4a925e57ebfc34e0a49015f7706ca841

I am finishing up a new book with a working title of When A Hebrew Word Hits the Road  Bringing Biblical Hebrew Words to 21st Century Christian Living.  Below is taken from one of its chapters.

Psalms 30:5 “For His anger is but for the moment, His favor is for a life time.  Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes in the morning.”

One of the regular passengers on my disability bus is Frankie.  Once a week he goes to the bowling alley where he bowls with a bowling team. Frankie is 89 years old and still bowls a good 120 per game.  He assures me he used to do much better than that and he is not sure why his game has been off.  I would say his game is off by about 20 years but someone forgot to tell him that he getting old. For 89 he stays very active aside from his weekly bowling date he attends church every Sunday, serving as an usher and goes to the supermarket twice a week.  He walks there which is why he goes twice a week, a weeks groceries is just too much to carry home.

He wears a button on his suit and even wears it when he goes bowling. He is wearing that button today. It is the size of a political campaign button only the picture is not of some politician but is an old faded picture of his wife.  The picture shows a very attractive woman with the hairdo of the forties and the gobs of lipstick that women wore in those days.  Frankie said that this a picture of his wife taken a couple years after they were married and before he was shipped overseas to fight in the Korean War.

Today was their 69th wedding anniversary.  However, his wife only made it to their 62nd anniversary before she passed away from cancer.  Frankie was going to the cemetery where his wife was buried to celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary together.  It was a time of reminiscing so I let him talk.

He told how he and his wife used to always go bowling together and that she was the better bowler.  They also loved to go roller skating together and continued to go when they were well into their twenties not caring that they would be skating with a rink full of teenagers.  In fact they worked part time as guards on the skating rink and during intermission they and the other guards would put on a show doing tricks and having a speed skating race.  The highlight of the show was at the conclusion when the manager would lower the lights and Frankie and his wife would go to the center of the roller rink where a spot light would be put on them and they would do a slow dance together on roller skates while the Wurlitzer would play, “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You.” This was such a hit that they did this week after week for years. People would look forward to watching Frankie and his sweetheart do the slow dance to the Wurlitzer.  Many a young girl would berate her boyfriend later that evening for not being as romantic as Frankie.

We made a stop at the florist and I waited as Frankie tottered into the shop. It didn’t take long, the clerk had his dozen roses ready for him and then we made our way to the cemetery.  When we got to the grave site I helped Frankie out of the bus.  As I climbed back into the bus Frankie turned toward me and said, “Play it and turn the volume up.”

I took my IPOD and queued it up to Harry James playing:

I don’t want to walk without you, baby,

Walk without my arms about you, baby.

I thought the day you left me behind,

I’d take a stroll and get you right off my mind,

But now I find that I don’t want to walk without the sunshine,

Why’d you have to turn off all that sunshine.

Oh baby please come back

Or you will break my heart for me,

Cause I don’t want to walk without you no siree.

 

Was it a vision?  I would swear for a moment I saw a Frankie in his twenties slow dancing with a beautiful woman wearing a 40’s style hairdo and gobs of lipstick.

 

As I watched Frankie visit his sweetheart, I could not help but think of Psalms 30:6 where we learn that His anger is but for a moment.  The word anger in the Hebrew here is aneph which does not have to be rendered as angerAneph comes from a Semitic origin of a camel snorting.  A camel may snort when it is angry, but is will also snort when it is frustrated or sad. Aneph is simply an expression of some emotion and the context where it is used will tell you which emotion to use.  I don’t believe anger fits the context, I would say it is more of frustration or disappointment. His disappointment is but for a moment.  His favor or ratson in Hebrew which delight or pleasure  is for a lifetime.  The word lifetime is chayim which is just simply the word life.  I render it as His favor or delight and pleasure is life giving.

 

Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes in the morning. Night is ‘erev in Hebrew which is really a reference to the evening. In ancient times evening was always considered a very brief moment between light and darkness. Thus, you had an old expression, “It is just an evening.”  In other words it will pass quickly.  The next word rendered as tarry is lun which means to lodge. Lodging is a temporary place to sleep not a permanent resident. Weeping or sorrow is just a stopover it is not permanent.

 

Then joy comes in the morning. The morning, of course, was a symbol of a new beginning when everything is bright and fresh.  There are a number of words in the Hebrew for joy, this one is ranan which in its Semitic root is an archers term for the twanging of a bow string.  It is the sound that is made when an arrow has been released and the archer can now relax. I have a friend who has some experience in archery and said that it takes a lot of strength and endurance to pull back on the bow and hold it in place as you aim. It is a very tense moment. But once you release that arrow you feel a sense of relief, relaxation and a sense of peace as the trial shooting an arrow has passed. In the morning after a tense time you will find relief and relaxation. The tensions will all be gone and you will feel a sense of peace.

 

As I listened to Frankie tell his stories and lay the flowers by his beloveds’ grave and then as I drove him home and listened to him sing along in his deep baritone voice with Harry James rendition of I Don’t Want to Walk Without You, for the first time I understand the word ranan. Ranan is not so much exuberant joy but just a sense of release, relaxation and peace.  I sense this little time for Frankie was a morning and he had let that arrow of grief and sorrow fly and now he felt a release, a joy over the memories of the days when he did not walk alone but walked with his beloved and basked in the joy of her ratson, pleasure and delight.

 

We walk through the ‘erev with weeping but morning has come, our Savior is by our side ready to walk into the morning with us and his ratson, His pleasure and delight released that arrow of weeping and we can feel ranan, a sense of release of our sorrows and relief as we bask in the ratson or pleasure of the Lord.

 

 

Subscribe to our free Daily Hebrew Word Study for in-depth commentary using Biblical Hebrew!

* indicates required