119: Teth

The ninth Hebrew letter, Teth [ט], is the symbol of all the goodness of creation. It is also the first letter of the word tov, meaning “good”. Technically, first in our Western, left-to-right way of reading is actually last in Hebrew, but you get what I mean. This is what the word tov looks like in Hebrew letterforms:

טוב

(You can see the teth in orange at the end, which is actually the beginning.) When God saw that “it was good” seven times in Genesis 1, that’s tov each time, and the initial letter of the word has come to be associated with all that creative goodness in its many manifestations.

Variants on the word tov, each with the initial teth, also show up six times in this ninth section of Psalm 119.

Six is the number of man, created on day six and appointed to work six days a week because of the curse. Perhaps then, this section of the psalm is concerned with God’s goodness applied to the human experience. Sometimes that happens in ways we don’t expect.

Psalm 119:65-66 — A Good Deal

“You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.”

When you do the right thing the right way, you get the right results. This comes out in three ways in these two verses.

Dealing Well

If the expression “deal well” sounds familiar, it’s because it occurs a number of times in the Old Testament. Saul remarked that David had “dealt well” with him because he didn’t kill him when he had opportunity despite Saul’s unrelenting harassment. King Asa “dealt well” in the eyes of God when he broke down the Asherim and high places and commanded the people of Judah to seek the Lord. Again, the same is said of Jehoiada the priest, the mentor of Joash, that he “dealt well” in Israel, and toward God. In each case, the phrase speaks of a pattern of behavior characteristic of a person. When God “deals well” with his servant, it is because he is of consistent character. There is no shadow of turning with him. We can trust him to respond predictably, and not in an arbitrary way. That which pleases him yesterday pleases him today, and will find its reward. This can be discerned, as the psalmist says, “according to your word”. The word of the Lord is his bond.

A Man of Good Taste

“Teach me good judgment”, prays the psalmist. There is no suggestion, at least in this section, that he is in the position of a king or ruler, making decisions for others. The word translated “judgment” is simply one of the Hebrew words for “taste” or, occasionally, “opinion”. He wants to be a man of discernment, and he believes the key to becoming prudent in his choices is studying of the Law of God. Serious study will bring his natural preferences into alignment with reality.

I Believe

It’s funny to talk about faith under a system of law, but of course Hebrews 11 is our great reminder that all the obedient servants of God in the Old Testament under law were actually men of great faith. Here the word “believe” in the phrase “I believe in your commandments” is exactly the same as Genesis 15:6, where it says that Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, just as Hebrews tells us. Obedience that comes out of duty or fear of ill consequences is certainly preferable to disobedience, but trust in God is the best motive for obedience because it pleases him. In fact, without it, it is impossible to please him. The fact that it is belief in the commandments here rather than belief in God the person is immaterial; they amount to the same confidence in the same character.

Psalm 119:67-68 — Missing the Good

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good; teach me your statutes.”

The psalmist was not always on the right track. Prior to a seriously unpleasant experience, he admits he “erred”, was “deceived” or “sinned in ignorance”. All these are translations of the same expression used in the contemporary books of the OT. The idea of going astray is not calculated rebellion or wickedness, but poor choices made through lack of attention or incomplete understanding. Affliction, however, brought what was most important into focus for him. Now he plots his way according to the word of the Lord so that these errors are things of the past.

This is not a matter of fear but of rationality and working eyeballs. The psalmist reasons or observes that God does what comes naturally to him. God is good and therefore he does good. It’s the word tov in both cases. This is exactly what the Lord Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

This being the case, asking the Lord to teach him his limitations and boundaries is only prudent. That will definitely keep a man (or woman) from going astray.

Psalm 119:69-70 — Two Hearts

“The insolent smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts; their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law.”

The contrast here is between a whole heart and an unfeeling heart. The psalmist embraces the precepts of God with totality of his inner man: affections, intellect and will. The insolent who tell falsehoods about him have hearts literally “as fat as grease”, which is apparently a Hebrew figure of speech for unusual insensitivity, as the ESV translators tried to capture by introducing the word “unfeeling”. The person whose inner man is as “fat as grease” is dense or stupid, unreachable and unteachable. The psalmist, by way of contrast, delights in the law of God. The revelation of truth is a joy to his heart, the opposite of insensitivity.

Perhaps the disinformation campaign of the insolent is the affliction of which he speaks in verses 67 and 71. We have certainly seen these sorts of people — brazen liars — on parade in the lead-up to last month’s election.

Psalm 119:71-72 — Good in Affliction

“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.”

The Christian understands what only the more devout Israelite grasped, that affliction need not be a sign of God’s anger. It may be the Lord’s way of drawing you back to himself. It may be an indication that your service for Christ is over the target and angering the enemy. At any rate, affliction is the expectation of the believer in this age, where it generally was not when Psalm 119 was written.

This, then, is a rare Old Testament confession: “It is good for me that I was afflicted.” Again, the word for “good” is tov, with its signature teth. Better to have gone through the bad experience and come out of it with greater knowledge of God than to escape difficulties and stress and not know the Lord quite so well.

Better also is the law of God’s mouth than gold and silver in abundance. Yes, the word “better” is also tov, the last in the series. The care and detail with which Psalm 119 is constructed is truly amazing. Every phrase is carefully considered.