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Today we visit the twelfth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and correspondingly, the twelfth section of Psalm 119, Lamedh or sometimes called Lamed. The symbol for Lamedh is often likened to a shepherds staff in that it stands higher than any other letter in the alphabet. Lamedh means “learning” or “studies” and relates to the staff as that which lifts a person higher. Beyond this, most commentators and Hebrew scholars stretch the possible meanings of this particular letter farther than I think is necessary. It’s the middle of the alphabet, and learning is central to our humanity.
The 119th Psalm, as this series reveals, is almost entirely about the centrality of God’s word, voice, commandments, counsel, precepts, and law. Nearly all of its 176 verses explicitly reference God’s loving direction given to us. To be raised up like a Lamedh, to truly become the best humans possible, we all start knowing nothing, and then we begin learning what God has to say. I’m convinced this is the centrality of this section of Psalm 119, and expanding outward, it’s the single greatest aspect of learning any person can undertake…to learn the voice of God and follow it. Verse 89 opens this up:
89 Forever, O Lord, your word
is firmly fixed in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
you have established the earth, and it stands fast.
91 By your appointment they stand this day,
for all things are your servants.
God is not a conjecture or idea of humanity. Our theologies and doctrines of God may help us to gain a very faint notion of who or what God is, but God is not subject to any of our conclusions about Him. The fact that God does reveal aspects of Himself to us, and that He has inspired guidance on how to think and live in this life, helps us to know not only that He loves His creation, but How He loves us. As we “learn” this, we are transformed…we are changed, raised up… yet His love and His words to all generations never changes. Verses 89-91 remind us that every generation gets the same experience with God. All servants have access to the Source Himself, the hearsay about God piles as we each try and talk about what we’ve learned. Commentaries may fill libraries, each saying something new, yet God’s word is fixed forever.
92 If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
93 I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life.
God’s word, which isn’t the Bible (although the Bible testifies to it), functions like a sword that divides people and each person. God’s law causes some people to rebel and expand in their hatred of God because they cannot accept that God’s will should displace their own. For others, like the Psalmist, the law of God is a gift of grace, it’s the wisdom that says: “No, because it will hurt you.” By heeding God’s commandments, by entrusting His will over our own, we’re spared unnecessary hardship and suffering. For the Psalmist, “affliction” is the perishing or death which results from not delighting in God’s law. Rather than be a buzzkill that robs our life of fun, God’s precepts enable us to have much more life than is possible without them.
Trusting God’s law is like spinning a flywheel. It starts off laborious and slow, but each effort brings increased momentum which spares us hardship and fills us with life. The labor of spinning the flywheel becomes a delight as we anticipate and become curious of how obedience shapes the trajectory of our lives. Rather than skimming over life and living as slaves to our appetites and will, we perpetually seek God’s way making forgetting His precepts less and less likely.
94 I am yours; save me,
for I have sought your precepts.
95 The wicked lie in wait to destroy me,
but I consider your testimonies.
96 I have seen a limit to all perfection,
but your commandment is exceedingly broad.
Those for whom God’s word causes dissonance, anger, or hatred, become so certain and proud of elevating their own will and reasoning above God’s, are also those who cannot leave it alone. They seek to devalue, diminish, and destroy not only the light of God’s voice, but those who seek and live in and from this light. When a person is saved in the way the Psalmist is describing, they are not saved unto or by any religion, but by God Himself, by way of His words. These precepts of ultimate reality prove to be far more reliable than the reality created by those who despise God. This “altered reality” that shines through God’s testimonies and commandments is utterly mind blowing, it’s beyond our comprehension, it knows no boundary, and there is no place in our life where God cannot speak truth into our situations. For those who have discovered this, you know what the Psalmist is describing.
It’s my prayer for you today that the divide created by the sword of God’s word, which exists within us all, would become obvious. May we sit in silent contemplation and reflect on that part of us that resists, or lives in dissonance to God’s voice. What have we placed our trust in more than the love and grace of God shining through His law? Do we feel like God is only preventing us from doing we want to do or can we trust that He actually wants us to move beyond satisfying our appetites?
The Psalmist’s words point us to an unflinching, unchanging truth, that God still speaks to each and every one of us, not through our religions, or our important accomplishments, but through his own gesture of love, given to us all. May we all embrace this learning, the Lamedh, and as we do, may we all rise higher than we are today. Our world needs this more than anything else.
Thrive in Exile 