Every Word My Story (1)
A psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Psalm – We all know this most famous psalm. At least we thought we knew it. Here it is in re-translated Paleo-Hebrew.
Of course, the 23rd psalm doesn’t start with “The Lord is . . .” It starts with mizmor David, “a psalm of David.” If you read the Paleo-Hebrew from right to left, you can see mizmor in the first word and David in the second. Notice something, if you will, about the structure of these words. Look at the repeated letters. OK, now let’s see what we can discover here.
First, mizmor. The word in Masoretic script means, “a song of praise, a psalm.” But the Paleo-Hebrew carries the message, “Chaos cut off from chaos secures the person.” How in the world can this tell us anything about a song of praise. Maybe we should be asking, “What is a song of praise?” For the answer, we need to remember that Hebrew is a language of remembering. The first time we find a song of praise is in Exodus 15:2. Take a look. It is Moses’ song of praise to the Lord for the victory over the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. How was that victory accomplished? Well, the chaos of Egypt, descending upon the children of Israel once again, was destroyed when the waters closed over the approaching attackers. Chaos was cut off by [massive water] “chaos” that secured the people of Israel. As a result, Moses sang the first mizmor. And every time a mizmor is sung, we are reminded of this victory, the seminal victory that secured the nation of Israel centuries before. Every song of praise, every psalm, looks back to the first mizmor in commemoration.
David in Paleo-Hebrew means something like, “authority of the pathway secures the pathway.” Or we might read it as “control of the tongue secures the pathway.” “David” is about control or authority, doors (two of them) and security. Maybe the name “David” isn’t so much about a great king as it is about a greater poet. Why do we remember David? Is it because of his kingship or is it because of the eloquence of his words. David’s songs of praise lead us to YHVH. He opens the door for our feelings, our struggles, our joys and defeats so that we might enter the pathway of God. David may have been Israel’s greatest king so far (there is yet another coming who will be even greater than David), but the reason both Jew and Gentile know David is not for his wars and politics but rather for the way he gave us permission to stand before YHVH and feel.
mizmor David is memorial and emotion. Before I even look at the next words, the words I so desperately need to hear, I must realize the mizmor David takes me back to the God who saves and lets me stand before Him with all of my crushing need. Then I am ready for “The Lord is my shepherd.”
Topical Index: mizmor, David, song of praise, psalm, Paleo-Hebrew, Psalm 23:1
The Rest of the Story? “The LORD (He) is..”
My Shepherd
My Strength
My Solace
My Shalom
My Savior
My Sovereign
My Song
Decisions, decisions! Perhaps what made David great is the fact that he chose to use the gift of speech that was given to him to declare peace and victory in spite of the obvious circumstances surrounding him. Decisions (pathways) they all seem to be connected somehow. I wonder if that’s the reason there’s a lamed (toward) in front of david instead of a mem (from). Add that to mizmor and see what you come up with.
What’s in a word? God used it to create a world and then gave it to us. How do we decide to use our gift of speech, and what comes our way because of those decisions? What “portion” from the sea (multitude) of activities has been cut off for us? Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision. Be ye holy as I am holy.
YHWH bless you and keep you………….
Totally sublime. Thank you!!
You fight fire with fire.
What does the Hero say to the beloved? “Trust me. Take my hand.” Then what does he do? Runs through the danger. Faces the fear. Fights the enemy.
Who or what is our enemy, when we “fight not against principalities against powers”?
Pogo said it the way he saw it: “we have met the enemy, and he is us”. Close, but not quite. The enemy may be within my borders, but HE IS NOT ME. He is an alien. How do I know? Because I was made in the image of the Most High God, and He does not oppose Himself. Neither should I. I engaged in self-bitterness for years. I was hard on myself, because I thought my troubles were because I was defective. Not so. I just had parasites. Something I could GET RID OF. Wash away. Purge. The problem could go, and I could stay.
How do I get rid of the problem? Repent. Cut myself off from the problem. Then He can nuke it without danger to me. My Saviour took the Hippocratic oath: “first, do no harm”. As long as I stay attached to my enemy, He cannot remove it without hurting me. So He waits. Because He wants to totally obliterate my problems, but sin is the act of identifying with evil, or excusing it, or believing the lies when it whispers “it’s just you”. No it isn’t!
I ran through the fire, but I didn’t know it was Love, making my oneness with my enemy so heavy that I would eventually choose to let it go. I was holding on to the problem to the very bottom of my soul. Everything burned. It has been a true bonfire of the vanities. But. My worst fear was wrong. The fire did not touch who I really was. The more sin I shucked. the more me I got. It has been the biggest surprise of my life.
I did not see my need for the Shepherd until I saw myself as a sheep.
Well, actually we are not fighting flesh and blood, which is to say, my enemy is not to be found in the physical.
Hmm. I wonder. Unforgiveness, self-pity, arrogance, self-centeredness, hard-heartedness — those are all things I find in myself at various times and I think that’s flesh and blood rather than some ethereal enemy. Sometimes I wonder if that isn’t what Peter was talking about when he said the enemy roams about as a lion looking for whom may be devoured. (1Pet 5:8)
Isn’t the yetzer hara my opponent/enemy when I let it have free reign? I sometimes wonder if the devil even exists in a personification. I think the enemy is me when I fail to repent of my ways.
I have personal experience confirming this.
HOW WE MUST BE REMINDED OF THIS TIME AND TIME AGAIN LAURITA !