WORD STUDY LIFE S PURPOSE

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Dylan Goodwin
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HEBREW WORD STUDY LIFE S PURPOSE HEBREW WORD STUDY LIFE S PURPOSE ארכ ימימ OREKE YAMIM Psalms 91:16: With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

1 HEBREW WORD STUDY LIFE S PURPOSE HEBREW WORD STUDY LIFE S PURPOSE ארכ ימימ OREKE YAMIM Psalms 91:16: With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. I have often had a problem with this verse. It appears from reading this verse in every modern translation and commentaries that if we trust God, keep our eyes on Him, love Him and bond with Him we will have a long life. Yet, I read about so many Christians in other nations who are more bonded with God than I am and they face persecution and death at a relatively young age. I mean what about these Christian children who were beheaded by ISIS for declaring their love for Jesus. Does this verse not apply to them. Do they not deserve a long life for their love for Jesus? Does it only apply to us who are lucky enough to be born in a land where we do not have to face death for our faith? Yet, even in this land, Christians die early deaths. I have personally known a devoted Christians whose love for Jesus was very deep who died early. I remember a young woman in my first pastorate who was married with a small child. She developed cancer and died at the age of 24. Why was she not granted a long life? I really don t think the rendering of this verse stands up to the simple facts of this life on earth. History is filled with many devoted believers who died at an early age.

2 It is for this reason that I am not walking in lockstep with all the translators and commentators on this verse. It just doesn t wash. There is another way to render this verse which makes more sense and is a wonderful promise. The phrase long life is oreke yamim which literally means length of days, not long life, that is inferred. This is followed by the word asabi ehu from the root word saba which is rendered as satisfied, fulfilled or having a purpose. Hebrew tends to have some ambiguity with syntax and in this case, I would adjust the syntax traditionally accepted as it just does not fit reality. Rather than render this that he will give us a long life and He will fill us with satisfaction, I would render this as We will be satisfied or find purpose with our length of days. In other words, whatever time God gives us on this planet, He will fill those days with satisfaction and purpose. I remember reading a book about a man who was sent to the Gulag in the old Soviet Union. He struck up a friendship with another prisoner and began to tell him about the family and career he left behind and his plans to return to them after his 25-year sentence was up. The other prisoner stopped him and said: Look this is the Gulag, not many leave here alive. You do not know if you will be alive tomorrow. If you are to survive you must think about what is important. The man asked what was more important than his family and career? The older prisoner said; The present, the here and now, you and me talking, forming a friendship, a bond, that is what is important. Perhaps we do not find our purpose in life because we are too focused on the future. Our purpose in life is to be played out here and now. My studying this verse, you reading this study, us drawing closer to God, that is our purpose for the moment. Jesus said: Matthew 6:34: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof. My

father used to always ask me what I would do if a doctor told me I had only one month to live. I would always reply with the answer he gave me, I would live one day at a time.

3 father used to always ask me what I would do if a doctor told me I had only one month to live. I would always reply with the answer he gave me, I would live one day at a time. We do not realize the miracle of life, that every morning we wake up and the sun comes up, we get out of bed and we are alive. That very thing is a gift from God. A gift is meant to be enjoyed and when you bond with God you will enjoy it, no matter what the day may bring because He promised it in Psalms 91:16. We do not need to focus on past mistakes, they are over with, we could focus on the future but there are no guarantees. What is important is right now, me and you, reading God s Word, becoming friends with God, that is what is important. Then whatever the future holds good or bad, we can still rejoice and we can smile at the rain storms. WORD STUDY LONG LIFE ארכ ימימ, Psalms 91:16: With long life will I satisfy him, and shew

4 him my salvation. I have often had a problem with this verse. It appears from reading this verse in every modern translation and commentaries that if we trust God, keep our eyes on Him, love Him and bond with Him we will have a long life. Yet, I read about so many Christians in other nations who are more bonded with God than I am and they face persecution and death at a relatively young age. I mean what about these Christian children who were beheaded by ISIS for declaring their love for Jesus. Does this verse not apply to them. Do they not deserve a long life for their love for Jesus? Does it only apply to us who are lucky enough to be born in a land where we do not have to face death for our faith? Yet, even in this land Christians die early deaths. I have personally known devoted Christians whose love for Jesus was very deep. I remember a young woman in my first pastorate who was married with a small child. She developed cancer and died at the age of 24. Why was she not granted a long life? I really don t think the rendering of this verse stands up to the simply facts of this life on earth. History is filled with many devoted believers who died at an early age. I think of Keith Green a gifted Christian musician during the Jesus movement in the seventies whose love for Jesus just poured out not only through his music but his life as well. He refused to make any money off his records and would often just give them away or tell someone just pay what you can and if you can t pay you can just have it. His love and life for Jesus has been a model for me and that is why I do not want to receive personally any money from my books. Here was a gifted, talented believer who loved Jesus with all his heart. If anyone should have been granted a long life to continue blessing the thousands, yea, millions with his talents it

5 should have been him. Yet he died in a plane crash at the age of 28. Did not this promise in Psalms 91:16 apply to him? If is for this reason that I am not walking in lock step with all the translators and commentators on this verse. It just doesn t wash. There is another way to render this verse which makes more sense and is a wonderful promise. The phrase long life is oreke yamim which literally means length of days, not long life, that is inferred. This is followed by the word asabi ehu from the root word saba which is rendered as satisfied. Alright this word is in a Hiphal imperfect form and it would suggest that our modern translations are using the proper syntax. However, I read where one rabbi once said that there is really no definitive syntax in the Biblical Hebrew. I doubt I would go that far. I tend to believe there are definite rules of syntax in Hebrew but there are many exceptions. As the traditional rendering for this verse just does not fit reality, I believe we are faced with an exception to the accepted rules of syntax here and rather than render this that he will give us a long life and He will fill us with satisfaction, I would render this as: We will be satisfied with our length of days. In other words, whatever time God gives us on this planet, He will fill those days with satisfaction. The word saba means to be satisfied, fulfilled. Sometime ago a pastor published a book about finding your purpose in life. That book became a New York Times Best Seller. Christians all over the country were purchasing this book. The writer followed up a study guide and small study groups were breaking out all over with Christians trying to find some purpose in their life. Another use of this word saba is filling one with

6 purpose. Why would a book on finding a purpose in life become a national best seller among Christians. Does not the Bible in Psalm 91:16 tell us that God will give us a purpose when we are bonded with him and love Him? I can only conclude one of two things. My rendering of this verse makes no more sense in reality than the traditional rendering that God will give us a long life. Apparently, not only is a long life unrealistic but a life where we are filled with satisfaction and purpose is also unrealistic. The other conclusion could be that maybe if by some odd twist of fate my rendering is this verse is correct and that if we learn to trust God, develop a love relationship with Him and bond with Him we will have purpose and satisfaction in our life, then multitudes of Christians say they are Christians but have not really explored the depth of the love of God and His heart. They are, as we used to say in the Baptist church, saved so as by fire. In other words they got saved for the sole purpose of gaining a get out hell free card and have no desire to learn to love the one who purchased that card with His life. I remember reading a book about a man who was sent to the Gulag in the old Soviet Union. He struck up a friendship with another prisoner and began to tell him about the family and career he left behind and his plans to return to them after his 25 year sentence was up. The other prisoner stopped him and said: Look this is the Gulag, not many leave here alive. You do not know if you will be alive tomorrow. If you are to survive you must think on what is important. The man asked what was more important than his family and career? The older prisoner said; The present, the here and now, you and me talking, forming a friendship, a bond, that is what is important.

7 Jesus said: Matthew 6:34: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof. My father used to always ask me what I would do if a doctor told me I had only one month to live. I would always reply with the answer he gave me, I would live one day at a time. We do not realize the miracle of life, that every morning we wake up and the sun comes up, we get out of bed and we are alive. That very thing is a gift from God. A gift is meant to be enjoyed and when you bond with God you will enjoy it, no matter what the day may bring because He promised it in Psalms 91:16. We do not need to focus on past mistakes, they are over with, guarantees. we focus on the future but there are no What is important is right now, God and you becoming friends, bonding together, that is what is important. Then whatever the future holds good or bad, you can still rejoice and you can smile at a rain storms. WORD STUDY TO SEE OUR SALVATION אראהו בישׁועתי

Psalms 91:16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. We have reached the end of Psalms 91 and here at the very end God says that He will show us His salvation.

8 Psalms 91:16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. We have reached the end of Psalms 91 and here at the very end God says that He will show us His salvation. The question is, what is this salvation? Are we speaking of the salvation of our eternal souls through the work of Jesus Christ? Is this really a prophecy of the Messiah who is to come and bring us our salvation or deliverance from the penalty of our sins? The word salvation in Hebrew is yashua which is the Hebrew name for Jesus. Yet it also means deliverance, help security, prosperity and victory. Within the context we find that it would most likely refer to the troubles and difficulties mentioned in this Psalm and then this Psalm concludes that we will see our deliverance from all of these dangers. I see absolutely no reason why it could not be referring to both. Our salvation through Jesus Christ as well as our salvation from the dangers to our soul. The very nature of poetry invites the idea of double meanings so why not a double meaning here? Are we so embedded with our modern Western technological and mathematical society that we cannot for a

9 moment enter into a world of poetry, a world filled with abstract metaphors where 2+2 may not always equal 4. Poetry is art, art can be filled with a multiple of meanings and ambiguity. So I say let s spread the table cloth to cover both sides of the table. This then brings up the question as to why does the Psalmist say that He will show us His salvation. Why does it not say that He will give us our salvation, Perhaps that also fits the double meaning. Our salvation in Jesus Christ is yet future when this Psalm was written but how about our present danger. I think I would like to have that salvation right now, some it will do me now to just be shown my deliverance, how about getting it right now. There is a possible conclusion I would like to explore. The word for show is ra ah which means to see, to perceive, to glimpse. This could be both spiritual and physical. So we will see our deliverance from our present trouble with our physical eyes and our spiritual salvation with our spiritual eyes. Now the conclusion I would like to explore is this. Why does the writer say see? How can you see salvation. You can feel salvation, you can experience salvation or you can receive salvation, but how do you see it. There is another use of this word ra ah and that is a vision. This is not your standard word for vision which is chazah. This is a vision which involves both a physical and spiritual seeing. Physicist are playing around with things that fifty years ago

10 would have been considered fantasy. Yet they are actually discussing things like alternative universes and other dimensions. In fact there are some physicist working on the Hadron Collider in Switzerland who actually theorizes that they may open a portal or doorway to another dimension. Sure it is just a theory, but the fact that learned PhD s, some of the most brilliant people in the world are actually even suggesting such a theory lends some creditability to some of our teachings in Christianity. My study partner is doing a study on this for her dreams and vision classes and if we treat her nicely maybe she will put up a podcast on her Dream and Vision Interpretation class which follows the idea that all interpretation must be Scriptural based. dream and vision So I will not steal her thunder and will only share what is relevant to this passage. My study partner suggested that a vision could really be a glimpse into true reality. In a sense we are living in a sort of matrix in the physical world. I believe God created our spirits at the time of our birth into this physical world. He placed us in this temporal world to prepare us for the ultimate reality which is the supernatural world where we will spend eternity. Our spirit is what is eternal not infinite. Infinite means no beginning or end which is what God is. Our spirits have a beginning at the time of our physical birth. Eternal means a beginning but no end. Our spirits have no end only a beginning. When we were born God put our spirit into a human body which was neither eternal nor infinite and stuck us in this world to prepare us for eternity with Him. To us in this natural world this is our present reality because that is all we know. Yet the true reality is the world of the supernatural. I believe a vision is allowing us

11 to see the true reality, it is a glimpse into the supernatural world. Ezekiel was translated into the temple and he could see creatures that the priest in the temple could not see. He could see what they were really worshipping. He was having a vision which gave him a glimpse into the real world, the reality and that was that these priest were worshipping demons. Sounds crazy, no? Like I said just a thought but you know I find that what I experience as I continue my journey to the heart of God is that the closer I get to God s heart, the more unreal this world becomes and the more real the supernatural world becomes. I believe I can actually see my Salvation. Oh, there are areas I need to be rescued such as financial areas, health areas, relationship areas, areas similar to most if not all of us. I could some use salvation in these areas, but when I look to my ultimate Salvation, I find that is the only salvation I really need. So I will end this study of Psalms 91 by stating my understanding of this whole Psalm can be summed up in the last part of Psalms 91:16: I will not live in fear because I know one day I will see my Salvation face to face for Jesus Christ is my Salvation, my true realty. Every problem I faced in this world is just a shadow as C.S. Lewis called it. The problems I have today are not my reality. In a few years they will mean nothing, they are not eternal. For me the only thing that is real is what is eternal and I have that in Jesus Christ my Salvation.

12 NOTE: TOMORROW I WILL BEGIN MY HEBRAIC STUDY ON PSALMS 103

Psalms 91:16: With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

WORD STUDY LONG LIFE ארכ ימימ, Psalms 91:16: With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. I have often had a problem with this verse. It appears from reading this verse in every modern