Ps 140:2  “Rescue me, O LORD, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man;”

This morning I attended a men’s prayer meeting.  During this time our Pastor’s son, one of the pastors of our church who also works as a paramedic, shared with us about his day job.  His job is basically to rescue people.  He told how the definition of a rescue is to intervene in a situation to help and save a person where, without your intervention that person would have died.

Many translations render the word chalats (rescue) as deliver but when I traced this word back to its Semitic origins, I believe it means more than just deliver, it is in fact more of the paramedic’s definition of rescue.   The word itself means to draw away, to withdraw something or someone, to equip someone for war, to arm someone for war, to brace up, to save and to set free.  I believe our paramedic pastor would agree that all these definitions fit his word for rescue.  He draws people away from the danger, he equips someone with life jacks, ropes or whatever they need to be drawn away from the danger, and he braces them or supports them and then sets them free from the danger.  Chalats comes from an Akkadian word HLS meaning to fortify.  The Canaanite word has the idea of a belt which is meant to secure a garment to one’s body.  These are both military words as is the Hebrew word and the intent is to equip someone or to directly protect someone’s life in battle.  So this word is more than just deliver.  In English that word deliver could mean everything from a lifesaving situation to pulling or delivering you or your vehicle  from a mud hole.

Chalats is in fact delivering one from a situation where, without that help, he would have lost his life. This fits our pastor’s son’s definition of rescue perfectly. So when David is calling out to God to rescue him from the evil and violent man he is referencing someone who is seeking to kill him and without God’s intervention they will succeed.  The word evil is ra’ from the root word ra’a’ which is an evil of seeking to bring bodily harm to another person.  It is also a word for a malignancy which is something that is deadly.  The word violent is hamas. By some strange coincidence it sounds just like the Arabic word Hamas. We all know what Hamas is.  It is a terrorist organization which seeks to kill infidels.  Although Hamas is simply an Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah  or Islamic Resistance Movement.  Anyways, the best definition of the Hebrew word hamas seems to ironically fit the Arabic acronym Hamas. They may not secret that they are a violent organization that seeks to take lives. Rabbi Samson Hirsch describes the Hebrew hamas as a falcon snatching away a prey.

As a king David’s life was always in danger so it is not too difficult to believe that David is facing a threat against his life and he is calling out to God to rescue him from this assassin or those who seek to take his life.

Our pastor’s son also told us something very interesting.  He said that when he seeks to rescue a person like from drowning, that person will almost drown him in the process.  That person that is drowning is thinking of only one thing, his own life and he will struggle and literally take his rescuer down with him.

You know sometimes when we call out to God to rescue us we think more of ourselves than our rescuer.  Our rescuer is gently massaging our shoulders and back trying to calm us, but we are so focused on our situation we just can’t trust our rescuer and we literally fight  against God as He tries to rescue us.  We don’t understand His plan to rescue us all we see is the problem at hand.

I remember watching on television where a group of park rangers were trying to rescue a deer trapped in a flooded stream.  They had ropes around him and it took four or five rangers struggling with the animal to free him from his situation.  If the deer had not panicked and fought with the park rangers one ranger alone could have rescued him. But the deer just did not understand and as a result made the rescue four or five times more difficult than it needed to be.

When we call upon God to rescue us, we need to stop panicking, sit back and let Him gentle massage our shoulders and neck to relieve our tension as He quietly goes about arranging for our rescue. I remember I had a guy on my bus who was telling me that while in the hospital his heart stopped beating. Immediately the physician pulled out this syringe with a long six inch penny nail at the end and stuck it into his chest.  He then began to beat on his chest, breaking ribs, pounding with all his might. He called it a heart massage.  He said he got so mad at that doctor that if he wasn’t so weak from his heart attack he would have slugged him. Yet, that physician was simply trying to save his life.  Even understanding what he was doing he still fought him.  All he needed to do was just lay back, trust that physician and let him pound the living daylights back into him.

You know when your heart gets broken or wounded, you just want to die.  You call out to God to rescue you.  Sometimes God just may have to do a little heart massage on you.  You may not understand it, and you may even fight against it, but just relax, let Him do His job and trust Him that He knows what He is doing.