Let It Be
Let my soul live that it may praise You, and let Your ordinances help me. Psalm 119:175 NASB
Live/ help – We don’t need to mention the mistaken translation “soul.” You certainly know that nepeš isn’t “soul,” which is the Greek term psyche. But we should note the idea that praise can only happen while we are alive is a theme found in other psalms. For example, “For there is no mention of You in death; who can praise You from Sheol?” Psalm 6:5 (Berean Standard). The same theme shows up later in the prophets: “For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness” Isaiah 38:18 NASB. There is no indication of showering God with praise in an afterlife. According to the Tanakh, death is the end (oh, there are some hints about another life, but nothing definitive). Therefore, the poet can appeal to God’s sense of honor by asking for life. “Let it be.” Let me remain alive so that You, Lord, can hear my praise. ḥāyâ, that all-important verb of being, is the bottom line of praise.
What happens once God grants life? The next step is not a sigh of relief. It’s not the pursuit of liberty and happiness. The next step is ʿāzar, help in fulfilling the instructions of the God who gave me the ability to respond. Once more, mišpāṭ is the focus—the governance of God throughout the created order. Let it be—and let Your management of the universe help me. Help me to do what? To live!
Two implications musts be articulated. First, life belongs to God. It’s not mine. I only have it on loan from the Creator. Therefore, if I live, I live under His grace. And second, if I live under His grace, I am indebted to Him for that life and I can repay that debt by obligating myself to His governance. I live because of Him. I serve because I owe Him.
To pretend that my life is my own to do as I please, to live as I choose, is the essence of idolatry. To assert my own self-governance is blasphemy. If I am alive, I am a debtor to God.
Let that sink in—deeply. Especially in the Greek Western world of individual rights and self-sufficiency. The psalmist will have nothing to do with that bit of idolatrous thinking. He is not his own god—or master—or captain. He is precisely what Yeshua described in the two-option choice: slave to one or slave to the other.
As we come to the penultimate verse of this psalm, we are challenged to remember who we really are—indebted servants of the Most High. Anything else is delusion. “Life is something that visits my body, a transcendent loan; I have neither initiated nor conceived its worth and meaning. The essence of what I am is not mine. I am what is not mine. I am that I am not.”[1]
Topical Index: nepeš, soul, ḥāyâ, to be, ʿāzar, help, debt, life, Psalm 119:175
[1] Abraham Heschel Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 62.
“To pretend that my life is my own to do as I please, to live as I choose, is the essence of idolatry. To assert my own self-governance is blasphemy. If I am alive, I am a debtor to God.”
“Life is something that visits my body, a transcendent loan; I have neither initiated nor conceived its worth and meaning. The essence of what I am is not mine. I am what is not mine. I am that I am not.”[1]
Emet!… amen
The fictional work of mankind’s presumptive arrogance is the false notion: I am. In fact, I am only—existing only—as that I am not.
Now we can understand the essential darkness of the elements and nature of sin: blasphemous arrogance, conjectural and categorical assumption, hate filled rebellion, and the presumption of life by those who are actually dead… both without and apart from life. Dead in trespasses and sin, these exposed demoniacs are “not living in a house” but “among the tombs.”
But thanks be to God for his indescribable gifts!— mercy, grace, repentance, salvation, and life eternal… the abundance and fullness of His Meshiach’s acquisition… shared freely with those of his household.