Terms of Heart

Reflections on the Psalms and the Great Psalmist,

Shepherd of Israel and Poet King David,
the man after God's own heart.

The Heart of Psalm 119 (Part 4)

“Incline our hearts to keep this law.” Each of the first four Sundays of Lent the order of worship in my church begins with the congregation repeating that refrain nine times, in response to the pastor’s recitation, one by one, of the first nine commandments of the Decalogue. In that practice we unite ourselves not only with one another who are present but also with innumerable others, across centuries and geographies, with whom we acknowledge that our shared faith is rooted in Judaic practice and heritage. And thus we claim our connection to the great psalmist David as well. [Read more…]

The Heart of Psalm 119 (Part 3)

In The Heart of Psalm 119 (Part 2) our focus was on examining how the elements of design and structure in the psalm support, enhance and help define its meaning. The frequently discussed word pattern also clearly falls within the category of design, whether one accepts the traditional view that it is comprised of nine key words that all reference the law or embraces my opinion that there are twelve words. [Read more…]

The Heart of Psalm 119 (Part 1)

It has been several months since I last spoke in this space. There is no easy transition from that silence, and even less to the subject that I have finally mustered the courage to engage. I must both confess and warn that in finally breaking the silence, I will also be breaking with the tradition of literally centuries of scholars and theologians who have examined, studied, prayed, written and instructed others about the intricacies and meaning of the longest poem in the Hebrew book of Praises (tehillim), namely Psalm 119. I do so cautiously and prayerfully, trusting that the skill I bring, honed in the formal study of textual criticism and literary manuscript revision, can bring some valid new insight here. [Read more…]

The Heart of Joy

In response to my June post on the Heart of Happiness, a thoughtful reader commented “I have frequently used joy instead of happy” and inquired whether or not I thought that substitution would “work.” I responded that I did not know, but I certainly would take a look at the Hebrew text and search out an answer.  Although I could easily recite from memory several verses in the psalms that speak of joy, I had never really spent much time contemplating the psalmist’s focus on joy or examining the nature of  joy in the psalms. [Read more…]

The Heart of Blessing (Part Three)

In my initial post on Psalm 103, I designated this third of the four alls, or sections, that comprise the poem as the “contextual” one. While that may be accurate in terms of the literary purpose it serves, the terminology falls extraordinarily short of capturing the essence of verses 6 through 19. This portion of the psalm truly centers on the heart of blessing — that is, on the manner in which God interacts in unique covenant relationship with David and with all of His people. [Read more…]

The Heart of Blessing (Part Two)

In this Part Two of the Heart of Blessing we begin looking at the second of the alls Psalm 103 presents, namely the all of the character and nature of the God of Israel. Surely David understood as well as any man that no language can fully convey what the human mind can only partially perceive. He also seemed to realize that the various formal aspects of poetry could provide him the best tool through which to intertwine verbal expression with nonverbal or spiritual thought, so he drew on that skill in the intricate crafting of this psalm. Within that framework, we now begin to look for the heart of this praise song by mining the mother lode of verses two through five. [Read more…]

The Heart of Blessing (Part One)

Psalm 103 is surely one of the most familiar of all the psalms and its opening line often quoted or adapted in prayer, sermon and song. The majority of the standard English texts over the centuries– from the King James to the recent English Standard Version and numerous others as well– render its opening line with exactly the same words:  “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and everything that is within me, bless His Holy name.”  I have loved that verse (Ps 103:1a) for as long as I can remember knowing it. But my study of the holy poem in its original Hebrew has opened my appreciation to scholar Robert Alter’s translation of those critical first words: “Bless, O my being, the Lord, and everything in me, His holy name.” [Read more…]

Finding Faith among the Foxes

What might foxes have to do with faith? I have been contemplating that strange question lately, and I believe the answer is “quite a bit.” All last week, no matter where I turned, it seemed that I was encountering foxes. For the most part, they were those “little foxes that spoil the vines,” as David’s son Solomon described them in verse 15 of the 2nd chapter the Song of Solomon. [Read more…]

The Heart of Covenant

Yesterday I chuckled when I heard myself say to my dog the same thing I would have to a disobedient child. In response to my growing exasperation that my usually compliant pup had ignored me after I had used the “come” command several times with varying levels of firmness in my voice, I phrased my next directive in the form of a frustrated question. “Did you hear me?” I implored. He did not respond any less defiantly to the question than he had to the familiar command. After the incident in which I finally got him to comply with my instruction, I’m sure he never gave it another moment of thought. But I certainly did. [Read more…]

The Heart of the Law

In past posts we have talked extensively about David in the way that God Himself described him, namely as the man after His own heart. And we have looked recently at the psalmist’s love not only for his Lord, but also for his devotion to and respect for the law, as he expresses it in Psalms 19 and 119 as well as in his final words to Solomon. But we have not given the relationship of heart and law the attention it deserves. Now is the time that we do. [Read more…]