Fat Faith

Their heart is insensitive, like fat, but I delight in Your Law. Psalm 119:70  NASB

Insensitive – Every so often as I walk the streets in Italy a man or woman will approach me begging for money.  I guess I still look too much like a tourist so I appear to be susceptible to the request.  I am always torn about what to do.  Fairly often I recognize the signs of a “professional” beggar, but sometimes I’m not sure.  In fact, on a few occasions I’ve refused only to change my mind a few steps further on and go back to give something.  Why do I struggle with this?  I think the answer is my concern about being fat.

Oh, I don’t mean overweight.  I mean ḥēleb, the Hebrew term used metaphorically for insensitive, as it is in this verse.  In combination with the verb (ṭāpaš), the idea is to have a hard heart toward the needs of another.  We would say “without compassion,” and that’s the real issue for God describes Himself first and foremost with the idea of compassion.  How can I pretend to be like Him if I walk away from the needy?  How do I know for sure that this person in front of me is pretending rather than genuinely needing help?  The last thing I want is a fat faith; a faith that doesn’t respond because it’s covered over with my selfishness.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, this verb is a hapax legomenon (used only once).  The TWOT translates it as “to be gross,” but the only way we know how to deal with this verb is because of its contextual connection to ḥēleb (fat). That connection reveals the “hidden” part of this tet sentence.  You see, ḥēleb is usually associated with sacrifice, just the opposite of self-concern.  In Leviticus this word is used forty-five times to express various sacrifices, but here it carries a different meaning:

A number of passages describe the selfish, rebellious man who reveals his gluttony in his obese features. In Job 15:27 the godless man has hidden his face in fat. (In Ps 17:10 the wicked have shut up their ḥēleb, perhaps not to be read as “fat” here but as “midriff,” as in the cognate Arabic word, as this was considered the seat of the emotions.) The eyes of the wicked “swell out with fatness” (RSV) or “gleam through folds of fat” (neb) (Ps 73:7). The heart of the godless is “gross like fat” (Ps 119:70, RSV). When Jeshurun, i.e. Israel, waxed fat and sleek he forsook God (Deut 32:15; cf. Jer 5:28).^[1]

Perhaps the opposite of faith is not disbelief but rather insensitivity.

The poet “delights” in God’s Torah.  Why?  Because Torah is the operating framework of the sensitive soul.  No one can practice Torah and remain self-concerned.  Just acting out God’s instructions for living will change your point of view about compassion.  And if it doesn’t, well then maybe you need to lose some weight.

Topical Index: fat, insensitive, compassion, ṭāpaš, ḥēleb, Psalm 119:70

^[1] Yamauchi, E. (1999). 651 חלב. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 286). Moody Press.