Psalm 119: 73-80 Yodh

yodh

Your hands made me and formed me;
 give me understanding to learn your commands.
May those who fear you rejoice when they see me,
 for I have put my hope in your word.
I know, LORD, that your laws are righteous,
 and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
May your unfailing love be my comfort,
 according to your promise to your servant.
Let your compassion come to me that I may live,
 for your law is my delight.
May the arrogant be put to shame for wronging me without cause;
 but I will meditate on your precepts.
May those who fear you turn to me,
 those who understand your statutes.
May I wholeheartedly follow your decrees,
 that I may not be put to shame.

Psalm 119:73-80

That graphic of the letter yodh is deceptively large. It's actually the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew reads from right to left, so yodh is at the right end of the first word in this stanza: יָדֶ֣יךָ

It's smallness led Jesus to use the letter yodh as an illustration in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:18) when He said "till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

Yodh is most often used as a palatal approximant. That's a linguistic term meaning its sound is less distinct, less noticeable than most other consonants or vowels. Generally the letter yodh is pronounced similar to the English Y.

Yodh also has an effect on the tense of a word, depending on whether it's found at the beginning or end. In this stanza of Psalm 119 it's at the beginning of the first word of every verse, thus making all of them third person singular. Except for the words that start with yodh and end in vav: those are third person plural.

Got that?

It doesn't matter whether you do or not. Yodh will be itself regardless of our thoughts about it.

On the 1 road of life I've encountered many fellow travelers who have learned to see themselves as a yodh. Their voice among the crowd is indistinct. Perhaps they add a little flavor to their surroundings but even that blends in and gets lost.

I say they've learned to be a yodh because no one is born with an approximant identity. It's a nurtured nature, often acquired through a lifetime of being overlooked and underappreciated. Born into a social, racial, or economic status on the fringes of society, every interaction has pressed them down until they accept their role as an insignificant jot in the world's narrative.

They fall into the habit of walking through life aimlessly, believing they don't matter. Life is a third person narrative for these yodh people. It's all about what others are doing. Their role is to find their way amid the lives of more important people.

Nearly fifteen years in the prison chapel taught me what happens when people see themselves as small and inconsequential. Most of the women in state prisons are there because their lives have become dominated by drugs and alcohol. Their travel through life turned into a never-ending struggle, continuously beaten down and tripped up by the rest of the world. So they drink and they take drugs. And they commit crimes, either under the influence of their drug of choice, or in order to obtain more of it.

Their miserable journey eventually leads to prison, where many of them learn to give up on any shred of self-worth or hope they ever had.

David, the king, begins each of the eight verses of this stanza with yodh. Each of these eight jotted verses reminds us no one is small and insignificant.

The Kings of Kings didn't design anyone to be a jot. Every person on the road of life was created and molded to be a child of the King. He invested each one with a royal status, but also a royal purpose. Every newborn begins life as a Soldier-Prince or Soldier-Princess.

But then they're told they're just a jot.

Look around you. How many of your fellow wayfarers don't even know who they are? How many have never been told they can walk the 1 road with the purpose and confidence that comes from knowing who they were intended to be?

I constantly remind the ladies in the prison chapel they can be more than what the Department of Corrections wants them to be. The state of Missouri is trying to rebuild them so they can be normal, productive citizens when they get out. But God wants so much more for them.

After their term is complete, some of those women will return to society with a higher goal, one we've tried to instill in them. They want to be soldier princesses, to live a life of adventure, pursuing the purposes of the King.

Sadly, when they go looking for a church home they're likely to find many of the Christians there have allowed themselves to settle into the false normalcy of a religious lifestyle. They're the normal, productive citizens the Department of Corrections has been talking about. But there's no adventure, no zeal to do battle for the Kingdom.

Dare to be who you are. Live a big life for the King.