Psalms 29:11:  The Lord will give strength to His people,’’

So Psalms 28:7 tells us that the Lord is our strength and then in Psalms 29:1 we are told that the mighty men are to give the Lord strength and now we learn that the Lord will give us strength.  So it seems the Lord is saying that He is our strength, we give Him strength and he will give us strength.  I asked a Christian friend if he thought this seemed a little odd and he only said: “You need to get a wife.”  Maybe he said: “You need to get a life.”  I am not sure but either way the implication is that I am just reading too much into the Word of God.  This is the same guy who got an email from his boss and read it over a few dozen times and with each reading came up with a different interpretation. At one point he felt his boss was ready to fire him and then after a few more readings decided he was about to get a promotion. And I am reading too much into the Word of God and I need to get a wife or life?

Ok, here I go again looking for some profound personal message that my God may be trying to convey to me.  I’m sorry if I get all excited over a personal message from God. He’s got one for you if you spend enough time in His Word.  Get my book “Beyond the Lexicon” if you can’t figure out how to spend four or five hours studying and meditating on the Word of God.

Anyways, enough digressing to slip in a commercial. First we need to look at the word strength.  In each one of these verses it is the same root word ozz. You remember the movie The Wizard of Oz? My study partner likens the reading of God’s Word to the movie. When you read it in your English Bible it is like the first part of the movie which is in black and white.  To read the Word of God in the original Hebrew is like when Dorothy stepped from her house into the Land of Oz and suddenly everything is in glorious living Technicolor.  Anyways there is no evidence that L. Frank Baum got his idea to call the land Oz from the Hebrew.  Although that would be so cool.

Your lexicon will tell you that ozz simply means strength.  When you trace this word to its Semitic root you find it has its origins in the strength of a fortress or a place of security.  Thus, to say the Lord is my strength is to say that my place of security is in the Lord.   The word for give in verse one where we give God strength is havu which not your common generic word for give which is nathan.  Havu  has the idea to lay upon or go to.   Mighty men are to go to God for refuge or shelter.   Finally in 29:11 we find the Lord will give a place of strength for our shelter. Here the word is nathan which is the standard word for give.  This word ends with an open Nun.  What the Lord gives to you, you must be willing to give to others.   In this case, if you are given a strong fortress by God, you must be willing to allow others to share this fortress with you.

Let’s take a further look at this word ozz.   I hear preachers all the time telling us that God is our strength, and that He will give us strength.  I would be Donald Trump rich if I had a dollar for everytime someone patted me on the head and said piously, “God will give you strength,” or “God is your strength.”   Never once did anyone tell me how to go about getting this strength.  If I were to ask, the usual response would be to pray or read you’re Bible etc.  Fortunately, the Bible will tell us just that.  It does not tell us that God is our strength without telling us how we can acquire that strength.  The word has a built in commentary.

The word strength itself will reveal how we acquire this strength.  The word is spelled Ayin, Zayin and Zayin.   You have a double Zayin after the Ayin.   The Ayin  represents the eye, both natural and spiritual.  It represents a seeing into hidden areas.  The double Zayin is explained by one rabbi as: “The eye through which I see is the same eye through which God sees.  My eye is His eye, His eye is my eye, one seeing, one knowing and one in love.”  That is the hidden secret of ozz. That is where the yellow brick road leads.  The double  Zayin represents a joining with God.  This strength, this divine shelter comes when we join ourselves with God such that we see what He sees. His eyes become our eyes.  Isaiah alludes to this in Isaiah 52:8: “for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion.”  In the Hebrew the preposition is served with a Beth (in) and not a Lamed (to) so it should be rendered as eye in eye.  When God’s eye is in our eye we will see what He sees.  We will see the dangers that lurk about.  We will see within and know the heart of God. How?  Rabbi Solomon Hirsch shows a relationship between the word chalm (dream) with ‘alam (binding).  When we sleep the body and soul is out for the count, but the spirit is wide awake and can bind itself to Spirit of God.  When that happens what God sees we see past, present and future.  That is why we forget our dreams or they are put into symbols as we could not stand what was revealed to us through God’s eyes, yet we will recall what we need.  We also bind ourselves to God through prayer and study of His Word.  There too we can see through God’s eyes and see what we need.

We can look further into the Zayin as a Zayin is a representation of a sword, a weapon of defense.  A double Zayin shows a doubled edge sword.   The double edge sword is a metaphor which indicates the advantage of two rather than one.   The idea of the Lord giving us a double edge sword would indicate that we join with him in the battle.   This strength, or shelter just does not fall upon us.  We may need to participate in some way,  either through prayer, or through the submission of our will to God.   Ultimately it is two edges of one sword. The Zayin represents a joining with God.   It is the joining of ourselves with God that produces the two edged sword.  The Word of God is sharper than a two edge sword, but God needs someone to deliver that word.   We may need to be a part of the action.   As part of the word for strength or a strong shelter, we need to remember that in this case the doubled edge sword is a weapon of defense not offense.   Just being in the stronghold or strong fortress does not mean that we will not be called upon to participate in its defense.