Lonesome Dove

You are near, Lord, and all Your commandments are truth.  Psalm 119:151  NASB

Near – We looked at this verse on the 15^th of January.  I re-read my own words today and discovered that I’ve suffered emotional amnesia since I put these words on paper.  I’ve felt nothing but abandonment in my soul.  God seems very, very far away.  Re-reading this verse brought me face-to-face with the real issue.  I’m the lonesome dove.  God hasn’t left.  I have.  So, I’m going back to Psalm 119:151 to recover the God who never left.

The verse tells me God is near.  The word is qārab.  But this word isn’t a verb.  It’s an adjective.  How that’s possible needs investigation, especially since the English translations treat the word as an adverb modifying the verb “to be” (You are).  Remember that Hebrew doesn’t write the copula (the “to be” verb), so in this text the Hebrew is simply:

קָר֣וֹב אַתָּ֣ה יְהֹוָ֑ה

You will recognize the personal name of God (that’s also important, as we shall see), and perhaps you’ll recognize the middle word ʾattâ, the second person pronoun, “You.”  But as you can see, there is no verb here.  Literally it reads “near You YHVH.”  If we translate it like this, “near” acts as a location description, so we call it an adverb, modifying an understood, but absent, verb.  But in Hebrew it modifies the name YHVH.  This is important and impossible in translation.  What it tells us is that the word “near” isn’t a geographical location.  It is a character description.  In other words, it is a word that names an attribute of God.  It’s not that He is close by.  It’s that close-by-ness is who He is.  The wicked might be in proximity but that’s because they had to approach.  God doesn’t approach us.  He is qārab.  This is the Hebrew way of saying omnipresent, but it’s not omnipresent in the theoretical sense that God is everywhere.  This is personal omnipresence.  He’s not just everywhere.  He’s here.  And that’s why this adjective modifies YHVH, not ʾĕlōhîm.  This is the personally present, personally involved, personally connected God.  I could add qārab to the list in Exodus 34:6-7.  Maybe I should.  I need to know personally that God isn’t in the proximity.  He’s the God who is here.

Of course, David already told us this a long time ago in the 23^rd Psalm.  A table before my enemies, a rod and staff in the thick darkness—those are qārab statements.  And now I’m not so scared.  I don’t share something very important with the zimmâ.  I’m not going in the same direction.  I might have experienced detours, and some of them have been longer than others, but I’m not going in a direction away from God’s training.  The zimmâ are.  I recognize them because their behaviors take them away from God.  Even in my stumbling, I’m still on a long path in the same direction.  And now I am assured that the YHVH God-close-at-hand is on that path with me.

The psalmist tells me one other critical bit of news.  God’s commandments (miṣwot) are ʾĕmet.  Not exactly what our English translation says.  Not “truth” but rather absolutely reliable.  As long as I orient my path according to the miṣwot, I will arrive at my intended destination—to be fully present to the fully present God.  I needed to remind myself that what I wrote once before is still the case.  miṣwot are the cure for lonesome doves.  Like me.

Topical Index: qārab, zimmâ, ʾĕmet, omnipresent, Psalm 119:151