Expected Routine
Hearken to my voice according to Your kindness; O Lord, according to Your custom sustain me. Psalm 119:149 Chabad
Custom – This translation might lead us to believe that the psalmist anticipates a typical response from God. He enlists the protocol of ḥesed, establishing the required connection. He asks God to listen, using a verb (šāmaʿ ) that means both “to hear” and “to comply, obey.” So it seems perfectly clear that he’s waiting for God’s usual reply. Perhaps God will whisper softly in his ear.
But thinking this way would be a mistake. Why? Because the word translated “custom” isn’t about some special routine at all. It’s mišpāṭ, and as you recall, this word is about God’s governance of the creation. That’s why the NASB translates this, “according to Your ordinances.” Why the Jewish translation suggests something less than God’s moral government is a mystery. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from this version.
Notice that the goal of the psalmist’s request is “sustain me” (or NASB “revive me”). We should expand this as well. The verb is ḥāyâ. “Sustain” or “revive” are perfectly legitimate, but the scope of the verb is more than continuance or resuscitation. ḥāyâ is the verb about existing. TWOT lists the following: “live, have life, remain alive, sustain life, live prosperously, live forever.”[1] Now we see that even though “sustain” or “revive” are possible, what the psalmist may have in mind, given the scope of mišpāṭ, is not just a “pick-me-up.” To live is to experience the full range of God’s governance. To live according to His ordinances is to be alive to His commandments, to exercise the role and authority of agency, to be “in His image.” It’s not enough to just breathe. That’s not fulfilling what it means to be human. It’s also not enough to simply keep the rules. Robots can be programmed to do that. Animal instinct is rule-keeping behavior. What is embedded in ḥāyâ is “the ability to exercise all one’s vital power to the fullest; death is the opposite. The verb ḥāyâ ‘to live’ involves the ability to have life somewhere on the scale between the fullest enjoyment of all the powers of one’s being, with health and prosperity on the one hand and descent into trouble, sickness, and death on the other.”[2]
The extension of this verse could be something like this: “Listen to voice, the sound that I make, and act on it according to the bond we have. Establish Your agency with me. Put me in the role You intended, governing with You Your creation in order that I might experience all that it means to be alive with You.” Isn’t that what we really want—not just to live, but to live exuberantly, completely, fully human, connected to the Creator?
Routine? Custom? No, I don’t think so. I’m not interested in safe and boring. Send me to the edge of the wilderness where I can do some good.
Topical Index: šāmaʿ, listen, hear, mišpāṭ, custom, ordinance, ḥāyâ, to live, Psalm 119:149
[1] Smick, E. B. (1999). 644 חָיָה. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 279). Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
