Promise or Proclamation?

And I shall keep Your Torah constantly, forever and ever.  Psalm 119:44  Chabad

I shall keep – What is the psalmist actually saying?  Is he claiming that if God allows him to speak the whole truth (verse 43), he will then keep Torah forever?  Or is he saying that, unlike Moses, he knows God gives him the ability to tell it all; he has trusted God and has kept Torah always?  The translation of Chabad (and other English Bibles) treats this verse as a future promise because it ignores the vav-conversive.  But we won’t.

Here’s the first person future conjugation of the verb šāmar:  אֶשְׁמֹר.  And here’s the first person past on the verb: שָׁמַרְתִּי.  Now look at the verb form in this verse:

וְאֶשְׁמְרָ֖ה תוֹרָֽתְךָ֥ תָמִ֗יד לְע֘וֹלָ֥ם וָעֶֽד

What do you see?  A future or a past.  Oh, wait.  Maybe you think, “Well, couldn’t it be the present tense?”  That looks like this: שׁוֹמֵר.  Did you notice the וֹ in the formation?  Sorry, not present in the verb form in our verse.  The verb form in our verse (in red) is a future tense, but, as you now know, with the prefixed vav-conversive, this verb is changed to the past.  Therefore, the verse must be read, “And I have kept Your Torah.”  Why did the translators make it a future promise, not a past declaration?

Well, what’s implied in the past tense proclamation?  Answer: that it is possible to actually keep Torah.  That, of course, flies in the face of the Lutheran doctrine that man sins every day in thought, word, and deed.  In fact, it substantially alters our idea that Yeshua was the only person who ever kept the Torah fully because he did not sin.  This declaration in the past tense makes us reevaluate our idea of Torah observance and sin.  Unless we want to declare that the psalmist is lying, we’ll have to rethink some of these basic concepts.  And, by the way, this isn’t the only place in the Psalms where the poet makes such a claim.  Maybe our Augustinian-Lutheran theology isn’t correct despite its virtual domination in Western thought.

What about that phrase, “constantly, forever and ever”?  It opens with tāmîd.  “Most frequently this word is used in an adjectival genitive construction with ʿōlâ for the continual whole burnt offering made to God every morning and evening . . .”^[1]  That’s precisely what we have here: tāmîd plus ʿôlām.  But note this:

Though ʿôlām is used more than three hundred times to indicate indefinite continuance into the very distant future, the meaning of the word is not confined to the future. There are at least twenty instances where it clearly refers to the past. Such usages generally point to something that seems long ago, but rarely if ever refer to a limitless past.^[2]

We have a past tense declaration verse.  Why shouldn’t we treat this phrase in the same way?  “I have kept Your Torah for a long time.”  Then we add the final word for emphasis.  But don’t forget the vav.  vā’ĕd’, resulting in “I have constantly kept your Torah for as long as possible.”

Now the psalmist’s claim makes reconsideration of our notion of Torah observance even more important.

So what do you think it means to have kept Torah “for as long as possible”?

Topical Index: šāmar, keep, guard, vav-conversive, tāmîd ʿōlâm, continually, vā’ĕd’, Psalm 119:44

^[1] Kaiser, W. C. (1999). 1157 מוד. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 493). Moody Press.

^[2] Macrae, A. A. (1999). 1631 עלם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 672). Moody Press.