Devotional Short Note to Psalm 63: People
sometimes complain that their worship is boring and that they need a fresh look
at it. Edward Heppenstall put it the best: the revival needed is a revival of
Bible Study. He said it is not in verbalizing truths, ecstacy, inner feeling,
overpowerment of the “Spirit”, not merely mental, not an escape from obedience,
not emotional excitations, is not subjective, is not testimonies and is not
philosophy. David also got it right. In the wilderness and barrenness where he
knew what it meant to be thirsty, David says that his soul thirsts for God
(63:2b). He seeks God, he thirsts for God and longed for Him. This is step one
in all true worship. If you take your pillow at row number three next to the
wall near the back of the church so that you can have a comfortable view of
everyone walking in, you came for the wrong reason. Your water bottle is in
your bag and who talks about thirsty? David. And not for water but
relationship. Notice how David is looking for God: “So in the Sanctuary have I
looked [ḥzytk = to see in a vision] for You” (63:3a). The same word is used for
Daniel’s visions that the Lord gave him. Nobody calls David a prophet and yet
he saw with the same instrument God in the Sanctuary the way Daniel did. Same
word. He desired to see God’s power and glory and speaking of these two, the
heavenly sanctuary is full of it (63:3b). There was no sanctuary in the
wilderness where David was. Many people complain that the Bible does not teach
a Sanctuary Message and that there is no such thing as a heavenly sanctuary.
Good morning. Follow this link long enough and you will think differently.
David says he could see the “mercy/lovingkindness” of God in the sanctuary
(63:4a). Exactly. That is what salvation is all about. The whole engine of
salvation spins on two wheels: mercy and justice. And God has both. David saw
it. No-one sees the mercy of God and does not want to praise Him with their
lips (63:4b). Then David says “So will I bless You as long as I live. In Your
name will I lift up my hands” (63:5b). Is this a praise service that David is
attending? A temple gathering? A tabernacle service of all the people? No. He
is solitary. Alone. He will raise his hands not with the beat of the drum or
amid shoutings of hallelujah. Alone he will raise his hands. David is not
prescribing liturgy here for modern churches. It is not a theology of ecclesia that
he is designing here. Privately, with no one in sight but sand and sand and
more of it, he raises his hands. Praise is not absent in the next verse because
he says “my mouth praises You with joyful (yhll) lips”. David says that “You will
[future] satisfy my soul” (63:6a). David intends to bless the Lord as long as
he lives but he also gives us a picture of what is happening at night: “If I
remember You upon my couch, in the nightwatches I will give thanks in You”
(63:7b). Your Bible should be open here for comparison. Can you see the word “meditation”?
Take a pen and scratch it out. Rewrite the word “give thanks/praise” over it
from the Late Egyptian word ḥknw and not from an Arabic word taken over by
Arab-speaking Rabbis of the Middle Ages meaning “meditation”. Nobody knows what
the word haggah means in the Bible and the Hebrew Dictionaries guess it is
Arabic but David knew nothing of Arabic. When you roll over at night on your
bed, do you utter “thank you Lord”. When you wake up in the deep hours of the
dark, do you say “Thanks Lord for everything”? That is what David is doing
here. Why the emphasis here? Here is the reason. Some Adventist Doctorates were
done on the word “meditation” and unfortunately Jewish Mysticism and
Kabbalistic ideas is brought to the table suggesting that we should include
also with our prayers, acts of meditation. A meditation theology is suggested
and now advocated in lectures. It is very dangerous and one should read the
dangers of this thinking in the work of Gershom Scholem of Jewish Mysticism
page 34 where he explains about “meditation” in Jewish Mysticism: “This
transformation, which has meant a great deal for the true life of the Kabbalist,
has become crystallized in the conception of Kawwanah, i.e. mystical
intention or concentration, which is its instrument. In the words of the
liturgy as in the old Aggadahs, the Kabbalists found a way to hidden worlds and
the first causes of all existence. They developed a technique of meditation
which enabled them to extract, as it were, the mystical prayer from the
exoteric prayer of the community, the text of which followed a fixed pattern.”
To cite Adventists teaching meditation as a biblical doctrine based on the
Arabic understanding by Rabbis and Mystics, just the following: “Biblical
meditation within an Adventist theological context may be experienced as
intensely personal, deeply transformational, and providing the framework for a
dynamic encounter between the Holy Spirit and the practitioner.” All the texts
used by this doctorate are based on the misunderstanding unfortunately and
misguidedness of modern Hebrew Dictionaries that base their semantics not on a language
David spoke but a language the Middle Age Rabbis Saadia Gaon, or Redak, or
Rashi, or Ibn Ezra understood and used, namely Arabic. This phenomenon in
Judaism led to very strange and esoteric ideas and practices among the Jews and
which are still operative. David had nothing of it. The word meditation he did
not use but thanksgiving or praise, a synonym to praise in 63:4b. David thanks
God because He was his help (63:8a). In the shadow of His wings he rejoice
(63:8b). It is in this context that haggah must be understood: praise (63:4b),
bless (63:5a), praise (63:6b), remember (63:7a), give thanks (63:7b), rejoice
(63:8b). This makes more sense than the list: praise, bless, praise, remember,
meditation, rejoice. Like the women in the crowd that grabbed Jesus clothes,
David did the same: “My soul cleaves behind You” (63:9a). God moves to such a
faith His right hand to the back and holds the person fast “inside” for David
says “in me You will hold Your right hand” (very literal 63:9b). “And those to
destroy, will seek my soul, they shall go in the deepest parts of the earth”
(63:10). David sees the end of the wicked in the eschaton. David is now full of
futures since it is in the prophecies that he finds his comfort against the
potential danger of evil in his existence. “They shall be hurled to the hands
of the sword” of the Warrior Messiah Christ (63:11a). “A portion of foxes shall
they be” (63:11b). David knows how foxes of the wilderness would come and seek
remainders of prey lying around to feed on. “And the King [Christ the King of
Kings, also God] shall rejoice in God [Father]” (63:12a). It can only be Christ
and not David as Judaism teaches since “Everyone that swears by Him shall glory
for the mouth of them that speak lies [at the eschaton] shall be stopped”
(63:12c). This stop is not just a one-time case but has everlasting
implications.