Platonic Religion

I hope for Your salvation, Lord, and do Your commandments.  Psalm 119:166  NASB

Hope – Plato’s view of religion sets the stage for the contrast we will explore.  Plato also believed in hope.  Well, sort of.  His view was that religion was like wishing things would be better, that is, hoping that your wishes would come true.  There was no guarantee, of course, but if believing helped you to cope with life, then it was admissible for those too weak to base their lives on sheer rationality.  In other words, hope was a psychological crutch for metal cowardice.

Clearly, the psalmist isn’t a Platonist.  But if we don’t recognize the sliver of truth in Plato’s view, then we won’t understand why, after 165 verses, the psalmist is still hoping for salvation.  The word the psalmist employs is śābar.  It has two semantic domains:

Whereas BDB distinguishes two roots, one occurring twice in the Qal stem with the meaning “to view, inspect” and related to the Arab root sabara “to probe” (a wound), and the other eight times in the Piel stem with the meaning “to wait, hope,” KB considers them as one word. Both agree, however, that in the Qal stem the root śbrmeans “to examine” and in Piel it means “to wait, hope.”^[1]

In Ps 119:166 (“I have hoped for Thy salvation”), śābar is used for a confident expression of hope and waiting for God’s salvation by one who could say that he had “done Thy commandments.”^[2]

When the NASB translates śābar, it perhaps accidentally pushes us toward Plato.  After all, Western civilization owes a lot to this Greek genius, particularly our emphasis on rationality.  That might mean we would treat “hope” in the same way that Plato thought of hope, and as a result, miss the psalmist’s perspective which is not hope, but wait.  If we read, “I wait for Your salvation,” we wouldn’t think of this as wish fulfillment at all—and we would understand that flow of the psalmist’s thinking.  After 165 verses, waiting seems apt.  Hoping does not.

What are we waiting for?  Once more we need the ancient Hebraic perspective, not the modern Western view.  yĕšûʿâ(salvation) as we have discovered is not about a heavenly exit plan.  Nor is it about forgiveness of sins, crucifixion atonement, or progressive sanctification.  It’s about widening the way.  Making life tolerable.  Finding open space.  Moving around without restrictions or distress.  In a word (also Hebrew), šālôm.  Well-being, on all levels.  There’s little thought of Heaven in the Hebrew idea of peace (šālôm).  And šālôm is the goal of yĕšûʿâ.  Maybe this helps us reinterpret Yeshua’s declaration, “Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you” (John 14:27).  Think about it.

Topical Index: šālôm, yĕšûʿâ, śābar, hope, wait, salvation, Psalm 119:166

KB L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, 2nd ed., Eng.-Ger., 1958

^[1] Cohen, G. G. (1999). 2232 שָׂבַר. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 870). Moody Press.

^[2] Ibid.