Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:
Psalms 16:8: “I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”
Jesus is my Savior, I shall not be moved,
In His love and favor, I shall not be moved,
Just like a tree, planted by the waters,
I shall not be moved.
I must have sung the above chorus hundreds of times as a teenager in our youth group. Yet, I rarely gave much thought as to what it meant to “not be moved.” In the Hebrew the word for “moved” is “mot” which means to fail, fall, or slip. So what David is saying is that by putting the Lord before him, he will not fail, slip or in other words fall into sin.
The picture of a tree planted by the waters is a good illustration. If we always set the Lord before us, the storms or mighty winds of life will not move us away from God and cause us to slip or fall into sin.
It is interesting to note that the word “mot” or “moved” is in a Niphal form which makes it reflexive. Therefore we would render this as “I will not cause myself to fall or slip.” David is clearly showing us that if we slip or fall it is not God’s fault but ours. As Cassius said to Brutus in Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar:” “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.”
But say, what does it mean to put the Lord “before us?” How can we put the Lord before us when He is already at our “right hand.” That sure makes whole bunches of sense.
There are many interpretations as to what the right hand of God means, all of which I feel are correct. God’s right hand represents power, authority, a place of honor and the one I like best is His heart. That last metaphor fits best for me in this verse. We put God before us because He is in our hearts. Many of us have God in our hearts, but do we really put Him before us?
That word “before” in the Hebrew is “nagad” which means to make clear, to be in full view. There is the preposition “lamed” in front of the word so it means “to see clearly.” So we should render this as: “I have set the Lord always to be seen clearly because He is in my heart.”
My last question is: “What does it mean to “set” the Lord? And how do we “set” the Lord. The word “set” is very interesting in the Hebrew. It is the word “shuvah” which means to be “equal in value.” It also means to be sufficient, to be enough. David puts this into a Piel form so it would mean “all sufficient.” Thus we could render this verse as “The Lord is all sufficient, He remains in my sight and in my heart and thus I will not fail or slip.”
There is just one other thing about this word for “set” or “shuvah” and that is the idea of being of equal value. David is careful to put this word into a Piel form so equal value carries an intensity about which means it may be equal value, but it still shines much brighter. But why use a word that carries the idea of equal value. David could have chosen any number of words to express the all sufficiency of God? I believe David chose the word “shuvah” to not only show God’s all sufficiency, but to also show that sometimes we have a tendency to put our desires, our opinions, our plans, our hopes, our dreams, our solutions above God. In other words, when we go with our plans or our purposes, we are saying that God is of lesser value than ourselves. If we make Him of equal value and He is the shining light, then we will chose his hopes, dreams, plans and solutions above our own. If we do that we shall never, ever fail. We shall always be like an oak tree planted by the waters.
As I view a large oak tree and ponder how it has withstood decades of storms and wind gust, I question why I should fret over the storms and wind gust that come into my life for if I really believe that my God is all sufficient, I will not be moved by any storm or wind, I will not fail or slip in the long run.
I also ponder the fact that this mighty oak tree was once nothing more than just a nut like me (wait a minute, that didn’t come out right., Laura, did you put that in there?)
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