The Life of a Three Strand Cord
Wait קוה qâvâh to wait, look for, hope, expect
KAPH Psalm 119:81 (ESV) My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word.
This study started with a thought about what it means to long for something.
I am sure we have all experienced longing – the deep down hurting that comes from
something desired but not found, something found but then lost, something needed yet
unfulfilled. What is it in particular that the writer is longing for?
He wants salvation from his struggle and in V 82 he also tells us “my eyes long for your
promise; I ask, ‘When will you comfort me?’”
He wants to be comforted – the very thing you and I need when that which our soul longs
for goes unfulfilled. And what has gone unfulfilled is ongoing persecution to where the
writer compares himself to “a wineskin in the smoke,” something we would put as “hung
out to dry.” He is being persecuted with falsehood and cries out “Help me!” This is bad
enough that he feels like he has almost died (V. 87).
Ever been there? Been lied about and lied to, to the extent that you feel like you have
almost died? Have you looked for God’s promise long enough that your eyes feel like they
are dried up and need to be comforted also?
Verse 81 translated woodenly literal is “she is spent, finished – for salvation of you – soul of
me – for word of you” and verse 82 is “failing – eyes of me – for word of you – saying – when
you will comfort me?”
The better translation of the word “hope” has to do with failing, coming to an end, being
spent for God’s action to come.
When I think of waiting, the picture that comes to mind is doing one thing while waiting for
another, like sitting at a red light waiting for it to turn green. I am sitting and the light turns
by itself and off I go.
What then about waiting in a biblical sense. Since the word here in Psalm 119 is the
Hebrew kalah כלה Strongs, BDB H3615, is there another word better suited to our English
“wait?”
Isaiah 40:31 “but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength . . .”
“Wait” in this text is not kalah but qavah קוה a different word and here is where this gets
very interesting.
qavah first appears in Genesis 1:9 where God says “let the waters under the heavens be
gathered together. . .” Gathered together is qavah and the collection of them as a noun is
called a miqveh, the Hebrew word used in synagogues to refer to what we call a baptismal
pool. A collection or gathering together of water.
Gathering together or binding together is the first foundational meaning of qavah, which
then went forward to mean to wait, look for, to hope. Keep that gathering and binding
together in your mind.
Isaiah 40:31 as a wooden literal translation reads “and those who gather together with or
bind themselves to – YHVH the LORD – shall come on anew, sprout again – strength”
The Psalmist was tiring of the time it was taking while he was in limbo for the outcome he
desired.
He was wanting comfort (v. 82); judgment on his persecutors (v. 84); and wanted to
experience life again (v. 88). However, from his perspective this was taking so long his
soul and his eyes seemed to him to be failing.
How then was he waiting, as in the Isaiah 40 sense of binding to YHVH the LORD in this
process?
He was binding himself to his God by binding himself to God’s word!
V. 81 “I long (another word for hope which means to tarry) for your word” and here he was
not longing for his desire to come about.
V. 82 “My eyes fail for your promise” feeling like his eyes were worn out from watching.
V. 83 “yet I have not forgotten your statutes” even though he felt put out to dry.
V. 86. “All your commandments are sure” even though he was unsure of when his answer
would come.
V. 87 “but I have not forsaken your precepts” and while his circumstances were brutal he
kept to God’s precepts as an underpinning for his abiding while longing.
V. 88 sums this up “In your steadfast love give me life, that I may keep the testimonies of
your mouth.”
In his waiting he had bound himself to YHVH the LORD by binding himself to his word,
qavah which also carries the idea of a twisting together in its root. So while you are
waiting for your answer, twist yourself together with the LORD and with his word. A three
strand cord is not quickly broken if twisted of the right materials. (Ecc. 4:12)