Ps 103:1: “ A Psalm of David. Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, [bless] his holy name.”
All that is within me bless his holy name. I wonder what I have inside of me that can bless the name of the Lord. Why does he not say with all my heart. How about loving God with all your heart, soul and strength (Luke 10:27) or with all your heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37). Or why not love the Lord with all your heart, soul and might (Deuteronomy 6:5).
Well we covered the soul issue yesterday where David takes his soul by the collar and tells it just what it is supposed to do when he praising the Lord. This would have been motivated by his heart. So we have the heart and soul now joining in its praise to God but apparently there is more to this human creature so David lumps the rest of it under the title of all that is within me.
That phrase all that is within me is kal qeravi. Now that word for all is a very interesting word in Hebrew, it is the word kal and it means all. No two ways around it, it is all, the whole, everything, totality, complete, each and everyone. It comes from the root word kalal, Rabbi Solomon Hirsch a nineteenth century linguist and master of Hebrew and Semitic languages teaches that this word is related to the word kalah. Kalah is the word for bride and thus you have the idea of the bride or woman completing man. My study partner pointed out that man and woman are like two halves making a whole. You feminist can get on her case about that one . Still the Talmud teaches that man is not complete until he has a mate. When a man marries a woman he gives her all of himself at least all that he can give, they are joined together to become one in mind, purpose, affection and love. In other the words kalah conveys the idea of intimacy, the deepest intimacy that a human being can experience. If a man and woman are to experience true intimacy the intimacy that God created and intended for man and woman to experience then that husband and wife must share a lifetime commitment to each other, must not have any other lover before them, they must love their mates with all their hearts, soul and mind, they must have total honesty with each other, there are to be no secrets between them. Yes all that found in the word kal, all.
When we give all that is within us in our praise to God we are giving all of ourselves like a bride and bride groom give to each other. The word for within me is qeravi from the root word qarav. This word has its origins in an Akkadian word for the entrails of an animal. Thus, you get the idea of within me. However, the entrails were understood to be those parts of your body that are hidden from everyone, even yourself. The entrails were a mystery to the common ancient man. They saw them in dead animals, but were really unsure what their functions were. They held secrets and mysteries to life itself. Even today if I were to mention a spleen or a liver, you would have only a vague idea of its function and perhaps no idea as to how it actually functions and this is today with our modern science. If the doctor tells you that you have a liver problem I will bet 90% will go home and call up liver on your computer and start reading about it. Ancient man knew these guts served a purpose to keep you alive but most had little concept of what function they performed to keep you alive.
When David said kal geravi all that is within me praise the Lord he could have been thinking of his liver, lungs, heart, spleen etc. He knew these things were real and alive and if they could praise the Lord they better do it. Did you ever start to praise the Lord in church and that hot sauce you had on your eggs that morning begins to talking from you stomach. I will bet you turned your neighbor and said: “Praise the Lord even my stomach is praising His name.
That is not too farfetched because David obviously also meant his understanding, his attention, his powers of reasoning, his judgment and his affections were also all within him but that they were also influenced by his physical body. Let’s face it that pepperoni pizza reacts negatively with the acids in your stomach and that heartburn is going to affect your reasoning, judgment and affections. If you are worried or frightened, you may experience abdominal pains, possibly panic attacks where you can’t breathe or your heart begins to pound and the extreme discomfort will affect your ability worship or praise the Lord.
I drove a woman to the pain clinic in my disability bus. She suffers from a hip injury that never healed right. She is in constant pain and discomfort. She confessed to me that she is even taking morphine six times a day and it still does not relieve the pain. After a visit with a pain specialist who trained at the University of Chicago and Loyola Medical school, some of the top medical schools in the nation she told this poor woman that there was nothing more they could do for her pain. She would live with this pain for the rest of her life. Every bump I hit caused her to cry out in pain. I tried to talk about faith and God but she was too distracted. She wanted to talk about her faith, but she could not focus on her faith due to her pain. Sometimes I wonder if someone like that could really be the true candidate for divine healing. We want to be healed just so we have no disability, no pain and feel normal, but I wonder if God wants to heal us so we have no distractions from our desire to worship of Him with all our hearts, soul and mind. This woman could worship God with her heart and soul but her mind was too pre-occupied with her pain.
So I believe David was using the literal as well as the abstract meaning of qarav. He was not only instructing his bowels which might have really been causing physical discomfort from his fears of the Assyrians and his enemies to worship God. He might have also been commanding his stomach which was suffering indigestion to worship God and his lungs where were not breathing too well from panic attacks to worship God. He did this so that he could also worship God with the abstract meaning of qarav which is his understandings, affections, reasoning and judgments. You know something, next time I worship God I think I will not only command my soul to praise the Lord but my stomach, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc. to also praise the Lord.
Years ago when I was a Baptist pastor just learning about the idea of worshipping God with uplifted hands, I was still reluctant to raise my arms in the air while worshipping God. But I would do it in the privacy of my office. One day I slipped on the ice and did a number on my shoulder such that I could not lift my right arm for over a week. However that evening in the privacy of the office I was praying and pacing back and forth and suddenly I thought: “No one can see me, I will just lift my hands and worship God.” I lifted both hands in the air. Then I realized, “I can’t lift my right arm, but I am doing it, praisealleuia I’m healed.” I lower my arm and tried to lift it again, but I could not raise it any higher than I did before. I decided to follow Psalms 103:1 and commanded my arm and shoulder to praise the Lord and I lifted my arm with no effort and no pain. Every time I commanded my arm to lift to praise God I could do it. Whenever I tried to lift my arm to reach for something, I could not do it and felt a sharp pain. After about a week the healing process finally ran its course and I could lift my arm normally, but not before I learned a real lesson, there is nothing wrong in worshipping God with uplifted hands and we should start commanding our body to worship God as well.
p.s. Study Partner here (Laura)…what I said was that linguistically the words kalal (complete) and Kalah.(Bride) Are related…let people come to their own conclusions. I’m a single woman and feel very complete with Jesus alone…though I did mention in conversation the wholeness you feel in a loving relationship such as a spouse…making you feel complete, no hate mail please :) (I found this in my own study and did not know Rabbi Solomon Hirsch also said it)
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