Identity Card (1)

This has become mine, that I comply with Your precepts.  Psalm 119:56  NASB

Has become mine – My wife, Rosanne, carries an Italian identity card.  Anywhere she goes in the EU, all she needs is this little card as her identification document.  Of course, this is an entirely modern invention.  In the past, identity was a matter of personal recognition.  We lived in much smaller worlds.  I knew who you were because we were neighbors or city-citizens or relatives or members of the same guild.  But the world got bigger and those crucial connections were buried under expanded boarders and extended travel.  Even so, an identity card doesn’t tell me much about you.  It’s just a record of your government affiliation.  It’s not like knowing who you are.

When the psalmist wants to identify himself, he uses the ancient Hebraic identity document—God’s oversight.  piqqûdîm.  The supervision of the One True God, who, by the way, has a name.  He accepts and cherishes God’s oversight.  That’s how I know who he is.  And that’s how I know how I’m connected to him.  We have the same boss.

The Hebrew construction is important.  Sefaria translates the verse very differently: “This has been my lot, for I have observed Your precepts.”  Various Jewish commentators suggest “This came to me [as a crown]” (Rashi), “This, an apparent reference to the comfort and success mentioned in the previous verses, became mine,” (Steinsaltz), “AND THIS IS THE BLESSING WHEREWITH MOSES THE MAN OF G-D BLESSED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL BEFORE HIS DEATH. . . It was this blessing that David meant when he said, ‘Zoth’ (this) came to pass unto me, because I have kept Thy precepts” (Ramban).  Most of these read “this” as a reference to another event or action, as you can see, and it certainly is possible given that the verb (hāyâ) might be translated as “came to be” or “happened.”  But here the verb is a present tense (Qal) perfect, that is, a completed action.  Does this mean that whatever “this” is, it is now finished, as Rashi suggests?  Now I have it.  It is mine.  I possess “this.”  That might work except for the connector (kî).  Since kî can express several different relations (temporal, causal, objective), how are we to read it?  Is it “This is mine so that I comply,” or “This is mine because I comply,” or “This is mine when I comply,” or “This is mine since I comply”?  It almost depends on what “this” is.

What if the identity card is his compliance?  What if kî expresses an objective relation similar to the translation of the NASB?  Then the meaning would be something like this: “Observing Your oversight is how I identify myself.”  In other words, a poetic way of saying, “I am Your servant.”  zōʾt, the Hebrew translated “This,” could refer to the idea of complying.  Could there be a stronger identity marker than that?  “I belong to You, Lord, and that fact is demonstrated by my acceptance of Your oversight in my life.”  This idea is expressed in another poetic psalm written by a different man.  “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; . . .” (Psalm 73:28) CLICK HERE.  https://skipmoen.com/2006/03/the-whole-package/

What’s your Identity Card?  זֹ֥את הָיְתָה־לִּ֑י כִּ֖י פִקֻּדֶ֣יךָ נָצָֽרְתִּי

Topical Index: piqqûdîm, oversight, zoth’, this, kî, identity, Psalm 119:56