Psalms 119:135: “Make thy face to shine upon thy servant and teach me they statutes.”
“Rollin a sea, adrift on the water,
Could it be finally, I’m turning for home?
Finally a chance to say: ‘Hey I love you.’
Never again to be all alone,
And you light up my life, you give me hope
To carry on, You light of my days
And fill my life with song.”
– Joe Brooks –
If you are old enough, you may remember when the song; “You Light Up My Life” swept the country. It was a written by Joe Brooks (a writer of jingles for television commercials) who took his own life a few years ago after being convicted of sexual crimes. The song was written for a movie by the same name sung by an opera singer, Kvitka Cisyk who also sang jingles for television commercials. Didi Conn who stared in the movie just lip synched the words. Kvitka Cisyk, a train vocalist in classical music released a single of the song after the movie and it rose to about 80 on the Top 100 charts and quickly died. However, about the same time Debbie Boone recorded her version of the song and it quickly rose to number one and became massively successful. It broke all records from remaining number for over 10 weeks, beating out Elvis Presley’s record and still remains one of the top 100 songs of the century.
I remember when I first heard the song and like so many others I was drawn to it for uncertain reasons. I am not one who picks up on popular music, especially ballads. However, this really caught my attention. I saw the singer’s name as D. Boone but until I actually heard her interviewed did I realize she was the daughter of Pat Boone, a famous popular recording artist who made his faith in God very public. In the interview Debbie Boone said she was singing the song to God which was her explanation as to why her version of the song rose to such fame and the other version died out.
As King David reflected on his love for God in Psalms 119:135, I believe this song best illustrates the heart of David. David was asking God to light up his life when he asks God to let his face shine” upon him. David uses the Hebrew word ’or for shine. Many orthodox Jews see the Hebrew ’or as a mystical word and it is the same word used for light in Genesis when God said: Let there be light. Light came, but it didn’t come from the sun, moon or stars as they were not yet created. The Septuagint uses the Greek word phos which is the same word used in John 1:4 which describes Jesus as life and that life is the light of men.
The word face is pani in Hebrew and is a reference to the presence of God. Thus David is asking God’s presence to rest His light (life) upon him. Now stop and meditate on that and think about that the next time you ask God to let his face shine upon you. You are asking Him to let the power of His life fill you.
But soft, there is more. The genius of David’s poetry, is that he also presented this as a metonymy. Now a metonymy is like a metaphor, but different. A metaphor is a word or phrase that uses a substitution word or phrase that is based upon some specific similarity. The metonymy is a substitution based upon some known or understood association. For instance, before my doctor forbid me to drink soda I used to automatically say: “Give me a Coke.” The order taker would say: “We don’t have Coke but we have Pepsi or R/C.” I would say fine as I was using the word Coke as a metonymy for any type of cola beverage.
Now here’s the real kicker. The word light or shine is used as noun and has a definite article in front of it. For David to use this word as a metonymy for a poetic device, he would have been asking for much more than to be filled with the life of God’s light. He would also be asking that God help to make him just like the light.
Of course he is not asking to be the Light that would be foolish to ask such a thing and would not at all be consistent with David’s heart. He, like most of us, long to just be like Jesus, to be able to show and have His love, compassion, mercy and caring heart. To always just do the will of the Father as well as to be filled with His light which John tells us is Jesus Christ.
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