Whose?
My life is continually in my hand, yet I do not forget Your Law. Psalm 119:109 NASB
Continually in my hand – Do you find this verse rather odd? After all the deference to God’s sovereign governance, we would expect that psalmist to say that his life is entirely in God’s hand, not his own. So, what’s happening here? Why this sudden change to ontological independence?
One of the critical words is tāmîd, “continuity.” It’s a sacrifice word.
Most frequently this word is used in an adjectival genitive construction with ʿōlâ for the continual whole burnt offering made to God every morning and evening (Ex 29:42; Num 28:6, 10, 15, 23; Ezr 3:5; Neh 10:34; cf. Ezk 46:15, every morning; and the continual minḥâ, Num 4:16; Neh 10:34; Lev 6:13. The word is used alone to designate the daily burnt offering in Dan 8:11–13; 11:31; 12:11. Numbers 4:7 refers to the “bread of continuity” meaning the bread that was always there. . . Some passages, however, stress constancy of personal devotion, e.g., Hos 12:6 [H 7], “Turn to your God; keep mercy and justice and wait on your God continually.” The Psalms likewise urge, let his praises continually be in your mouth (34:1 [H 2]; 71:6), hope continually in the Lord (71:14); let God’s truth continually preserve you (40:11 [H 12]); let prayer be made to him continually (72:15), and keep his law continually (119:44).[1]
The NASB gives us a literal version of these words. Unfortunately, the literal sense makes no sense. We need to know what it means to be “in the hand,” not what it says. There are some examples that help. Job 2:6 reads, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.’” Clearly, “to be in the hand” is to have power over. The same phrasing occurs when the text speaks of being the hand of the Lord. The same could be said for verses about Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel. But it hardly seems to make sense that this poet, after more than one hundred verses extolling God’s sovereignty, would proclaim that he has power over his own life. Robert Alter treats this phrase as a Hebrew idiom, and translates the passage, “My life is at risk at all times . . .” That makes a lot more sense, and it justifies the second part of the verse. The problem with idioms is that they don’t make literal sense. For example acqua en boca(Italian) literally means “water in mouth,” but it is idiomatic for “keep a secret.” Unless you knew that idiom, it would be impossible to translate it. In this case, we know that holding something in your hand means having the power over it, but is this idiomatic? It can’t mean that I have the power over my life. So, are we left with guessing (according to the context) and arriving at Alter’s choice as the best one? Maybe not.
You see, the real problem is the second word, kap. Both NASB and Alter translate this as “hand,” and end up with the problem of power. But kap doesn’t mean “hand.” It means “the palm of the hand.” Rashi points out that this means holding something with an open hand, that is, on the palm, and that means it is not secure. It is constantly at risk of falling, slipping away. So Alter is right in his translation but that’s because he recognizes that the word is not yad (hand) but kap (palm). The NASB misses the point entirely. I find no English translation that recognizes the word as “palm of the hand” instead of “hand.” There are English translations similar to Alter’s which treat the phrase as a risk, but none explain why and many suggest something contrary to the poet’s submissive attitude. But once we see why this phrase is about risk, not power, we can understand the relationship to the Torah. The Torah is all about submission to God’s instructions, so it would hardly make sense to claim that I am in charge of my life and I don’t forget God’s Law. That’s why the NASB translators are forced to render the attached vav to the word torah as “yet.” But we don’t have to take this drastic action if the poet is saying, “My life is always at risk, but I never forget Your Torah.” In fact, such a statement offers another bridge back to the Mem section where the presence of the enemy’s threat was the initial motivator to rely completely on the Torah. And isn’t that exactly what happens to us? We coast along as happy clams until something threatens us. Then we’re reminded of our essential powerlessness. We’re open to attack. And that drives us back through all those stages of development until we finally rest in the handiwork of God.
All of that squeezed into two Hebrew words.
Topical Index: kap, palm, hand, life, power, control, Torah, tāmîd, continuity, Psalm 119:109
[1] Kaiser, W. C. (1999). 1157 מוד. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 493). Moody Press.
