Force Majeure
Establish my footsteps in Your word, and do not let any wrongdoing have power over me. Psalm 119:133 NASB
Any wrongdoing – Of course, this follows from the previous verse. God’s graciousness extends to those whom He calls His own. But things can interfere. Customarily, followers find favor. But even followers fall. When the psalmist asks for God to establish his footsteps, he uses the strong verb kûn. It’s more than making something secure. “The root meaning is to bring something into being with the consequence that its existence is a certainty.” [1] “Make my path certain” is the idea. And, by the way, it’s not a path that I created. It’s the path that God created. That’s why it will stand. All I have to do is stay on it.
That’s the problem. Staying on it. There are two crucial obstacles. The first is what life throws at me, including all the deceptions and seductions offered by others. The poet has had a lot to say about enemies. While you and I can’t dispose of them all, we can pray to enlist God’s support and reinforcements when they come calling. But there’s another category within “any wrongdoing” that is much more nefarious. To truly understand the scope of this category, we’ll need some lexical help. The word ʾāwen “seems to have two facets: a stress on trouble which moves on to wickedness, and an emphasis on emptiness which moves on to idolatry.”[2] Rather than translating it as “wrongdoing” which implies some agent, we can think of it as trouble or toil, sorrow, wickedness, mischief, or iniquity. That covers a lot of territory, not least of which is the second real obstacle—me! I am often the cause of my own trouble, toil, emptiness, or iniquity. I usually don’t plan on causing this, but I often find, after the fact, that the real culprit in my life is me. I cause a lot of my own pain. When the psalmist asks for a sure path that does not let any ʾāwen have power over him, he certainly must include his own wrongdoing, for it is his own wrongdoing that ultimately has the greatest potential to take control of his life. We call this process addiction.
This verse is an admission of powerlessness. That is the key. “Do not let any wrongdoing have power” is essentially “I admit that I am powerless over my own wrongdoing. Don’t let it take control of me.” God is the force majeure clause in my life. At least He offers to be. The key is to accept the fact that I am my worst enemy and I have little ability to fight myself and win. Oh, I can fight (and don’t we often feel exactly like we’re in a battle?), but it just isn’t possible to defeat me. I will also win—and lose. That’s what it means to be in the crosshairs of yetzer ha’ra and yetzer ha’tov. So, if I’m really going to find the favor that God typically bestows on His own, I’ll have to give up trying to be my own, and that means admitting that I am part of the “any.” The alternative is tragic. “שָׁלַט (šālaṭ) I, exercise power (over), dominate, have mastery. . . ‘to exercise autocratic control over,’ ‘to have one’s way with’”[3] If I don’t find the path God has laid out, then šālaṭ is inevitable. Something will dominate, and it won’t be under my authority. Of course, we will think we’re in control, but when we peel back all the onion skins, we’ll find those raging emotions are calling the shots. Fear, anger, disgust, sadness, blame—they’re all there ready to take charge. An addict is really just someone who is alone with himself. Kûn is the way back to being a whole person.
Topical Index: wrongdoing, ʾāwen, trouble, idolatry, kûn, establish, powerless, Psalm 119:133
[1] Oswalt, J. N. (1999). 964 כוּן. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 433). Moody Press.
[2] Livingston, G. H. (1999). 48 און. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 23). Moody Press.
[3] Austel, H. J. (1999). 2396 שָׁלַט. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 929). Moody Press.
