Psalms 103:2: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:”
David again commands his soul to bless the Lord. How do you bless the Lord? I guess that depends upon what you mean by bless. We say it all the time in worship that we are blessing the Lord but do you ever stop to think what that really means. The word used here in the Hebrew is barak which comes from a Semitic root meaning to knee down.
In ancient cultures you kneeled before someone that was superior to you, someone you wished to show respect to and someone who has conquered you. As a king David was use to people bowing before him.
Not too long ago President Obama received some harsh criticism because he appeared to bow before the 84 years old King Abdulla of Saudi Arabia during the G20 Summit. Many Americans felt that by bending over to show greater respect to Islam, the US president belittled the power and independence of the United States. Such an act is a traditional gesture befitting a king’s subjects, not his peer. Traditionally American Presidents do not bow before foreign dignitaries whether they are princes, kings or emperors. America stands for equality and nobility is not meant to exist in our country. In fact State department protocol decrees that Presidents bow to no one. To be fair the President is a bit taller than King Abdulla and he was only bending down so as to shake his hand. However, the photos seem to show a very significant stoop.
Why should just a simple gesture create such controversy? I think that is obvious, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world bowing to a king of a much smaller and less powerful nation digs deep in our national pride. It also sends a message that Americans does not want to send, that we are not as powerful as we make ourselves out to be.
Now David is telling his soul to bow before God. We come before God on our knees bowing to Him. Yet we may physically bow to Him but is our soul bowing to Him? There us an old tradition when a man proposes marriage to a woman he gets down on one knee. Why does he do it. I believe he is barak(ing) he is blessing his beloved. He is showing her that he wants to give his heart and soul to her. I believe this is what David is commanding his soul to do before God, to give itself to God entirely.
David, as a king had people bowing to him all the time, he could tell if it was just a formal gesture, something someone had to do before a king and he could tell if someone’s heart and soul were in that gesture. This may be why David is commanding his soul to barak, bow down, before God. Just like the man proposing to his sweetheart, he wants her to know this is coming from his heart and soul so he makes his proposal barak, on bended knee.
Barak or bless also carries the idea of praise. In fact some translation will say Praise the Lord O’ my soul. We discussed this word barak in our Meet Up today and discovered something I never really thought about. I believe using the word praise is limiting the word barak. Some rabbis have used the word barak to indicate the impartation of something. The word is sometimes used for a curse where you are imparting something evil. Generally the word is applied to show the impartation of something good. The context will tell you what you are imparting. In this case David is commanding his soul to impart something good.
So what is it that we can impart to God that is good? Well, we can lift Him up, say good things about Him, honor Him and tell Him He is an all-round good God. Is God that self-centered and that insecure that He needs this constant attention? I have been in some worships services where I could almost hear God say; “Don’t patronize me.” People will say their praises, clap their hands, lift their hands in the air and do all the things that were taught to do in worship with the intention of winning some favor with God so like a king he may grant some favor to them. We praise Him with our lips but do we praise him with our souls. That is what patronizing is, saying good things about someone just to get their favor, but not speaking it with your heart or soul.
The only thing we can give God is something that He cannot get from us on His own. It is something even as the God of the Universe, who created everything, cannot get without our willing ok and that is our hearts in love. He can’t command it, or order it or threaten us if we don’t love Him. If we love him out of a threat, that is an empty love and in fact not love at all. We all know the old saying: “You cannot make someone love you.” God has given us a free will, a will to decide if we will love Him or not.
We all want to be loved. A rock star may be loved by his fans, but it is an empty love. They love his celebrity, they love his music, but is it really the person they love? That is why many famous people suffer depression, go through many marriages because they are indeed loved but it is their wealth and status that is loved and not them as a person. A person wants to be loved for just who they are not because of what they can give someone. You know the old saying: “You can’t buy love.”
That is so true with God, if anyone could buy love He can and He does. He answer’s prayers, He heals your body, He mends relationships, He is there to keep you out of hell and all sorts of wonderful things and indeed we love Him in return. We love Him because He made us prosperous, gave us a good job, healed us etc. But if He allowed it all to be taken away like He did with old Job, would we still be showing Him love and affection? Would we be able to say like Job: What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil.” Job 2:9 “The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Job 1:21
When we worship and try to bless God we can do all the outward signs, raise our hands, clap our hands, sing the songs of praise, tell God we love Him, but like David, we need to make sure it is coming from our souls, we need to command our souls to praise God. That is what will spend eternity with Him, not our uplifted hands, not our pretty words or praise, but our souls and our praise, worship and love has to come from our souls.
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