Thank you everyone who has purchased my book Hebrew Word Study Revealing the Heart of God off of Amazon. Your support means more than you realize. You still have a few days to order a book as a gift for a Christmas gift for friends and relatives. To encourage you to make such a purchase I am sharing another chapter from the book.
WORD STUDY – THE LAME HORSE – יגונ
Psalms 31:10, “For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.”
David is saying that his life is filled with grief. Some translations say it is filled with pain, others say sorrow, another will say misery. There is a difference in our English language between grief, pain, sorrow and misery. You can be in pain when you hit your thumb with a hammer, but you may not be in grief. You can be in misery without sorrow or grief. By why split hairs, David is saying he is feeling just crappy. I woke up this morning after having a really horrible dream. It was like all the iniquities of my life were packed into one event and when I woke up I really felt miserable, not pain, not grief, just miserable until I realized it was all a dream and I was no longer in that situation. I was drawn this verse as I began to believe that this is what David was addressing here. David is saying that his life is spent in grief. This is just not a onetime event, it is a lifelong event. We learn further in this verse that it is due to some iniquity. Some commentators say that he is referring to just his sin nature, but I don’t think so. We don’t usually get so depressed over our sin nature. This has to be some sin in his past that still haunts him.
This is more like that thorn in the flesh that the Apostle Paul talks about in II Corinthians 12:7-10. In the Greek the word for thorn is skolops which means a pointed stake or a thorn. Actually, in extra Biblical literature such as the works of Plato skolops is a reference to anything with a sharp point. Paul may have written the book of Corinthians in Greek but his native language was Aramaic and he most likely had the Aramaic word shaphaya in mind which is really a sharp splinter. A splinter is something that is very small but it is a continual irritant such that it really interferes with your well-being and can even affect your work. Paul does not say what this thorn in the flesh is and there has been much speculation such as an eye problem or some physical deformity. However, it is something that keeps him from becoming conceited. I don’t think he is referring to something physical. I base this purely on my own experience. I have a physical affliction that does affect my appearance such that it keeps me from being conceited over my physical appearance, but I tell you once I signed a major book contract, conceit still snuck in there and no physical deformity seemed to prevent it.
I suspect this is something like David’s grief. It has to do with past iniquities. The word grief here in Hebrew is yagun. As indicated it has a number of different translations it is either, misery, sorrow or pain and all are correct although each tend to mean something a little different. When you trace this word to its Semitic root you find that it comes from an ancient Persian word used to describe a horse which has pain in his foot such that it makes the horse lame. A lame horse is useless for performing any work or function. This lameness can be caused by something simple as a thorn or a small blister or sore on the hoof. David is saying that from taking counsel in his own soul he has become useless, he is so crippled by his sorrow that he cannot function or perform any work. Somewhere there is some sin in David’s life that just keeps coming back to haunt him. Even though it is forgiven, the enemy will still keep bringing this back to his mind such that it has a crippling effect.
I think this is what Paul’s thorn is the flesh is. It is some sin in his background and although God has forgiven him, it still keeps haunting him when he seeks counsel in his soul. He calls it a messenger of Satan. God has forgiven him, cleansed him from the most horrendous sins and yet, Satan will bring back this little memory, will send him a message, “Hey, Paul, look at you, you are a mass murderer. This family that you are fellowshipping with right now, you killed their father, their son, or dear friend just because of their belief in Jesus. Yes, Paul, they hate you, they will not accept you, they will never forgive you for such a crime.” Poor Paul sits there and scratches his head and says, “You know, you’re right, perhaps I should just side step Corinth here as there are too many bad memories.”
Like Paul and David, even though God has forgiven you, the enemy can still bring up the past to haunt you to the point where you cannot even serve God. That dream I had last night crippled me, I could not get up and work on my book because that dream of my past reminded me of my thorn in the flesh, my yagun. Yes, it does keep me from conceit as with Paul. I will not put up my picture or use my real name on my books. I use the name Chaim Bentorah to declare that all my writings come from my life in Jesus Christ and not my past iniquities. Yet even though I have been forgive, the enemy will sneak in and constantly bring my past failures to mind and I will find myself crippled and unable to serve God until I just rest in His presence knowing I cannot experience this presence if He had not forgiven me.
We all have our personal yaguns, you cannot make it through life with them. We all make mistakes, we all sin, maybe we are not the mass murderer like Paul or having so much blood on our hands like David that God would not allow him to build a temple in His honor, but we have enough iniquities that the enemy can sneak in, maybe even through a dream, cripple us or make us lame like that poor horse. A mighty, powerful, well trained horse can be brought down by a simple thorn, or sore and would be unable to work.
We don’t go to a worship service seeking the presence of God so we can have a moment of feel good like some junkie shooting drugs into his system to get some pleasurable rush. We go to worship God and feel His presence to defeat this thorn in our flesh, this yagun. For when we feel the sweet presence of God we are reminded that our failures, our sins, our iniquities were nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago. For if it were not forgiven, God would not come near us with His presence. Thus, when the enemy comes and says, “Who do you think you are to write a book, to preach a sermon, to share the love of Jesus with that person with all your iniquities?” You can turn right around and say, “Satan, you’re a liar, those iniquities were nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago and I stand pure before the God I love and I can feel His presence as a reminder that I have been forgiven.
Recent Comments