Hemmed In!

 

The other week Helen and I went to the supermarket to do the Christmas food shop. Whilst there, with my face mask on and surrounded by busy people and noise I missed a call from someone dear to me who is experiencing a torrid time in their life and while trying to call that person back a call came from another person I also love who needed reassurance. Suddenly, I felt overwhelming anxiety flood through me, as if I was hemmed in from every direction and it swamped me and threatened my ability to cope. I could feel the panic rising in me and had a challenge controlling it. For me, the confident, cope with whatever is thrown at me character that I normally am this was a new, and thoroughly unpleasant feeling and one I hope I don’t experience again.

Over recent months I have been reflecting on Psalm 139, and I turned to it again this morning. It’s an amazing Psalm with so much within it which God has used to encouraged, provoke and inspired me – and this morning he did so again. Here are the first six verses:

Psalm 139:1 to 6. (NLT)

1 O Lord, you have examined my heart

    and know everything about me.

2 You know when I sit down or stand up.

    You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.

3 You see me when I travel

    and when I rest at home.

    You know everything I do.

4 You know what I am going to say

    even before I say it, Lord.

5 You go before me and follow me.

    You place your hand of blessing on my head.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

    too great for me to understand!

Let’s look at verses one to four as this sets the context in which we can view verse five and six. God has examined my heart; he knows my deepest feelings and some of them are not pretty! He knows everything about me, good and bad. He knows my every physical act, and what I am thinking; wherever I am he knows everything I do; in fact, he knows me so well that he knows what I am going to say before I do. God knows each of us inside out, warts and all.

Now let’s jump to verse six. Its clear that the author of this Psalm considers something wonderful has been revelled to them in verse five. They can scarcely take in this wonderful knowledge; it’s blowing their mind. So, what’s so special about verse five?

“You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.”

 The hand of blessing bit is for me already mind blowing amazing, but we will get to that later.

Over many generations the bible has been translated into several English versions from the original text, each trying to accurately reflect the original whilst translating it into the contemporary English of the day. The above is quoted from the New Living Translation. In the alternative New International Version (NIV) the first sentence of verse five is translated as “You hem me in behind and before.” This morning I read the NIV version of this Psalm, and to be be honest the idea of being hemmed in did not evoke warm fussy feelings for me! But the Psalm author seems to think it’s amazing, why?

The Psalm was originally written in Hebrew, and the term used for ‘hemmed in’ in the original text is ‘tsuwr’. Which also translates into English as “to confine, bind, besiege”. Being besieged sounds even worse than being hemmed in!  

To understand why the author of Psalm 139 was getting so excited we need to examine some other instance of the word ‘tsuwr’. Psalm 34:7 “The angel of the Lord (tsuwr) encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them”; Psalm 125:2 “As the mountains (tsuwr) surrounded Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people…”

And so, the light bulb switched on in me this morning; the experience the author of the Psalm 139 is relating to is an overwhelmingly positive experience - despite God knowing what I feel, think, do and say his response is not to abandon my, rather my loving Lord and God is protectively encircling me from front to back. That’s an experience of being hemmed in that  is comforting and wonderful :-)

But, that’s not all, the Psalmist also says about the Lord “You place your hand of blessing on my head”. Putting your hand on someone or something in the bible can signify a variety of different things, not all are good. The great news is that in this context the significance is lavishly positive! It’s a hand of blessing. In Genesis 48 we read of Jacob, the father of Joseph (Joseph was the the guy with the multi-coloured coat), meeting his two grandchildren for the first time. Embracing them and then reaching out and placing his hand upon their heads and blessing them, asking God to bless them and declaring that people in the future would aspire to be like them and would ask God for their children to emulate the successes of Josephs sons. If this is the outcome of Jacob laying his hands on his grandchildren and blessing them, how much more wonderful is the blessing of the Lord our God placing his hand on our heads!

And the mind-blowing bit, Jacob did not know his grandchildren and he blessed them. God fully knowing me, and my unsuitability hugs me and places his hand on my head and blesses me.

As the Psalmist says, this knowledge is to wonderful for me, and it blows my mind.