I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your instruction.
When I read something like this, I ask myself if I could say it and be truthful.
That’s a tough question. With the rise of the internet and social media we’re more and more aware of the sheer quantity of falsehood that is spread around. Now falsehood is nothing new as the psalmist could have told us. False stories about others are nothing new. That’s why we have so many warnings against gossip and backbiting in the Bible.
On social media, our gossip is preserved and available for public comment. Do we hate, even abhor, false stories? Or do we have quite a different reaction, such as hoping nobody will notice, because the story is negative about someone we don’t like.
This reminds me of a saying I heard regarding lawyers: “Americans hate lawyers, but love their own lawyer.” We tend to hate falsehood that smears someone we like, but supposing it smears something we also hate. Do we hate it, or do we just reluctantly turn away from it?
If we’re really going to love God’s instruction, we do need to hate falsehood. Otherwise, we’re merely loving convenient parts of God’s instruction. We’re not nearly so happy about the parts that tell us not to spread falsehoods about others.
How will you respond if you hear or see something false today?
I know, LORD that your judgments are righteous. It’s in truthfulness you have humiliated me.
If I were making a translation for publication, there would be a footnote on “truthfulness” that would include “faithfulness,” “honesty,” and “trustworthiness” as a minimum. It’s important not to imagine that a Hebrew word brings all of its applications into each use. The Amplified Bible does this by giving many synonyms in a single verse.
But in poetry, we can see a less limited way of reading, because the text is intended to be brief and to evoke a range of related ideas.
I’m leaving “righteous judgments” for another day. But righteous judgments are also truthful judgments. In much of what I’ve read of court cases, I get the feeling that the judgments rendered by human judges are often constrained by current custom, and less so by written law or by principles of justice. I would say that the idea of divine justice involves an expectation of total truthfulness and faithfulness as well as adherence to statutes of law. This is an unreachable goal for humans, I think, though it is a good goal for which to strive.
I couldn’t think of an efficient way to say it, but the final words of this verse suggest that we are brought humiliation by truthfulness/faithfulness. One might say “integrity.” God simply brings truth to bear on our actions, and it’s humiliating.
It’s in our human nature to get upset at this. We don’t want to be humiliated. But how often does reality do that to us? We think we’re great, and then reality strikes and something goes wrong. We announce that we can handle a situation, make a repair, or pass a test. Then reality comes to get us.
Most spiritual things have everyday analogies. Spiritually, we decide to do things a certain way, accomplish certain goals, spent certain amounts of time in prayer or service, keep our motivations pure, avoid unjust anger. And then we get busy and we don’t get that time in prayer, we don’t read out Bible as we planned, and we find we have less time and resources to serve others as we had determined.
I can give an example from this series. On the one hand, I’m happy to be 75 verses (and days) into a 176 verse plan. But I can’t count the number of times I’ve actually forgotten which verse I was working on during the day. I’ve sat back, intending to bring the verse to mind, and I can’t remember it. I’m supposed to be meditating on it. That’s a minor failure, but it’s still a failure, and it annoys me that I do it.
I wish I could say that my faults are generally small, like forgetting a verse. I can always look it up again. But when I speak hurtful words in anger, for example, the problem is not so easy to repair.
So what shall I do? To echo Paul, “Who will rescue me?”
Well, actually, the same God who provides the truth that puts me in my place over and over. The same God the psalmist has been praising for these 75 verses and will continue to praise for another 101. This help comes in three ways:
I can learn to know my own limitations. It may be humiliating to come up against the truth, but if I’m not arrogant, it’s not going to hurt as much!
The same God also provided this law, this distant goal, that helps keep me pointed in the right direction.
Coming up against the real standard is good for us in all these ways. We tend to want to pretend that the standard is lower so we can feel better. We’d like God to protect us from the results of our own stupidity and failures. But those options results in a lack of growth. God wants to grow you up. To take the next step. And the next.
Now I can return my taunter a word, For I trust in your word.
The lesson here is both simple and profound. Some of my background thoughts on it are in my post on Psalm 119:38.
In Hebrew poetry, making a thought parallel by using synonyms is common, as for example in Psalm 119:30, “I have chosen faithfulness as my path. / I’m in place with your judgments. God’s faithfulness and judgments are placed in parallel in the verse. These words are not full synonyms, but they have overlapping semantic ranges, and combine to point us to some of God’s acts, and two aspects of them. Words may also be antonyms, providing a contrast or a more complete picture (what it is, what is opposed to it, or what it is and what it is not).
This verse stands out because the same Hebrew word for “word” is used in both halves. To paraphrase: “I have a word in response to taunts, because my word comes from your word.”
Let me point out a New Testament parallel to this thought. In the temptations of Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13) we find Jesus needing a word to respond to a taunter, in this case the taunter. Where does the response come from? From God’s word.
Don’t limit this to quoting scripture. Filling your mind with scripture is good. But filling your mind with truth in all ways at all times is even better. Let your normal life parallel scripture. One thing I noted when studying other ancient near eastern literature as compared to the Bible was the fact that the Bible is perfectly willing to be critical of those in power. There’s no whitewash of God’s friends. They’re presented as they are.
I was struck by this while listening to 2 Kings 15 in Audible the line in verse 5, “David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” This is stated in the middle of a passage comparing the disobedience of King Abijam. That’s being honest about those in power, even when it would be more convenient to omit some things.
How can you honestly reflect God’s word to others?
(Featured image from Adobe Stock by Munali. Licensed. Not public domain.)
