Monday, 12 June 2017

A call to be active

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Psalm 130:7 "O Israel, wait for Adonai. For with Adonai there is lovingkindness, and with Him is full redemption" (TLV)

I'm impressed at how little there is in the Bible that is passive. The lack of passivity means a preponderance of activity. That activity is almost always connected to our hearts and with God, it is always a "heart thing". For instance, we don't hear passively, we hear (Shema) in a way that shows we "take heed". So hearing is done in the heart, not just in the ears.

The first word of this verse (in Hebrew) is Yakhal which is translated here as "wait". This is not passive waiting, but active waiting. Today we would call it "interactive waiting". It means to wait with expectation. In fact, our third word El means "inclined toward".

This is the extent of the instruction in this verse: Actively wait with expectation as you incline yourself toward the Lord. What follows are two stated benefits for obedience in this. The first stated benefit is very common to us. It is Khesed which we translate as lovingkindness, but in reality it is "grace".

The second benefit is only used 3 other times in the Scriptures. It is the word P'dut meaning redemption. There is a principle in Bible study called "the principle of first use". That means that a word takes its future meanings from the meaning of its first use.

This word is first used in Exodus 8:18 (8:23 in most Christian Bibles), where God first makes a "distinction" between Goshen and the rest of Egypt before the plague of flies. Somehow, this distinction became redemption later in Psalms and lastly in Isaiah (50:2), when God asks if His hand is too short to redeem, we have redemption.

The kingdom of God is full of distinctions; light from darkness, dry land from sea, holy from profane, saved from lost. Let us thank Him always that we have been called out of darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).