The Code of the Scribe
Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Psalm 51:1 NASB
Blot out – When a scribe writes a Torah scroll, meticulousness is absolutely required. Not one extra mark or mistake is allowed. Today the sofer stam follows strict guidelines regarding the size of the letters, the style and layout of each letter and the precise count in each part of the scroll. Special parchment and ink must be used as well as the instrument for writing the letters. All of this and more is the result of viewing the writing of a Torah scroll as a holy task. Because the writing is on parchment made from the skins of kosher animals, it is possible to scratch off mistakes and write over them. This is not the same as our idea of blotting, an action that implies soaking off the ink. Obviously, when we scratch off letters from a scroll, abrasion marks are left behind. The parchment is not new and it is visibly altered. Even though the letters are now correct, the original mistake has permanently changed the surface.
Et voilà, so with David. Forgiveness rewrites the life of the sinner, but it does not remove the damage from the repair. Scratch marks are left behind. The new life is now be corrected, but the mistake leaves a past blemish. Only God can “blot” out so as to render the parchment as if it were entirely new. And even God cannot remove our awareness of the necessity of scratching off.
David is not asking to have the stain removed. The stain cannot be removed. Only the results of the stain may be removed by scratching away the original skin. But always the memory (and whatever visible leftovers there are) remains. Years after his affair, in fact, centuries afterward, the story of David and Bathsheba remains a blot on his kingship and character.
Can you live with that? David had to. In fact, despite forgiveness and a restored relationship with YHVH, the result of David’s blot was the death of a child, the destruction of a family, the eventual idolatry of a nation and a legacy of sin and disobedience. Forget David’s renewal. Forget his humility and repentance. What do you remember about him now? The affair. The disaster. “Character is easier kept than recovered.”
I have scratch marks. Deep ones. Perhaps you do too. And maybe because we both have the signs of our past etched into our present lives we may learn to love each other just that little bit more. Heaven knows we need it. It’s worth noting that David does not request renewal on the basis of his repentance. Even this has no essential merit. David asks on the basis of the character of YHVH, on YHVH’s hesed and compassion. Character is easier to keep—and the Lord keeps His forever.
Topical Index: blot out, character, scratch, maha, wipe, Psalm 51:1
Will ALL things be made new? Well, not quite. There are the scars. What are scars? If you lose, they are reminders of your shame. BUT, if you win, well, they are your brag book! When we are called to be witnesses, we are called to show off our ‘wins’ – our victory over sin. This is the best tool we have to inspire others into the Kingdom. Even David’s shame became his brag, because he ditched his sin. Does God need a brag book? I think WE must, for He has one, but I think it must be for us. The wounds in His hands and feet are there for all eternity. We may get a new and improved version of spirit, mind and body built for eternity – albeit still recognizable – but our Saviour’s description of all who saw Him after the resurrection describe Someone so changed, they do not recognize Him (see the walk to Emmaus), and we, like Thomas, need the scars to be sure Who He is. Revelation has the best description of what the glorification of resurrection does, first to Him then to us. But, ah, the scars. Why the scars? They are for us. Yes, He won the fight, yes He has bragging rights, but for us, those scars will forever remind us of HOW we got there, and why. Why do we need to be humiliated for all eternity? Well, we were, after all, the enemies who made those scars. His honor is our mortification; the reminder of His win is our reminder of why He had to fight, and we need that humility for all eternity, if that eternity is to be immune from affliction ever rising again. We have to be ever more horrified for forever, so that we can remember to never, ever do it again. Hurt Him, that is. He is going to stay hurt forever, just so that we can. The embarrassment continues, face to Face. We are there because we lost, and He won. Those who insisted on ‘winning’ keep their win – in the dust and ashes under our feet. They get to keep the prize they fought so hard for, but that prize is everlasting death: annihilation. Death cost them everything. Life, however, cost HIM everything. Are you ready to give Him all the honor, power and glory for forever? Forever we will fall on our faces before the reminder of why none of that is ours. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus.
Yes, there are some deep, deep scratches, and they still hurt in spite of His forgiveness. And they forever will….
In spite of that there is shalom, His shalom!
Together they give a strange mixture of joy and sadness.
God does forgive, but He never takes away (in this life) the effects of my former sins: these scars remind me of who I really am without Him..
very profound…so true…
Skip… I Believe This To Be The Most Revealing Post I Have Ever Read… Your Candid Nature… The Reality Of YHVH Principles And The Unintentional Error’s Of Man All Add Up To This… Until All That Has Happened Comes BetweenYou And The Man You Wanted To Be…
It was a great line from a good movie, wasn’t it?
Skip… What Was That Movie? It Has Deeply Touched Me…
The International. There are many great lines in the film, including one about the power of debt.
Skip… Thank You… I Pray I Am Able To Meet You One Day… I Am Humbled By Your Service To Heaven’s Principles…
Yeah buddy, there are scratches and scars!!
I try to tell it to people this way….there are doors better left closed, once they are opened they can never be shut. (hence the scars)
What a profound post. Nothing like telling it the way it is!
David sure had to live with some scars. I can’t even imagine how he felt after Nathan left that night of confronting King David. We see that David lived with it and Y-H allowed consequences to happen.
Such a great lesson here.
Yes, each time a Scribe comes to the Name, he has to wash his hands first before continuing to write the Sacred Name of יְהֹוָה Such reverence!
But, us believers these days have somehow lost that reverence of His name which is His character/nature, so often misrepresenting Him in truths/His Word/instructions/ways, causing many to stumble.
Scars- both visible and invisible, are there to remind us of the hurt, the battle, the wounds we went through, to learn from hopefully. Those memories still hurt no matter! These hurts will still bring forth emotions, like it or not, they cannot be drowned, buried, forgotten, nor
BLOTTED out.
But through these hurts we draw strength. Strength to be more wary, sensitive and attentive to circumstances/folks we come to/meet on this journey, THEN, “Character is easier kept than recovered.”
“Character is easier to keep—and the Lord keeps His forever.” Amein v’amein!
מצוינות (excellence) , Skip. Shalom.
My sin broke the lies off of my heart, when I was able to see. Sometimes we have to see to be free from the deeper things inside, things that we try to fix ourselves. For so long I looked for fulfillment in my husband and he kept messing up, then I looked for it from approval from others but they weren’t aware they needed to give it. When I took the step that nearly killed me it broke the lies and pulled off the blinders to what really held me captive and when I was broken I became free
☺️ Freedom! Lost~ found ~
beautiful! Thank you for sharing. God bless.
Whiter Than Snow
…But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD,
“I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
“They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity,
— and their sin I will remember no more*.”
Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His Name:.. (Jeremiah 31. 33-35)
Yeshua HaMashiach, the Living Word has spoken.. ~ “This is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you..” (Luke 22.20)
And in fulfillment of the holy scriptures, “it is written..”
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on Me, the One they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn Son.” (Zechariah 12:10)
And, as foretold by Isaiah and fulfilled by Yeshua HaMashiach, the Suffering Servant (is He the One?- or should we look for another?)
~ Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him..~ (Isaiah 53.4-6)
Who is this Rabbi Sha’ul refers to?
~He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification ~ (Romans 4:25)
and again..
~ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and
that He was buried..
and
that He was raised on the third day
[all}
according to
and
(in fulfillment o)f the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15: 3,4)
Who is this Man?
~ For He has made Him to be sin for us, [the One] who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him ~ (2 Corinthians 5.21)
Will we join with John?
~ We [also] have seen and [will also] testify [and joyfully proclaim the Good News!] that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world ~
(1 John 4.14)
O, what a Savior!!
Blessed is the Name of the LORD, the Name that is above every name!
Paul’s Powerful Prayer
(Is There Not a Cause?)
~ [And] For this [very] reason I [will] bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in Heaven and on Earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ [the Anointed] may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, — and to know the love of the Messiah which surpasses knowledge, that you [also] may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
(For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily)
~ Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that [now] works within us, — to Him be the glory in the ekklēsia and in Yeshua HaMashiach, (Jesus who is the Christ) to all generations forever and ever. Amein. (Ephesians 3.14-21)
Carl, scripture run! But a run from the heart of one who’s life is in Him! Do you know the song “In Christ Alone”?
Thank you Jesus!! Thank you Lord! Hallelujah, hallelujahs, hallelujah!
Powerful, Skip, so powerful. Thank you for your faithfulness on the journey of becoming who YHVH created you to be, a man reflecting His character. You encourage me. Shalom, Lynnet