Words From The Cross

Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, YHWH God of truth. Psalm 31:6 (Hebrew text)

Redeemed – Jesus cries out from the cross, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).  There wasn’t a single Jew in the audience who didn’t recognize the words of David in that cry.  But I wonder if Christians realize what Jesus was saying.  We are likely to think that his citation is a declaration of the end of his life.  We see it as the almost final breath.  We think it’s a cry of submission to God just before he dies.  But that’s because we haven’t read the psalm.

Yeshua was a rabbi.  He often used rabbinic techniques in his lessons about life.   Even on the cross, he does what every rabbi did in order for listeners to make connections between God’s Word and current events.  He gives his audience clues.  His clues come in the form of a few words from a larger context.  “Into Your hands I commit my spirit” is just the beginning of a line that ends, “You have redeemed me, YHWH God of truth.”  If you recognized the rest of the line as soon as you heard the opening words, do you think you would consider this a statement of defeat?  Hardly!  Yeshua ties “commit” to “redeemed,” just as David does.  I guess in order to understand what Yeshua is really saying, we have to know what the word “redeemed” is all about.

The Hebrew verb padah means “to ransom, to redeem and to deliver.”  The pictograph is “behold, the open door,” but the consonant Pey is an action word.  It is not simply the description of something “open.” It is the act of opening.  So, we should probably look for the picture of “behold, an opening door.”  In other words, to ransom, to redeem or to deliver is connected to the idea of opening a way that is otherwise closed.

More than any other context, redemption describes God’s act of grace.  The quintessential example of redemption is the deliverance of Israel from the house of bondage in Egypt.  But redemption is not only corporate.  Abraham, David, Jeremiah, Daniel and many other individuals experienced deliverance through God’s strong arm.  Of course, this verb is also used to describe the act of ransoming a slave by paying the bondage price.  This theme is extensively developed by Paul.

Finally, the verb indicates a simple, active, completed event.  As soon as Yeshua commits his spirit into the hand of the Father, the act of redeeming is done!  There is no waiting for God to take notice, no hesitation on the Father’s behalf.  Yeshua commits.  God redeems.  Do you suppose that anyone in the audience standing near the cross missed that!  Yeshua announces that he has been redeemed.  Everyone thought he was being executed as a rebel, a blasphemer, a threat – but he points them to David’s psalm.  God has redeemed him.

Refuge inside the fence, relinquishing control, committing myself to Him – all of this is followed by padah – the opening door.  Walk on through.

Topical Index:  redeemed, padah, Psalm 31:6, Luke 23:46