Hebrew Word Study – Drawing Water  –  Dalah –  דָּלָה   Daleth, Lamed Hei

Psalms 30:1: “A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the house of David. I will extol thee, O LORD; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.”

David is truly rejoicing in the Lord. The Lord has lifted him from despair over the plots of his enemies and delivered him. He says that he will extol the lord.  The word extol is sometimes rendered as exalted.  The word for extol, however, is racham, that special love of God. In fact, David does not say that he racham’s God but that he will racham God. It is in an imperfect form an incompleted action.  More than that it is found in a Piel intensive form. That is probably why David puts this in an imperfect form as he knows he will not reach that state of Divine, perfect love like God has until he is released from that human, corrupt body and joins the God he loves in heaven. Only then will he know that true racham love in its Piel or perfect (completed) form.

Then he says something a bit strange in Hebrew. The Lord has lifted him up. Did God literally pick him up and hang him over his enemies so his enemies would not rejoice or gloat over him?  The word for lift up is not your standard Hebrew word for lift up. It is the word dalah which is also in a Piel intensive in a perfect form which is a completed action.  The racham love in an completed form is something David still cannot obtain, yet God has given him dalah over his enemies and that is complete. 

Dalah indeed has the idea of being lifted up but it is a word that is used for the raising of a bucket of water from a well.  In the hot desert regions of the Middle East, water was very precious and one often went thirsty.  When they did drink water, it was usually warm from sitting in a vessel during the heat of the day.  However, when water was raised from a well, it came up cool and refreshing. I remember when I played football in high school. Sometimes during practice it would be very hot and we would get thirsty, oh so thirsty.  The manger would bring out two buckets of water. Of course, it was the first string starters who would get to drink first and I never was a starter so by the time I reached the bucket, the water was a little slushy from the first team slobbering up the water. Not only that it was warm and tepid, but it was wet and I was satisfied with that.  However, as I stood with the other scrubs waiting for my turn to get a drink of water, I would hear someone beside me start to describe a nice glass of cool, refreshing, clear water filled with ice forming a frost on the sides of the glass. That was a far cry from the muddy water which I found in the bucket when my turn came for a sip.  However, there was much joy in the anticipation as I waited for my turn to get a sip of that water. 

This is the word dalah, it is not only lifting up a bucket of cool, refreshing water on a hot day when you are about to collapse from the stress of the heat of the day, it is also the anticipation of taking that first sip of cool, clear water.  Water also tastes better when it is cooled down.  That is what happens when the Lord dalah(s) you, he fills you with anticipation of ultimate refreshment and satisfaction of having your burning thirst quenched. 

The other day I had an elderly couple on my disability bus. They always travel together, if I see one of their names on my dispatch, I know I will be picking up two people. I once asked the elderly gentleman how long he had been married.  He said; “All my life.”  I estimate it is over fifty years. They are, oh, so cute, sitting there on my bus yadiyad.  That is Hebrew for holding hands. It literally means hand in hand. 

The other day as I was driving them home from some appointment, I noticed there was trouble in paradise. The woman got on the bus and sat in the back and the husband sat in the front. They were not speaking to each other.  What was going on was none of my business, but I knew what my business was.  I queued up some Gaither music of good old-fashioned hymns on my IPod.  I knew they were a Christian couple who attended a local Baptist church. As I drove them home, we listened to some of the old time hymns.  One was that old song, Love Lifted Me. Suddenly I heard this sweet elderly woman singing from the back of the bus in a deep heartfelt way, I mean she was singing from down deep in her soul: “Love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me.” I looked in my review mirror and I saw tears streaming down her face. The song concluded as we arrived at their house. When the couple got off my bus, I saw this elderly saint lean over to her husband and whisper something in his ear. Then she took his hand and yadiyad – hand in hand walked into their home. They looked, oh, so cute. 

I understood then what the Psalmist meant when he said; “The Lord has lifted (dalah) me up.” It was God filling him with His love such that all the cares of this world just melted away and all that mattered was that he was loved and it was that love that lifted Him out of that miry clay (Psalms 40:1).   

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