HEBREW WORD STUDY – THE POOR – DALAL  דלל

Psalms 41:1 “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.  Blessed [is] he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.

The other day as I was driving my disability bus through the inner city of Chicago. This was in the Lawndale area which has one of the highest crime rates in Chicago.  I saw a little storefront church with a sign in the window quoting this verse. I could not help but think of all the troubles in this area and this promise to be delivered from these troubles is you just consider the poor. Now when the old boy selling peanuts in the street knocks on my window all I have to do is consider his poverty and I am good to go. 

But is this really what David means to consider the poor. The word for poor here is dalal. This is the same root word where we get the word Delilah.  Delilah means she who makes one weak. This word comes from an old Akkadian word which is used for lowering a well digger down into a well by a rope.  Digging a well in those days was a very dangerous job.  When the well reached a certain depth they would lower a digger down into the well by a rope and he would carefully dig.  If the walls started to collapse, which was a very common occurrence, they would quickly pull the digger up.  Sometimes the rope handlers who were charged with watching for any sign of collapse would be talking about the stats for the star gladiator of the Babylonian Charioteers or the boss’s new assistant in that low cut toga and not notice the subtle signs of an imminent collapse.  They failed to masekil el dal consider the poor. 

Poor may not be the best word to use here.  We automatically think of someone who has no money when we hear poor.  But dal is really a person who is very vulnerable.  Many dal give the impression of being capable like the old boy being lowered in the well, but he needs someone to watch his back. 

This may be that quiet person who comes into your church, sits in the back, and never says anything. It may be the house cleaner, that janitor, that person that no one bothers to consider. Every day I drive my disability bus I do battle with Freight trains passing through and blocking traffic for a good ten minutes. All I ever notice is the engine and the last boxcar. I pay no attention to the other boxcars. They mean nothing to me. It is the engine that tells me I am going to have a ten-minute wait and be late for my next pick up or the last boxcar which tells me I will be free to move ahead.  

I find in churches most people are just boxcars.  The pastor and his inner circle are the engines and then there are the really poor, down and out people who need help,  these are the final boxcars that everyone notices them. You know what I think?  I think David is telling us to consider the boxcars.  I mean we are great for taking care of the poor and the down and out the final boxcars and we are great at giving our pastors and Christian leaders, the engines glory and honor, but unless you are really in need or have a big platform no one will pay that much attention because you are just a boxcar. 

Well now I have been a boxcar all my life, I have admired the engines and I have never been a final boxcar, but I have envied the attention these final boxcars get almost to the point of making me wish I was a final boxcar or better yet maybe an engine. But that is ok except, you know what?  Too often in my life when I am being lowered into that well and that walls start to collapse those that God assigned to pull me up are listening to Big Time Preacher Charlie on his TV program or fighting with some do-gooder over the right to push the final boxcar in a wheelchair to the front row. 

I am not saying you should not watch Bit Time Preacher Charlie or ignore the helpless but I think David is telling us in Psalm 41:1 to just not forget about the boxcars.  It seems we just don’t pay close enough attention to the boxcars, but you know what, it is those box cars that God may just use to deliver you from your day of troubles (41:2), they will be the ones who will visit you in the hospital, help you when you are sick (41:4).   

The word consider in Hebrew is masekil which in modern terms means watch their backs. Watch the backs of the dals or boxcars as well as the engines and final boxcars.