WORD STUDY THE SHADOW OF בצל כנפיכ WINGS HIS

Transcription

1 WORD STUDY THE SHADOW OF בצל כנפיכ WINGS HIS Psalms 36:7: How excellent is your lovingkindness O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Who know what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! Lamont Cranston The Shadow. Salal is a Hebrew word that has haunted me for many years.

2 There are a few words in the Hebrew that I have spent a lifetime meditating on. Two are found in this verse, chasad for lovingkindness and salal for shadow. My father used to always quote the words of Lamont Cranston, the main character in The Shadow series: The Shadow knows. So maybe that started my thinking about the word salal (shadow), does it really mean all that we think it means? What does it mean to put our trust under the shadow of God s wings. Would it not be better to be covered by His wings. When preachers speak of being under the shadow of God s wings they always tell that story of the mother bird discovered by a forest ranger after a fire standing like a statute burnt to a crisp and when he moved the bird little chicks come running out underneath her wings. Heartwarming but not a good illustration for the shadow of His wings in this verse. Those little chicks were not covered by the shadow of the mother s wings but were actually covered by the mother s wings. In this verse we learn that we are not covered by his wings but only by the shadow of His wings. The word shadow as found in this verse is besal. The Masoretes pointed this up so that the Beth is a preposition and the root word would be salal. Yet, there are rabbis who would argue that the root word really is basal and the Beth is not a preposition. Basal which is another word which has often been rendered as shadow. This word, however, has the idea of nakedness, stripping off or peeling off like the layers of an onion. In its Semitic root basal has the idea of tingling or quivering lips. In other words to shiver in the cold which is what happens if you are stripped naked. It developed a later meaning of being shaded or dark. This evolved from the idea that when one is cold he feels a tingling sensation or quivering sensation. The shade lowers the temperature as well as makes things a little darker. Later the word eventually took on the idea of a shadow. A salal is simply a shadow,

3 but a basal has a much richer idea of a shadow. So what could David had been thinking when he used the illustration of being in the shadow of God s wings? The word wings is kanaph which means not much more than wings. In its Semitic origins, however, it is a word for the sound the bird makes when he flaps his wings which sounds almost like speaking but with unintelligible words. Thus, the word has been related to niggums. A niggum is the singing of nonsensical words. The purpose in singing nonsensical words is to block out your flesh and allow your spirit to speak in purity to God s Spirit. Don t laugh, I know some of you speak in tongues and are you not trying to accomplish the same thing? I ve heard some even refer to it as praying in the Spirit. Traditionally among Jewish sages wings are a symbol of divine knowledge. I m going somewhere with this I think. Years ago I ran across a set of tapes at the library which were recordings of the old radio series called The Shadow. After hearing my father quote the famous words of The Shadow, The Shadow knows. I was hooked and listened to the entire series on tape. The Shadow was about a crime fighter who appeared in pulp fiction around He had the ability to cloud men s minds so that he would be invisible to them. The idea came from a trick that the magician Denninger performed where he was able to make himself appear several feet from where he really stood. He would even have someone take a pistol and shoot at him where the person thought he stood. The gunman only discovered he was shooting at Denninger s shadow. So let s ponder this idea of a shadow. David is saying it is not him but his trust is in the shadow of his wings. If I

4 use the Beth as a preposition we would render that as in, then my trust is in the shadow. If wings represents the Divine knowledge, then my trust is in the shadow of God s knowledge. That means that when the enemy tries to attack my trust in God with his lies, trying to create fear in me by questioning whether God will take care of me, he is attacking only a shadow and like The Shadow crime fighter I can just let out a sinister laugh and dare him to keep trying to shoot down my trust in God with his lies. But with each shot God just moves away and the enemy keeps shooting His shadow doing no harm. I wonder too if maybe David intended for a double meaning with the dual root of basal which means to peel like an onion. As the enemy keeps taking his pot shots at the shadow of my trust and my true trust lies within God s wings or Divine knowledge, I stand there singing a niggum exposing my true heart to God. His knowledge is removing layer after layer of all my defenses, pride, self-righteousness etc. I am being peeled backed like an onion to expose a pure heart to God. So putting my trust in the shadow of His wings for me is to put my trust in the Divine knowledge of God. Resting in His Divine knowledge and promises, the enemy will try and attack my trust but he will only be attacking a shadow and my trust is untouched by the enemy. However, in this process as I sing my niggum to God He is revealing my true heart. Who knows what lurks in the heart of men, The Shadow of His wings knows.

5 WORD STUDY THE SHADOW OF בצל כנפיכ WINGS HIS Psalms 36:7 How excellent [is] thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Let not be shut in my soul, let not be fettered my shadow, let be opened the way for my soul and for my shadow, may it see the great god. May I look upon my soul and my shadow? The Egyptian Book of the Dead Chapter 89, 92. The ancient Egyptians believed your shadow was an extension of your life force, almost like your soul. Only where the body was bound by the earth, the shadow could go anywhere where the body is not. The word in the Hebrew for shadow in this passage is tsalal, it is related to the Egyptian word tsv t

6 which is the shadow of the Egyptian god king. It was believed that the tsv t (shadow of the god king) would leave the kings physical body accompanied by his ba (bird) and thus his protection would be spread throughout all the land. In the Papyrus of Nu (10477) it says: My shadow will not be prevailed over. Originally the gods would manifest themselves anonymously as birds or ba. The Phoenix was a ba. Thus, the gods of the Pharaoh would at his command fly off with his shadow and spread his protection throughout the land. The Pharaoh was feared and reverend. People would appreciate the protection while at the same time live in fear of offending the Pharaoh in some minor way such that his Shadow which was ever present would punish him with sickness or misfortune. So what was David talking about here when he talks about putting his trust under the shadow of His wings? The people of Israel were well acquainted with the religion of the Egyptians and they knew the Egyptians had their king to protect them because the Egyptian gods would spread the shadow of their king over the land. The Egyptians would speak of being protected by the shadow of the wings of their gods. So what did Israel have for protection? The presence of God was found in the temple on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant which, ironically or maybe not ironically, was covered by the wings of the cherubim. It is almost like God was showing that the Egyptian gods depended upon a physical human king to protect the land where Israel s God was the protection of the land. It was the Shadow of His wings that protected the people. David confirmed this in Psalms 36:7, he was the king, but he was acknowledging that it was not his

7 shadow that was picked up God s winged angels and spread protection over the land, it was God Himself that spread His protection over the land. You see the Pharaoh lived in his palace, he could not be everywhere to protect his people. However, the people saw him as a god and therefore his soul or shadow was not confined to just the palace area, His shadow was carried by the gods in the form of birds to spread the protection over the land, sort of like making him omnipresent. So how could Israel have a God that was also everywhere when he was just located in the temple? The symbol of the winged cherubim helped the people of Israel see that God s presence could also be over the whole land. Even though his presence was located in the temple, the Shadow of His wings would be spread where ever they went. Thus David starts off this Psalm by saying how excellent is your lovingkindness. The word excellent is yaqar which is the word used to express something very valuable and precious. It is rare and splendid like precious stones and jewels. When the ba carried the shadow of the Egyptian king it brought trembling. In fact the word shadow tsalal in its Semitic root has the idea of trembling. People trembled with fear over the shadow of the Egyptian god which provided protection so long as you behaved and showed it the proper respect. Yet the shadow of God is something very precious, it was a precious lovingkindness and if you trembled it was not a trembling of fear but of joy. The word for lovingkindness is chasad which is its Semitic root carries the idea of a god who is condescending to the needs of his people. It is a picture of God reaching down to show love and compassion to those who are unworthy. It is

8 interesting that the word chasid comes from the same root and is the word for the wings of a stork. In ancient legend the stork s maternal instinct was the strongest among all creatures. It would even care for the young of another species. It was believed that if the mother stork could not find enough food for its chicks it would feed her chicks with her own blood. It was also believed if one of her chicks died she would resurrect it with her own blood. I think you can see the far reaching implications in the word chasad or lovingkindness. It is a lovingkindness that even exceeds that of the maternal instinct and would be willing to offer one s own blood for the sake of the object of its affection. No wonder David said how precious is your chasad or lovingkindness. I could be wrong but I believe buried in this was a prophecy of the future Messiah who would come and shed his blood to redeem the entire world that His shadow would extend over all the earth with His redemption. The interesting point of this is that when we read the idea of finding shelter in the shadow of His wings we think of hiding within his wings. But that is not what it says, it is the shadow of His wings. How can just his shadow protect us, I mean I want the real thing, not a shadow. But in the ancient Semitic mind the shadow was not only the real thing, it was the very soul, the loving, caring nature of God that would go where ever you went. So the presence of God did not just rest in the temple, it was everywhere. When you need the presence and protection of God you did not have to run to the temple to find it, it was right there hovering over you, surrounding you in His shadow. You just need to reach out and touch it. Unlike the Shadow of the wings of the Egyptian god where you trembled in fear, you are overshadowed by God s chasad, His lovingkindness, a love that is so strong that he shed his own

9 blood to redeem you. Now that is something any self respecting Egyptian god would never stoop to do.