]
The psalmist certainly had access to some of the written texts, but in this verse he doesn’t ask to be led to reading them. He asks for a verbal foundation. What might that be? Do you suppose he intends to wait until God whispers in his ear? Perhaps, but isn’t it more likely that he will “hear” the voice of God from his own memorization of those words, “and God said,” the true oral foundation of his faith? We should perhaps recall the Islamic idea that the Qur’an is the actual voice of God. It might be written now, but it was transmitted orally. That’s why it can never be translated and must be recited exactly as it is. Do you suppose the psalmist had the same idea centuries before Mohammed? In the end, it’s God’s voice we desire, the sounds we must have if we are to live. Christians since Luther have called this the inner testimony of the Spirit, but I think we have to look deeper than a Trinitarian implication. God speaks. That’s the basis of all our beliefs. Now it’s up to us to listen—and remember.
Topical Index: word, dābār, ʾimrâ, say, speak, voice, oral, Psalm 119:38
[1] Feinberg, C. L. (1999). 118 אָמַר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 54). Moody Press.
[2] William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. ix.
[3] Ibid., p. 4.
As a younger child I often heard my mother’s voice… of admonition or instruction or warning… when I was considering a choice of obedience or my own interests. The experience was so “present and real” that I often looked to where I thought she was positioned observing me, typically behind me or over my shoulder. Over time, however, I “learned” to ignore that speaking presence in order to pursue my own intentions. I did the very same with God’s voice, which was as present and real as my mother’s, whom I knew was also as present and real to her as hers was to me. At some point in the pursuit of my deliberate intentions I could no longer hear either voice. I was emancipated! That is, I was freed from their overriding audible influence.
Progressively, over the span of my later childhood, teens, and young adulthood, I heard neither my mother’s nor God’s voice by that experience again. Only my own interests and desires were given “voice”— until, from within the damnation and misery of my life, I desperately voiced a plea to hear yet again that Divine voice as the only hope I held out in midst of an overwhelming darkness and serious plan to end the seemingly meaningless and hopeless misery that I had made the experience of my life.
God did respond… and with the audible voice that I recognized from my early childhood… giving me specific instructions regarding the action I was to take in response. Specifically, he told me to “answer the phone” (that I was intentionally ignoring); he told me again, “answer the phone”, but I dIdn’t (as I didn’t want to converse with anyone at that point in my life). Finally, he commanded that I answer the phone, and that time I did as he commanded!
In short, that audible voice, which I now attribute to his own personal presence in gracious response to my desperate need, led in his short order to my hearing and understanding his merciful grace given in Jesus Christ, by whom also my understanding has been was formed so as to receive in ever increasing fullness the rich mercies of his grace. That voice is now audibly familiar to me… and I am careful not to ignore it