Prophet Pearls #53 – Ha’azinu (2 Samuel 22:1-51)

You are listening to Prophet Pearls with Nehemia Gordon and Keith Johnson. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Keith: I can’t believe it, Nehemia. I can’t believe it, folks. Prophet Pearls Partners, friends, listeners, those that have been friend, foe, everything and in between, we are now in an episode of Prophet Pearls that absolutely has my attention. Nehemia, we are in the land of Jerusalem, we are almost at the end of this process, and we’re doing something that I think is a curveball – we’ve been in the Isaiah series, and all of a sudden, as we’re talking about it, you keep talking about a psalm, I keep talking about 2 Samuel – what is going on? Welcome folks, here we are, let’s get right into it.

Nehemia: Welcome to Prophet Pearls. You know, we’ve had a bunch of sections in Samuel and the books of Samuel and in Kings, where the parallel was in Chronicles, and here all of a sudden, 2 Samuel chapter 22 – the parallel is in the book of Psalms.

Keith: So we had an argument. You said psalm, psalm, and I’m like, “It’s not a psalm…”

Nehemia: This is Psalm 18, it is, it’s Psalm 18, almost verbatim, virtually verbatim.

Keith: Virtually verbatim. So basically 2 Samuel 22 verse 1, and I will just tell you something. I was doing a study not long ago about the issue of prayer, and as I was doing the issue of prayer, something hit me as I was talking. I was looking at all these different words for prayer and all the stuff, blah, blah, blah. That’s why I talked to you about… when I said that… where it says in Psalms, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” the word is actually “ask”, and so as I was looking at all these things I thought, “One of them is, wait a minute… is there a time when someone doesn’t use the word ‘prayer’ but there is still praying or speaking to Yehovah?”

And here is this verse. It says, “And David spoke the words of this song to Yehovah on the day that Yehovah delivered him from the hand of his enemies and from the hand of Saul,” and then I thought, “Wow, a song sometimes can be like a prayer.” I mean, he’s speaking to Him. We found that in Exodus 15.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: There is a song to Yehovah, so that’s how this whole thing opens. And can we challenge people to open up the psalm side by side as we do this?

Nehemia: That’s exactly what I have here, I have two columns…

Keith: Nice, nice, nice! [laughing]

Nehemia: And so, 2 Samuel says: “Vayedaber David laYehovah et divrei hashira hazot,” “And David spoke to Yehovah the words of this song…”

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: “Beyom hetzil Yehovah oto mikaf kol oyvav umikaf Shaul,” “In the day that Yehovah saved him, delivered him from the hand of all of his enemies, and the hand of Saul.” But then in Psalm 18 it says, “lamenatze’akh,” “for the conductor,” “le’eved Yehovah leDavid,” “for the servant of Yehovah, for David,” “asher diber laYehovah et divrei hashira hazot,” “which he spoke to Yehovah the words of this song in the day that Yehovah delivered him from the hands of all of his enemies, and the hand of Saul.”

By the way, it’s really interesting. Why does it say, “the hands of all of his enemies and the hand of Saul”? What’s that about? So in Hebrew we have this concept called vav ha’yikhud, the Vav which literally means “and”, but there is a certain type of “and” in Hebrew which means “and especially”, “and worthy of note”, and the famous example is, it says, “Solomon loved many wives and the daughter of Pharaoh.” [laughing] Wait a minute, isn’t she included in the many wives? Well, she’s worthy of mention, especially the daughter of Pharaoh.

Keith: Wow. Well, he’s talking about the hand of Saul, and I’ll tell you something.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: And I know we’re going to get into this, and we’ve got this song that’s going on, but I have to say, I don’t think you can understand this unless you understand what it was that David was dealing with. And that’s why I also want to challenge people to read about that, because it’s a long aspect of the story.

Nehemia: Long story. And it actually doesn’t fit here. Meaning, this event takes place in 1 Samuel, where Yehovah saves him from the hand of Saul and the hand of his enemies. Why all of a sudden does this psalm show up at the end of the book, and what it seems like is happening is we have the history of… actually, what we call 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel in Hebrew, it’s the book of Samuel, we talked about how possibly these are the prophecies of 3 prophets – Samuel, Gad the Seer, and Nathan the Prophet, these two books in the beginning of Kings.

But in any event, it seems like at the end of 2 Samuel you have these appendices which aren’t in chronological order of the rest of the book. And you have really three appendices. You have this in 22, in 23 you have the 30 and the 3 and you have all these different warriors and heroes of David. And then in chapter 24 you have the story about the counting of the people and how Jerusalem ends up being chosen where Yehovah places His name forever.

So this is the first of the three appendices, and it’s a very similar thing in the book of Judges. The book of Judges gives this chronological history of Israel during the period of the judges until you get to chapter 17, and all of a sudden chronology is out the door. There are these two appendices of things that happened way before chapter 16. So here we are in 22, something that happened over in 1 Samuel.

Keith: Yeah, and I will tell you, Nehemia. Like we talk about traditions that we come from, and all that sort of thing.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: When you start talking about “the Lord is my rock and my fortress”, I mean, there are many songs that people would sing. But it says here…

Nehemia: Before we get to the content, I want to talk about this… because look, I have been saying the whole time that this is Psalm 18.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: And so this raises the question for me, what are these psalms? Are these just prayers? Are these prophecy? And the verses that come to me, the verse I want to bring… and maybe some of this will be homework – is this idea of the psalms as prophecy. And I have a passage here from Chronicles…. So it’s from 1 Chronicles chapter 25 verse 1. Let me read you what it says. Let me read it from the JPS. It says, “David and the officers of the army set apart the services… for services the sons of Assaf of Heman and of Yedutun who prophecied to the accompaniment of lyres, harps and symbols. The list of men who performed this work according to the service was…” and there is a list.

And this is significant because these are names that we know from the Psalms – Assaf and Heman and Yedutun and it says they’re prophesying. These psalms are prophesied, and so for example, Assaf, that name that’s mentioned there in 2 Chronicles 25:1- or what’s associated with him, is… it may have actually been a family, not an individual. Or Psalms 50, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83. Yedutun is mentioned in Psalms 39, 62, 77. Heman is in Psalm 88, and then we have the sons of Korakh who are mentioned in other passages – they’re in 42 and then 44 through 49 then 84, 85, 87, 88, not in 86.

So you have different families of Levites who are prophesying and proclaiming these psalms, and here’s another passage which is really significant, and this is…

Keith: Back to the psalm – my God! [laughing] I’m just kidding.

Nehemia: And go look these up and read them in their context, and this is the context of the entire psalm, if we don’t understand this I don’t think we can approach the psalm. So 1 Chronicles 16:4 says, “He appointed Levites to minister before the Ark of Yehovah,” this is David, “to invoke, to praise and to extoll Yehovah, God of Israel, Assaf the chief, Zachariah,” et cetera, and it goes on.

And it says in verse 7, “On that day then David gave…” “natan David,” “as the head…” “lehodot laYehovah,” “to praise Yehovah at the hands of Assaf and his brothers.” And then what follows is a quote from Psalm 105 and really, I’m not going to read this whole section, I know you want me to, Keith, but go and read this whole section here in 1 Chronicles 16, it’s actually fascinating.

And what we have here is a bunch of these passages of the Levites being… and the other passage is 1 Chronicles 25 verses 4-8. And basically, what I’m getting from this is that these Levites, this was some sort of official Temple service, and they would recite these psalms and prophecy. And I think that’s really significant, because when I look at Psalm 18 and 2 Chronicles 22 I see differences, and the way I understand these differences is this was a living psalm, it was sung in the synagogue, and maybe this is the way David wrote it originally, but then as it was sung year after year, generation after generation, maybe there were certain, you know… this guy when he sang it he came under the spirit of Yehovah and he was prophesying, and it came out a little bit differently, and they chose a different word there. And I think that’s really significant, because we can make a whole big deal – and I will – of the differences of the words, of this word and that word, but part of this has to do with the psalms being sung in synagogue.

Keith: We can call it like a living epistle. I don’t know…

Nehemia: It’s a living prayer.

Keith: A living prayer.

Nehemia: That’s the issue for me.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay, go on.

Keith: Now to the song.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Because the second part of the song is “the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer” “Elohei tzuri”, God my rock, in Him I take, I guess you’d say…

Nehemia: Refuge.

Keith: Refuge. “I take refuge in Him, and He is my shield. And the horn of my salvation.” In English, “the horn of my salvation…”

Nehemia: In Hebrew, “keren yish’i”.

Keith: Yeah. So you think of “horn of salvation”, what’s the picture you get?

Nehemia: Hm, that’s an interesting question. “Horn” is a pretty unusual word. It’s not unusual, but it’s a little strange. And I guess “horn” comes from an animal.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: Meaning, you know, I’m in trouble and here comes this animal with the big horns and he’s going to defend me.

Keith: “And he is also a stronghold and he is my refuge.” Man, I’m telling you, Nehemia, I’ve got to be honest folks, now those that have gone through this course that we have talked about, you could probably go through these words in 2 Samuel 22:3 – these words are just so cool to me, because they’re like boom di boom di boom di boom. In English – my rock, to whom I take refuge, my shield, the horn, my stronghold, my refuge, my savior… He’s my savior. You save… and then he goes on to say what he does – “You save me from the group Hamas!” it says right there Nehemia. It says, “You save me from hamas, from violence.”

And you know, if a person was to go through word by word by word and find out where those words… I won’t even have Nehemia tap-tap, I want you to tap-tap. Go through, look at these words and say where they’re used and how they’re used, and I’ll tell you what – you’ll have a good old-fashioned Bible study revival if you go through all these words. It really is pretty amazing.

Nehemia: Yeah, okay. Verse 4.

Keith: Yeah, verse 4. “I call upon Yehovah who is worthy, another song to be praised. And I am saved from my enemies.”

Nehemia: What’s the word for “saved” there?

Keith: “Ivashe’a”.

Nehemia: Ivashe’a, from the root yasha – Yud-Shin-Ayin, that we’ve seen many times before – Yehoshua, Yeshua, yeshu’ah, moshi’a – they’re all from the same root. But here the Yud becomes a Vav. Very interesting. And that’s not unusual, but here’s a place where you can see it.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: Ivashe’a.

Keith: Now, what you’re supposed to do is say this – you’re supposed to say, “Okay, that inflected is only used two times – one in Psalm 18:4,” as you said, “One time in 2 Samuel 22:4.” That’s the only time that form is used. That’s pretty amazing. The exact form, with the exact vowels.

Nehemia: Oh, okay, that exact form.

Keith: Yeah, that exact form.

Nehemia: But definitely “le’hivasha”, to be saved, which is the nif’al, remember the seven conjugations? Nif’al is the second one, the passive, appears… I’ll tell you how many times for the verb yasha, it appears 21 times.

Keith: Absolutely. And he says, “I call upon Yehovah who is worthy to be praised and I am saved from my enemies.” That’s what we just said. Now, this is the image that I want to ask about.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Just real quick in 22:5, and actually there are two verses here. But you know, when I read 2 Samuel 22:5 “for the waves of death encompass me and the torrents of destruction,” I started thinking about water and I started thinking about what Jonah was talking about when he talks about being entangled in all of this. And I’m not saying that Jonah looked at David and David looked at Jonah, but the image of being sort of in this situation where you’re encompassed with destruction or death or the images that come up… David decides to use this – at least in the English anyway – he uses the word “the wave”, “the waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.” And so I’m not sure… like if we read this story, we can’t say he was in the water and that’s why he used the word “waves of death” or “the torrents of destruction”.

Nehemia: Or it was a metaphor. [laughing]

Keith: Or it was a metaphor, exactly. [laughing] The next verse it’s where it gets interesting. “The chords of She’ol surrounded me.” Where is this place?

Nehemia: Sheol.

Keith: Sheol.

Nehemia: Sheol is the spiritual realm of the dead. When you die, everybody goes to Sheol, according to Ecclesiastes 9 verses 1-10. Go read it, that’s homework. And of course, sometimes they translate Sheol as hell, sometimes they translate it as “the grave”, but Sheol in the Hebrew thought is this place where your soul goes when you die.

Keith: It’s interesting, though, because I wonder, when you look at different versions, like if I go to NIV real quick, 22:5, “the waves of death”, “the chords of the grave”, that’s what they use. If I go to the King James Version, it says 22:6, “the sorrows of hell compassed me”. So NASB, “the waves of death…”

Nehemia: David went to hell? Is that what they’re trying to say?

Keith: Yeah. That’s what it says here. “The sorrows of hell compass me, about the snares of death prevented me.” So again, you look at different versions, and one of the things I really love to do, and I love this program that we have, it’s just great because, one, you can obviously look at versions, there are many programs like that. But what I especially like is just being able to look at the Hebrew, or whether it’s the Hebrew or the Greek in the New Testament, and then connecting, connecting, connecting and taking a look at the same time with these different versions, because the versions end up being for me what I call road signs that let me know what the issues might be. So that’s just one of them.

Nehemia: I’m going to ask you to slow down now and let me talk about something here in these three verses which you would never in a million years see in the English.

Keith: Awesome.

Nehemia: You could translate these two verses and you would never know that there was any difference between them in the English… these three verses – verses 4, 5 and 6 in both Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22.

Keith: Got you.

Nehemia: They are identical in their English translation, but in Hebrew there are differences. And you might even say that they’re extremely trivial differences but recognizing those differences will be important. Let me explain why.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: So for example, let me go to the biggest difference. So we have this phrase, chevley Sheol sabuni, is that what you have in verse 6? What have you got in verse 6? Chevley Sheol sabuni, and how do they translate that?

Keith: “The chords of Sheol” or “the sorrows of hell” or “the chords of the grave”.

Nehemia: Let’s translate it literally. “The ropes of Sheol surrounded me.” Now, the word for “surrounded me” in 2 Samuel 22 is sabuni. The word for “surrounded me” in Psalm 18 in Hebrew is sevavuni. Now, sevavuni and sabuni, those are the same exact thing. There’s a slightly different grammatical form, you could argue, but there’s no way you could translate these two words differently. They have the same translation.

Let’s take the next word after sabuni or sevavuni. Kidmuni. Kidmuni in Psalm 18 is spelled Kuf-Dalet-Mem-Nun-Yud. In Psalm 18 it’s spelled Kuf-Dalet-Mem-Vav-Nun-Yud. It’s spelled differently in Hebrew. Now, why is that important? It doesn’t actually change the meaning. Let’s go to verse 4. We have “ume’oyvai ivashe’a”, “and from my enemies I will be saved”.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: In Psalm 18 it says umin oyvai ivashe’a. Same translation, different word, different form of the word. Now why is this important? To me, I look at these two passages and I compare them word for word, letter for letter, jot for jot, tittle for tittle, and I see these minor differences. Sometimes I see big differences, which we can talk about, but here I see the minor differences. And this is really important for me, and why is it important for me? And in English you’ll completely say, “What are you talking about?” But from my heritage, what I was taught by the rabbis is that Scripture speaks in a divine code, and every letter has a hidden meaning, and they’ll be entire doctrines literally based on, “In this verse he spelled the word with a Vav and in the other word he spelled it without a Vav, and what do we learn from the extra Vav?”

And let me quote from Rashbam, who was a great Rabbinical commentator. He lived in the Middle Ages in France. He said, “The basis of laws and interpretations is…” he says this actually in the opening section of Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 – he says, “The basis of laws and interpretation is derived from extraneous things in Scriptures and variations in language.” Now, I don’t even know how to explain this in English. But let me give you an example. We spell the word color in America C-L-O-U-R. No, wait. No no, I’m sorry. I’m so tired.

Keith: C-O-L-O-R. [laughing]

Nehemia: This is episode 53, we’ve been going for two weeks. C-O-L-O-R.

Keith: Right.

Nehemia: In England they spell it C-O-L-O-U-R. And so what the rabbis do is they come along – and they don’t do this because that’s English – but imagine this is the type of thing they do in Hebrew, is they say- “Oh, that U, that teaches us something.” And they will derive an entire law out of that extra U, they’ll say, “The U is extraneous and here is what it comes to teach us.” And literally as he says, “The basis of laws and interpretations of rabbis is derived from extraneous things in the Scripture and variations of language.”

Now, again, what they call extraneous actually isn’t extraneous. If you’re English you got to spell it with the U, if you’re American you got to spell it without the U. The point is, in Scripture it can be spelled both ways, because there was no standardized spelling, and if you look at every jot and tittle in verses 4 through 6 and compare it between Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22, you’ll find lots of little differences, and there is no difference in meaning whatsoever.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: And when Scripture uses a spelling of a word, the rabbis say it’s to give us new hidden meaning, and the example I would love to give is the word “Sukkot”, Tabernacles. There are four legitimate ways in Hebrew to spell the word Sukkot. With no Vav, with one Vav, with two Vavs, with a Vav in a second position or first position. Four legitimate ways, and the rabbis say based on the spelling we read meaning into, or derive meaning out of, those different spellings and the different ideas, and that’s the bread and butter of Rabbinical doctrine. Meaning, that is the central concept in Rabbinical Oral Law – that we need the rabbis to tell us what these hidden meanings are. And I say there are no hidden meanings. When they were reciting this, when they were praying this in prophecy in the Temple, it made no difference if they said “ume’oyvai” or “umin oyvai” – it means the same thing- “and from my enemies”.

Keith: Okay, so you’re saying there are no hidden meanings in terms of these words, because the words mean the same thing.

Nehemia: Exactly. And whether they were singing in the Temple, the Levites were singing “sabuni” or “sevavuni”, yes it sounded different, that actually sounds significantly different, it means the same thing, and there was no hidden meaning, there’s no agenda, that’s just not how Scripture works. By the way, the other thing this proves is the Bible Codes, because the Bible Codes is based on the exact, precise spelling…

Keith: Will you continue to take away these things? So now you’re telling me…

Nehemia: I’m not taking them away, what I’m doing is I’m trying to look at them objectively and scientifically. And when I look at them objectively what I find is there are variations in Scripture that you can’t build something on counting this many letters and… it just doesn’t work because there are these huge differences.

Let me look at verse 7. We have “Batzar li ekra Yehovah ve’el elohay ekra,” “In my trouble, my sorrow, I will cry to Yehovah and to my God I will call.” And it says in Psalm 18, “Batzar li ekra Yehovah ve’el elohay ashave’a,” “And in my trouble I call out to Yehovah, and to my God I shout out.” It’s a different word, one is “call out” and one is “shout out”. It’s a completely different word. Now if we say, “Oh wait a minute – we have to count these letters and look at this exact spelling…” I mean, when they were in the Temple and they were singing this, they weren’t thinking about that, they were thinking, “I’ve heard this song a thousand times and I’m going to prophecy this song.”

Keith: Now just work with me on this. So you’re telling me there was a situation where there was a verse where you noticed every third letter there was something that spelled a name – that’s just coincidence?

Nehemia: No, it’s not coincidence. Every three letters in Hebrew is a word, because if you take out the vowels, literally every three letters is a word. And I once, as an experiment, went to… There’s a thing online where you can do this. You can type in anything you want to find, and it’ll do what’s called “equal distant letter…” what do they call that? I forget what it’s called. Basically, it skips the number of letters and it finds secret codes written in Scripture, and I said, “Let’s see if it says in the Scripture that Satan is God.” And it actually says that if you believe in the Bible codes. And maybe the Bible codes come from Satan.

Keith: Alright Nehemia, will you also take away other things like…

Nehemia: I’m not taking away anything. I’m saying, “You want to believe in it? Let’s see if it’s true.” How do we know if it’s true? Well, we find that there are these differences between the different passages in Scripture that don’t actually change the meaning. And if you insist that every letter has some hidden meaning then you end up with gibberish, you know, in Psalm 18 or in 2 Samuel 22.

Keith: You’re a party pooper, is what you are! But what you’re really trying to do is…

Nehemia: I want to know truth. I want to believe, I’m like Mulder in The X-Files. I want to believe but I don’t want to believe a lie. It’s tempting to believe it. There are these beautiful Kabbalistic meanings that I’ve been taught by my rabbis that people tell me all the time. But when I look, I say, “Wait a minute, if you take the same thing and you read it this way you’re not going to come to that conclusion, so why are you saying that here?” It’s got to be objective, it’s got to be… From my perspective, it’s got to be consistent and if it’s not consistent, if it’s completely arbitrary, I can read into it anything I want, then that can’t be the truth. That’s my take on it.

Look, work it out for yourself in prayer and study, in fear and trembling before Yehovah, that’s how I look at it. I’m done, I have nothing else to say.

Keith: Okay. Now, here is one thing I really would love for people to do. I think this could be a really cool deal, and I don’t know, Nehemia, this is a great manuscript you have – obviously it’s all in Hebrew – but people could actually do this. They could take Psalm 18 and they could take 2 Samuel 22 and they could line them up, and what a cool exercise.

Nehemia: Yeah, that’s actually what I did.

Keith: Yeah, that would a really, really cool exercise because they could go through it and say, “I wonder what this word is and why the difference is…”

Nehemia: And you might not see a difference in the translation, the translation might be identical.

Keith: Exactly. It might be identical, but that doesn’t necessarily…

Nehemia: But in Hebrew it could be different.

Keith: It could definitely be. Folks, if you’ve been going through the process, maybe you learned some of these words and you can see the differences, that would be awesome.

Now, what are we going to do, Nehemia? Because I’m a little bit… can I be completely and utterly honest?

Nehemia: No, lie to us. [laughing]

Keith: No, I’m going to tell you the absolute truth. It’s like I did these phrases, like, for example, in verse 22:11 it says, “He says he rode upon a cherub and did fly, and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.” I want to think about that. What does that look like? [laughing] I mean, it’s just an example. Maybe I’m just tired, I don’t know.

And then the other one is at 22:14, and I love this phrase, it says, “And Yehovah thundered from heaven and the most high uttered His voice.” You can’t tell me that sometimes thundering isn’t His voice, you just can’t tell me. I’m not going to let you take it away. Are you going to try and take that away?

Nehemia: I mean, what are you saying, that literally His voice is thunder?

Keith: No, I’m saying that is there a time that the thunder comes, and I’m not talking about a storm, I’m talking about when He reveals Himself, sometimes can He reveal…

Nehemia: Is that the point of the verse, or is the point when I hear this thunder it strikes in my heart…?

Keith: Oh, jeez Louise…

Nehemia: I think of something greater than myself and I think about God. I mean, I think that’s maybe the point, but… Anyway, what verse was that?

Keith: That was 14. [laughing]

Nehemia: Oh, 14 is actually really important.

Keith: Yeah.

Nehemia: Because it’s talking about the plague of hail in Egypt.

Keith: Is that what you see there?

Nehemia: That’s what I see, yeah.

Keith: Ok, tell us about that.

Nehemia: Read it, it’s very clear. Oh, why do I say that? Because in Psalm 18 it says, “Vayar’em bashamayim Yehovah veha’elyon yiten kolo,” “Yehovah will thunder in the heavens and the most high will give His voice,” “barad vegachalei esh,” “hail and coals of fire.”

Keith: Well, that’s a perfect example where in 14 it’s not…

Nehemia: Right, so if you don’t read to Psalm 18 you don’t know what it’s talking about, but he’s telling you, “We’re talking about the plague of hail.”

Keith: Isn’t that something? [laughing]

Nehemia: Yeah, in Egypt.

Keith: Well, you continue to take all my little bells and whistles. [laughing]

Nehemia: I want the truth.

Keith: I can’t handle the truth, I can’t handle it.

Nehemia: Do you want the truth?!

Keith: I can’t handle the truth. Okay, folks, I’m getting a little slaphappy. I want to ask the question here…

Nehemia: What are some things we can focus on?

Keith: That’s the one thing that I do like, is the idea of people doing this. That’s a big project, would you agree? I mean, laying out Psalm 18…

Nehemia: Yeah, and here’s some homework – and this is more advanced homework – but go look… this is, oh my gosh, this is really cool. Verse 8 in the 2 passages, Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22, we’ve got this thing of kree and k’teev.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Oh, wow! So there is this thing where the scribes would write something in the margin and say, “You’re reading the word wrong, here is how you should read it.” So, in Psalm 18 they read the word vatig’ash, and how does it translate that in verse 8? Psalm 18:8 or… it’s actually the same translation. What have you got in 2 Samuel 22?

Keith: “And the earth trembled.”

Nehemia: Trembled, yes, that’s what you got, okay, I’ll accept that. Vatig’ash is the word, and then the same word appears… that’s what appears in Psalm 18, and then the same thing appears in 2 Samuel 22, the exact same letters, but in the margin it says, “Don’t read it ‘vatig’ash’, read it ‘vayitga’ash.’”

Keith: Vayitga’ash. You know, it’s funny…

Nehemia: “And he trembled.”

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: And you ask yourself, “Wait a minute, why would a scribe come and correct it? That’s what it says in Psalm 18,” and this actually is really, really interesting. It’s the same meaning, it’s a slightly different conjugation and gender, and what appears to be happening here is that the ancient scribes… We talked about this, how there were three copies in the Temple, the Sifrei Ha’azara, the Temple Courtyard Manuscripts – they compare all three and they’d go based on the majority reading, and that’s how they would copy Scripture, and apparently what happened is somebody had in his head as he was writing out 2 Samuel 22… he remembered what it said in Psalm 18, and he accidentally wrote the Psalm 18 version, and the proofreader came along and said, “That’s all nice and good what it says in Psalm 18…”

Keith: “But that ain’t what it says here.”

Nehemia: “…but in 2 Samuel 22 here is how it’s actually read.”

Keith: And isn’t that amazing, the…

Nehemia: That level of precision, wow!

Keith: Giving the honor to what the Scripture… based on understanding what the Scripture is saying, and I keep thinking about… our friend says, “It’s just as if an angel wrote it. And every little dot and every little dash, and every little…” man oh man. And you know, it’s really interesting, if you don’t know and you don’t have what I call the road signs, when I see those road signs they help me understand, but when you’re reading that scroll, they open the scroll and you don’t have the dots and you don’t have the dashes, and they have to know. And these people knew it inside out, backward and forward. They knew the equal distant letters… [laughing]

Nehemia: They were counting them in their heads. Okay, I have so much to say on all kinds of things, and I’m skipping ahead, because there really is a lot here, it’s really rich. Do you have something before verse 29? We can talk about something before.

Keith: No, you can go ahead.

Nehemia: So verse 29 is really interesting. Read me what you have in verse 29.

Keith: Okay, in 29 it says, “For you are my lamp O Yehovah, and the Lord illumines my darkness.”

Nehemia: So, in Psalm 18 it says, instead of “you are my lamp Yehovah”, it says “for you light up my lamp”. Isn’t that interesting? So is Yehovah the lamp? Or does He cause the lamp to light up? And maybe this isn’t the type of thing we should be obsessing over. [laughing] Meaning, both of those are legitimate metaphors for Yehovah.

Keith: All I have to say is you wait till now to do this, I mean, this is impressive. You didn’t do this with Chronicles, this is really amazing. Looking at the exact words and having the words come up and seeing the differences – I just think this is amazing. I’m going to do this, Nehemia. I think this is really cool, I really do. “For you are my lamp” or “you light up my lamp”, “for by you I can run upon…” what’s a troop?

Nehemia: Could we go to verse 32?

Keith: Yeah, absolutely.

Nehemia: What have you got in verse 32?

Keith: So it says here, “For who is God besides Yehovah?”

Nehemia: Okay, and what’s the word for “God”? “And who is the rock besides Eloheynu, besides our God?” I love that. And then in Psalm 18 it has “Elo’ah”, and Elo’ah is the singular of Elohim. So that’s pretty cool, it’s saying – and obviously, I mean, not obviously – do you agree that this is a rhetorical question?

Keith: Of course.

Nehemia: In other words, there is no God beside Yehovah! There is no rock besides our God! And He can be called both El and Elo’ah, the singular of Elohim, and one actually means Mighty One, the other one means God. And that’s pretty cool, no problem calling Him both.

Verse 33 is kind of interesting. What do you have in verse 33?

Keith: It depends, “blameless in His way” or “blameless in my way”, which one are you going to pick?

Nehemia: Blameless? Is that verse 33?

Keith: No, “and He sets the blameless in His way,” yes.

Nehemia: Oh, no, the beginning of verse 33.

Keith: Yeah. “God is my strong fortress, and He sets the blameless…”

Nehemia: Yeah. And in Psalm 18:33 it’s “The God who girded me with might.” And that’s really interesting in the Hebrew, and this is homework – go see why one of them has “girded me with might” and one has “fortress”. And it’s based on a word that’s very similar in appearance and sound, and I could see there is one group of Levites one day who sings in one way, another group sings it the other way.

Keith: Isn’t that funny?

Nehemia: And they’re both legitimate metaphors or symbols of Yehovah.

Keith: And I will say, the NIV says, “It is God who arms me with strength,” the NASV says, “God is my strong fortress,” KJV says, “God is my strength and power.”

Nehemia: In 2 Samuel 22?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: So what you’re telling me is some of them are translating not based on what it says in 2 Samuel 22, but based on what is says in Psalm 18.

Keith: Exactly.

Nehemia: Wow, that’s pretty cool.

Keith: That is pretty cool.

Nehemia: So here we have differences in the Hebrew text, and they’re saying, “I don’t care what it says in 2 Samuel 22, I want to go and translate what it says in Psalm 18.”

Keith: …I like Psalm 18.

Nehemia: I like that version better. [laughing] That’s awesome.

Keith: And this is the argument. This is the argument we have. So when we get to 2 Samuel 22 and you said… “When we get to Psalm 18” I said, “Nehemia, there is no Psalm 18.” “Yes there is a Psalm 18.” Now I understand why.

Nehemia: Well, I mean, I can’t read the one without the other, in my mind. So verse 36.

Keith: Verse 36 says, “You have also given me the shield of your salvation, and your help makes me great.”

Nehemia: Your help makes me great?

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: What else do you have, come on.

Keith: “You stoop down and make me great” is what it says in the NIV.

Nehemia: Huh?

Keith: Yeah, “And Thou has given me the shield of Thy salvation, and Thy gentleness hath made me great.” You don’t like any of them.

Nehemia: That’s not what it says in Hebrew. It says, “va’anotcha tarbeni”, “You have made me great by answering my prayers.” “Your answering has made me great, has multiplied me.”

Keith: Amen.

Nehemia: And them in Psalm 18 it says, “You have made me great by your humility.”

Keith: So what are they doing?

Nehemia: What on earth…?

Keith: No, so what are they doing, Nehemia?

Nehemia: Well, I mean, it’s clear in Hebrew. One is “anotcha” and one is “anvatcha”, but what does it mean, “You have made me great by your humility?” Or “with your humility?” Does God have humility?! Or maybe it’s the humility that God has given me.

Keith: I’m going to tell you something. When it says here in the King James is that “You stoop down…” How does it say that in 36? What was that, 36?

Nehemia: 36.

Keith: Yeah, 36. “And Thy gentleness hath made me great.”

Nehemia: Wow, so there they’re trying to explain God’s humility, but I think maybe it’s that God gives us humility. And now here there is a difference of one letter in Hebrew, and you could read it both ways. And apparently in the Temple, when the Levites were praying this prayer in prophecy, they prayed it both ways. Which is so cool.

Keith: Wow.

Nehemia: Verse 37. Can you read me that?

Keith: 37. I have 3 different… “You enlarge my steps under me, and my feet have not slipped.”

Nehemia: I love this, because this is the metaphor of the path, the narrow path that we’ve talked about. And here it’s not a difference of Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel, it’s the same thing in both passages. I absolutely love that metaphor. We’ve gone out into the countryside in Israel and you see these paths in the mountains, and if the path is too narrow you could just fall into the abyss. It’s this narrow path, and so here he’s saying, “You have widened my step under me in my place and my ankles haven’t stumbled.” I love that.

Keith: Yeah, I have to say something. We were out in the desert, or actually over at Qumran, and finally I’ve found one of those paths, and you see them everywhere, but I finally found one of those paths where I took my camera and actually walked, and people would say they’d watch it and they’d get scared, but that was literally the idea – that if I veered just a little to the left, it’s over. The path has got to be wide… because they are so narrow.

Nehemia: I think in America – we’ve discussed this – they wouldn’t allow people to go on these trails because insurance would say it’s too dangerous. In Israel it’s like, “Hey, you’re on your own, go for it.” [laughing]

Keith: Yeah. Many signs that say DO NOT ENTER.

Nehemia: And that’s where I go.

Keith: Yeah, that’s where you go. “You girded me with strength.” I don’t know, can I go here?

Nehemia: Yeah.

Keith: Verse 40. “You’ve girded me with strength for battle, You’ve subdued under me those who rose up against me, and You have also made my enemies turn…” and it adds the word here “to turn their backs to me…”

Nehemia: Turn away the back of the neck, “oref”.

Keith: “… and I destroyed those who hated me.” When I’m reading this, in the actual story of David and Saul you see this humility of David at times, where he’s like, “Look, I’m not going to touch the king’s anointed, I’m not interested in doing whatever,” and then you get him speaking here, and again you have to read the story, but he has different situations. He says especially Saul, but there were others who hated him. There were others in the process of the battle with Saul that he was dealing with, even those that he tried to join himself to, they basically turned and said, “No, you can’t join yourself to me.” So he goes back and forth with all these things, and then it says…

Nehemia: 42, I love it.

Keith: You want me to read 42?

Nehemia: Yeah, please.

Keith: “They looked, but there was none to save.”

Nehemia: “They looked?” I see what they’re doing.

Keith: What? You don’t like that?

Nehemia: I’ll accept it. So in the Psalms it says, “And they cried out, and there was none to save.” But I see how you can translate “they looked”, okay. I accept that. Not sure it’s right, but I accept that.

Keith: “Even to Yehovah, but He did not answer them.”

Nehemia: Why didn’t Yehovah answer them?

Keith: My goodness.

Nehemia: These were the enemies of David.

Keith: These were the enemies of David.

Nehemia: Yeah, wow.

Keith: Well, there’s a word that I see again. One of them calls them “strangers”, the other one calls them people…

Nehemia: What verse are you in? Verse 45, okay.

Keith: And it’s “foreigners”.

Nehemia: Benei nechar.

Keith: “Foreigners pretend obedience to me. As soon as they hear, they obey me. There it is again, “Foreigners lose heart and come trembling out of their fortresses.” And I love this, “Chai Yehovah,” there it is again, “the LORD lives, and blessed be my rock and exalted be God, the rock of my salvation.”

Nehemia: Wow, Elohey tzur yish’I, “the God of the rock of my salvation”, wow.

Keith: I’m actually going to go to the last verse.

Nehemia: What…?

Keith: I’m just kidding. [laughing]

Nehemia: What about 49?

Keith: No, because I was actually waiting for something, you go ahead with…

Nehemia: Read me 49.

Keith: Okay. It’s funny, you say, “Read me 49, come on, read it for me, I love to hear your voice.”

Nehemia: Bevakasha. I want to hear your silly translation of verse 49 so I can correct it.

Keith: [laughing] “Also brings me out from my enemies. You even lift me above those who rise up against me. You rescue me from the violent man.”

Nehemia: From the man of hamas.

Keith: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay, there we had that again. Now, verse 51 is very famous in the Jewish…

Keith: Aren’t you going to correct 49?

Nehemia: No, that’s fine.

Keith: Okay.

Nehemia: You just had to explain about the hamas there. So verse 51 is really interesting. Now, you mentioned about how you were at my mother’s house on Shabbat, and they were reciting the Birkat HaMazon, or the Grace After Meal. Now, one of the passages from Grace After Meal in the Birkat HaMazon, this after-meal blessing/prayer is verse 51. And they read it, “Magdil yeshu’ot malko ve’oseh chesed limshicho leDavid ulzar’o ad olam.” “He magnifies yeshu’ot,” that’s the plural of yeshu’ah, “He magnifies the salvations, or salvation, of His king, and he does chesed, he does righteousness to his Messiah, to His anointed one, to David and to his seed forever.”

And this is the very interesting thing, I don’t know if you’ll appreciate this, Keith. On holidays they read the same exact verse, but instead of reading it from Psalm 18, “magdil yeshu’ot malko,” they read it from 2 Samuel 22, “migdol yeshu’ot malko,” which doesn’t change the meaning, but they’re very careful that this is how you read it on a normal day, and this is how you read it on the holiday. Isn’t that interesting? It’s as if there’s a slight difference, and it’s actually really only a difference of vowels. There’s this different reading, and one time it’s for regular Shabbat, and the other is for a Shabbat that falls on a holiday. Isn’t that interesting?

Keith: Well, that’s what we have. That’s 51 verses.

Nehemia: Yeah. And man, there are so many things that we could talk about, but really I want to encourage people to go and pray this prayer and meditate upon this prayer.

Keith: I like that. I like that.

Nehemia: And do it in Psalm 18 and in 2 Samuel 22, and pray and ask Yehovah, say, “Yehovah…” can I end in a prayer?

Keith: Yes, please.

Nehemia: Yehovah, our wonderful king, our redeemer, our savior, Creator of the universe. You are worthy of praise. Yehovah, save us from all of our enemies. Save us from the man of hamas. Save us from those who want to desecrate Your name and praise the name of another God. Yehovah, save us from those who call on Your name but don’t do it with the right heart. Those who use Your name and use Your Torah to pervert justice and to advance their own agendas. Yehovah, Your agenda is the only one that is important. Yehovah, give us humility, magnify us with Your humility and with Your answer to our prayers, Yehovah. Yehovah, this is such a beautiful, beautiful psalm that David prayed in the day that You saved him. Yehovah, let us cry out to You and look to You and let there be a savior. Yehovah, answer us. Yehovah, I’m so grateful that You’ve given us this opportunity to come together and to speak about Your word and to delve into the words of Your prophets, to explore You and our faith in You and our love for You, and to read these words of love that You’ve given to Your people and all those who call upon Your name. Yehovah, I ask for peace for Your city Jerusalem, and for Your people, Israel, and Yehovah, as You said in the Psalms that you are close to all who call You in truth. Yehovah, please let all those who are calling You, wherever they are in the world, please be close to them and let them know that You’re there with them, that You’re standing with them, that Your arm is upon their shoulder. Let them feel You, Yehovah, and feel Your presence and know You’re there. I ask this in Your holy, wonderful, beautiful, glorious name, Yehovah. Amen.

Keith: Amen.

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