Psalm 119:87 – Almost Finished
They almost finished my time on earth,
but I did not abandon your precepts.
Mitchell Dahood again provides a good translation:
They nearly exterminated me from the earth,
Mitchell Dahood, Psalms 100-150, Anchor Bible, p. 166
but I did not forsake your precepts.
Dahood continues on page 183 with a discussion of the text, dealing the final phrase “in the earth” or “from the earth.” For some time there was a suggested emendation (textual correction not reflected in any manuscript reading) change “in” to “from.” That emendation then received support from a Dead Sea Scrolls fragment, but Dahood maintains that there is good linguistic evidence for translating the Hebrew prefix for “in” as “from” in many cases.
There! A dose of language study, however superficially written and documented!
The claim that one is doing right while bad things are happening is not a rare one in scripture. It is, in fact, the big issue in Job. While Samuel-Kings repeats a refrain about evil bringing bad results and good behavior bringing good results, Job discusses the contrary situation: Job is declared righteous in the text by God, yet he suffers. Job’s friends thought he was obstinate and arrogant for maintaining his innocence. God doesn’t challenge Job’s innocence, but rather simply challenges Job with presence and power.
One of the problems of living together with other people is that our suffering, if attributed to human action, is not always attributed to our own action. Bad actors make many people suffer, irrespective of their behavior.
When faced with a bad situation, it’s not the time to be forgetting good actions. If I’m walking along a mountain trail and find myself in danger because someone else has damaged the safety rail, or damaged the trail itself, it’s not the time to forget rules of safety. In fact, I need to be more carefully because someone else was either less careful or actively destructive.
“Everybody else was after me and almost got me, but I stuck to your rules.” It’s a good loose interpretation of our verse today, but it’s generally good practice as well.
When I was younger, I would try the excuse that all the other kids were doing something. It didn’t go far with my parents. But in society as a whole I see this as a justification for bad behavior all the time. The other folks are doing it, so why not me? Or perhaps the other folks are doing it, so I have to do it or I’ll lose.
Rather than seeing this as some kind of boast, perhaps we ought to see it as an example for ourselves. When other people do it wrong, we should stay on the right track, right to the end. I suspect no good is accomplished by ignoring God’s principles and rules, no matter how many other people we see doing it.
Reflect: Can you say that you haven’t taken up the approach of the other guys?
(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)
