119: Yodh

Yodh [י] is the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet as well as the smallest, the famous “jot” of “jot and tittle” in the KJV of Matthew 5:18, corresponding with the English “i”. In Greek, it is iota, the smallest particle. “Not an iota will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” A yodh is a single point, but it also has the numeric value of ten in Hebrew.

The Old Testament personal name of God begins with yodh (in orange) and looks like this:

יהוה

Every verse of this section of Psalm 119 also begins with yodh.

Psalm 119:73-74 — Design and Operation

“Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word.”

Made and Fashioned

Contrarians may argue modern science has demonstrated God’s hands do not literally make and fashion anyone. We are the product of genes passed on from mother and father and a series of natural processes, not some miraculous divine intervention in the womb. But I don’t think the psalmist is claiming God is literally, physically, personally involved in every live birth on earth. We may understand his statement in any of several ways harmonious with both science and scripture.

First, he may be speaking poetically. Psalms are poetry, and hyperbole is one of the devices we frequently encounter when reading them. We need not assume every statement made in this genre was intended literally; many are not. (I find this argument a bit of a cop-out; nevertheless, there is an element of truth to it.)

Second, scripture often ascribes responsibility to kings and other authorities working through agents to accomplish their purposes. The servant is merely doing the bidding of his Master. For example, when 1 Kings says, “Solomon built the house and finished it”, there is no intended implication that the king of Israel was onsite with hammer and nails, but Solomon was the driving force behind the building of the temple all the same. The same is certainly true of God. Nothing happens in the development of any human being that God has not at very least permitted. Who knows? In some instances, he may even manipulate the genetics of particular servants through his sovereign control of circumstances. Nature may be his agent, but God is ultimately in charge.

Third (and I think this the most likely of all), the psalmist may be speaking as a human being rather than about the specific circumstances of his own time in the womb. Genesis plainly states that God “formed” the first man from dust, then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He was “made and fashioned”. Adam was the only man in history of which this is literally true, but he was also the prototype for every other man and woman to follow. The Lord accomplished all necessary design decisions for the entire human race in that first creative act. Later, God “built” a woman from Adam’s rib. But all the genetic potential ever required throughout all of history was right there inside the first man, and it was placed there personally by the Lord. So the psalmist could simply be saying to his Creator, “You designed human beings; therefore, I’m looking to you to provide the operating manual so I can run this machine properly.” Nothing could be more logical than to look to the designer for information about the design.

Those Who Fear You

The psalmist has dedicated himself to following the operating manual. “I have hoped in your word.” That’s what he’s banking on. He is trusting his designer not to steer him astray as he navigates his way through life in the body God prepared for him. Since we are all children of Adam, made of the same stuff, we do not need individual manuals. One final word from God is more than sufficient.

Hoping in God’s word is not a solitary occupation. All who fear the Lord observe how each servant’s life in their orbit demonstrates God’s wonderful purposes in operation. A good friend was commenting on the lives of two young brothers committed to following the Lord in spite of tremendously difficult childhood circumstances. He said to me, “They are trophies of grace.” He feared the Lord, and he rejoiced in the obvious work of God in the lives of others. John writes, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” Amen to that.

Psalm 119:75 — Faithful Affliction

“I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”

Judgment begins with the house of God. When the servant of God violates his righteous rules, even accidentally, he cannot reasonably expect a unique exemption from the consequences of his actions in a world where sins “find us out”. However, unlike the insolent man, who sees misfortune as random or persecutory, the servant trusts that his Master administers discipline “in faithfulness” and not in wrath. As it says in Hebrews, “If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”

As we mentioned earlier, scripture often credits the Lord with work accomplished through his agents. The affliction of which the psalmist speaks might have come visibly through the lies of evil men, but God was using those “insolent” individuals to accomplish his purposes in the life of his servant. If they knew, they would probably be horrified.

Psalm 119:76-80 — Room for ‘Let’

“Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant. Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight. Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts. Let those who fear you turn to me, that they may know your testimonies. Let my heart be blameless in your statutes, that I may not be put to shame!”

The repetition of the word “let” is an English attempt to make clear that the last five verses are all requests taking essentially the same form rather than the consistent translation of a single Hebrew word. The ESV inexplicably switches “let” to “may” in verse 80, so I have just as arbitrarily switched it back. Almost all major English translations use one or the other throughout. In order, the psalmist is asking the Lord for comfort, mercy, justice, witness and vindication.

1/ Comfort

Nobody can make a claim to the comfort provided by the steadfast love of God on personal merit, but the servant of God receives it through promise, a promise we find Moses making in places like Deuteronomy 32 (“the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants”). Years later (some time after Jeremiah, who is also quoted there), Psalm 135 would repeat the promise of Moses word for word. Regardless of when he wrote, this promise would certainly have been familiar to the writer of Psalm 119. The servant of the Lord in our era clings to his promises in the same way, and they remain just as reliable. We have a Comforter the psalmist could not claim to know as you and I do.

2/ Mercy

The Lord’s mercy is expressed in quickening (“that I may live”), one of sixteen references to this idea in Psalm 119. The word used for “live” is often quite literal. In this psalm, it is primarily associated with encouragement, the revival of spirit and the fulfillment of hope. It is the Spirit through the word of God that makes this possible, the spring of water welling up to eternal life, not just in eternity but even now.

3/ Justice

“Let the insolent be put to shame because they have wronged me with falsehood.” This is the fourth of six times the psalmist mentions “the insolent”: arrogant, presumptuous men who are probably the source of the affliction to which he repeatedly refers. In verse 21, these wander from God’s commandments, in verse 51 they deride him, and in verse 69 they smear him with lies. Like David, wronged by Saul, the psalmist is willing to wait for his vindication from God, meditating on his precepts. Nevertheless, he appeals to his Lord that he not allow these men to appear triumphant over his servant. It is not enough that justice be done in eternity. Sometimes, especially when God’s reputation is at stake, we need a little glimpse of future justice in this life, as in the case of Herod Agrippa, who was “eaten by worms and breathed his last”, to the great satisfaction of younger readers of the book of Acts.

4/ Witness

The servant wants to be a living testimony to the faithfulness of God. “Let those who fear you turn to me,” he request, “that they may know your testimonies.” He is ready to speak freely and accurately on the Lord’s behalf, as should we all.

5/ Vindication

“Let my heart be blameless in your statutes, that I may not be put to shame!” Vindication is not possible without blamelessness. It is a declaration of “Not guilty!” In the courts of God, only the righteousness of Christ can vindicate God’s servant. Here, I think, the psalmist is speaking of the courts of public opinion. I think of Ezra, ashamed to ask the Persian monarch for soldiers and horsemen to protect the people of God on their way back to Jerusalem after the exile, because he had publicly declared, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” Having boasted in his God, he could not very well then ask for the king’s help. Accordingly, he and his people fasted and prayed, then had to wait for their vindication, and their God stood by them.