Tuesday, 26 December 2017

Walking together

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Psalm 56:14 "For You have delivered my soul from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life." (TLV)

You're going to love this. A Nefesh is a soul, so Nafshi means "my soul." Something is happening to my soul at the beginning of this verse. What is it? You can see the common translation is "delivered".

A form of this word is used 213 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. In about half of those uses the word is translated (in the by far most common translation) "delivered". There are 23 other translations of this word used in the NASB. Some of these are: escaped, rescued, plucked, snatched, and taken away.

What has happened to my soul? It has been snatched (or plucked) from death (and my feet from stumbling). The phrase "my feet from stumbling" is used idiomatically to show I am not going to fall where I would have otherwise.

Then we come to the word that is the reason I wanted to write this devotional. The word is Hit'halaykh. It is a common Hebrew verb in an uncommon form.

In general, there are seven types of Hebrew verbs, 3 are active and each of those 3 has a passive counterpart. That leaves one, called Hitpael, which is neither active nor passive, but is reflexive. This is a structure given to any verb that requires two persons to do it. Good examples are a discussion or a visit (with each other).

In this verse, our word is Hit'halaykh meaning to walk together. My soul is not walking alone, but walking together with God. And our last note; wherever God goes, there is the light of life. Have a great day. Via con Dios!