Unnatural Fear

For You are my hope; O Lord GOD, You are my confidence from my youth.  Psalm 71:5 NASB 1995

Hope – How can we hope?  Does that seem like a strange question?  Maybe not in a world that seems to be falling apart.  Yes, we could espouse the theological assertion that “God is our hope,” but the evidence often suggests God’s apparent absence.  Is hope only for some long-awaited future utopia?  Have we no reason to hope now?  Must we just hold our collective breath waiting for the end?

Jacob’s insight provides the foundation of biblical hope:

“The noun tiqwâ describes the hope that emanates from Yahweh, the God of Israel, and can be expected only from him.”[1]

The exclusivity of hope only in God is a constant theme of the Psalms.  For example:

“He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be shaken” Ps 62:6 NASB.

King David had just as tumultuous a life as us, perhaps more so, and yet he writes about hope I God.  How was he able to reach the point where political conflicts, betrayal, abuse, and public humiliation didn’t undermine his confidence in God?  Perhaps hope isn’t really about our expectations at all.  Perhaps it’s about God’s reputation.  Luzzatto writes:

 “When a man is convinced that, wherever he is, he always stands in the presence of God, blessed be He, he is spontaneously imbued with fear lest he do anything wrong, and so detract from the exalted glory of God.  ‘Know what is above thee,’ said our Sages, ‘a seeing eye and a hearing ear, and all thy deeds written in a book’ (Ab. 2.1.).  Since the Holy One, blessed be He, exercises His providence over everything, and sees and hears all things, everything a man does is noted and recorded as merit or demerit.  A clear realization of God’s omnipresence comes only with continual reflection and profound meditation.  The matter is so remote from our senses that only after much study and speculation can the intellect conceive it.  And even after one has come to realize God’s omnipresence, that realization tends to grow faint unless it is kept continually in mind.  As reflection is a means to the cultivation of unswerving fear of God, so are thoughtlessness and inattention, whether they are due to the press of business or the lack of will, the greatest hinderances to it.  Thoughtlessness is the very negation of unswerving fear.”[2]

“Learn thence that the trait of fear may be acquired only through the uninterrupted study of the Torah.  Mark the expression, ‘that he may learn to fear,’ since this fear does not come naturally.  On the contrary, the human faculties, being physical, are averse to it, and it can, therefore, be attained only through study. . . Thus David prayed, ‘Teach me, O Lord, Thy way, that I may walk in Thy truth; make one my heart to fear Thy name’ (Ps. 86.11).”[3]

“Holiness is of a twofold nature; it begins as a quality of the service rendered to God, but it ends as a reward for such service.  It is at first a type of spiritual effort, and then a kind of spiritual gift.”[4]

Before we close this investigation, I thought you might like to listen to the study and commentary on the last chapter of Mesillat Yesharim.  Here is the audio file from the day our small group wrestled with Luzzatto’s insight:

https://skipmoentw.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/Audio/mesillat-yesharim-study/mesillat-29.mp3

Topical Index: hope, tiqwâ, Mesillat Yesharim, Luzzatto, Psalm 62:6, Psalm 71:5

[1] E.-J. Waschke, tiqwâ, TDOT, Vol. 16, p. 763.

[2] Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright (Jewish Publication Society, 2010), p. 265.

[3] Ibid., pp. 265-266

[4] Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright (Jewish Publication Society, 2010), p. 267.