Psalm 119 TAV

 "May my cry come before you, Lord;

    give me understanding according to your word.

May my supplication come before you;

    deliver me according to your promise.

May my lips overflow with praise,

    for you teach me your decrees.

May my tongue sing of your word,

    for all your commands are righteous.

May your hand be ready to help me,

    for I have chosen your precepts.

I long for your salvation, Lord,

    and your law gives me delight.

Let me live that I may praise you,

    and may your laws sustain me. 

I have strayed like a lost sheep.

    Seek your servant

    for I have not forgotten your commands."

Psalm 119:169-176 

    The more I have dived in and studied this chapter in Psalms, the longest chapter in all of the Bible,  comprising of 176 verses spilt into 22 stanzas, all 8 verses in length, I am amazed and in awe of the significance and the wisdom that is given to us by its Writer, David, King of Israel. We we read the bible in present day, we have the whole book in its entirety. All 66 books, split into Old and New Testament, 39 in the Old, 27 in the New, and we can see the way God has been weaving his way throughout the whole of creation and His divine word. It may be easy to forget that the people who lived through the stories and timeline of the Bible did not have such a luxury. In fact, during multiple seasons of the Israelite history, God was silent, and when he did speak, it was only to a small handful at a time, on behalf of the king and or the nation. When know that David was a man after God's own heart, even from the time of his youth up until the moment he took his last breath, and even he had to talk to God through a prophet, with the Holy Spirit coming upon him at various times in his life, but it didn't stay like he does in the lives of believers today. With all that being said, Psalm 119 continues yet again to guide us to the Father and the ultimate sacrifice Jesus would one day make on the cross for all of our lives. When we look at the pictures above, we can see 4 depictions of this last letter of the psalm, TAV. In its original design, it translated as "a mark or a seal. The period at the end of a statement. " In the Greek, the lines that ones were straight, like a t or a cross, shifted into the 2nd picture of more of an X shape, "X marks the spot, you did it, here is your treasure." One picture I saw in my research for this blog showed the letter as more of a sword, as if when it is used, you are fighting for and defending with truth the words you are saying. David understood this principle both as a warrior and king and as a man of God. The enemy will do all he can to make us question what God "actually said" and has been using this tactic since Adam and Eve in the Garden. What David is doing with TAV is demonstrating the fact that the things that have come before are setting things in motion for when Jesus would come the first time, and then when he returns at the end of the age. 

    There are 2 words from the Hebrew language I want to highlight that begin with this statement of fact- Truth and Torah. 

  Truth( Hebrew-emet) spelled

                            Aleph(The Creator)

                            Mem(gives his life)

                            Tav(on the cross)

Torah-spelled in Hebrew

                            Tav(the cross)

                            Vav(the nail)

                            Resh(the Captain, or Leader)

                            Hey(Behold!)

    Truth- The Creator gives his life on the cross. That right there is the gospel! Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity, came to earth as a man, born of a virgin and lived a holy, sinless, perfect life. He died for our sins on a Roman cross, was buried in a borrowed tomb for 3 days and rose from the grave, taking back the keys to Hell and the Grave. By his blood shed for us on the cross, the price of our sin has been paid, no longer allowing it to have any control or hold on our life. Now when the Father looks on His children, He doesn't see the sin that once separated us. Instead he sees the blood of the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, His Son, covering our debt that we could never pay on our own. 

    Torah- Behold! The Leader, the nail, the cross. The very law that David was able to have read to him by the priests states that the Son of God would come, would die for the people and rise to free them from the oppression of Sin. 

    David was a man after God's own heart, because when the priests read these words of the Mosaic Law, it was just a bunch of rules and rituals, and they could not always see the promises within, but David heard them through the lens of the Holy Spirit, and I would like to believe that as a promise was spoken, the Spirit was nudging the heart of David, whispering to him, " Guess what, that is me. That is what I want to do for all people, and I will come down and do it just like it is written. Hold tight, press through. Not a single word of this law will be in vain or void. I'm coming to do a new thing in the hearts of the people who believe in and belong to me. Just Wait, Watch and Pray. You won't believe what I want to do in your life, as long as your believe."

    The first and last letter of the Alphabet ALEPH and TAV on their own paint a beautiful picture of who God is, but hold tight, because there are moments in scripture when these letters come together and the masterpiece they paint are absolutely incredible, but until then...

Adam Semple- A Young Man on a journey through the Psalms. 

(Hebrew breakdown taken from A Small Drop of Ink