#867 Tsade Righteous

Tsadhe

137 Righteous are you, O Lord,

and right are your rules.

138 You have appointed your testimonies in righteousness

and in all faithfulness.

139 My zeal consumes me,

because my foes forget your words.

140 Your promise is well tried,

and your servant loves it.

141 I am small and despised,

yet I do not forget your precepts.

142 Your righteousness is righteous forever,

and your law is true.

143 Trouble and anguish have found me out,

but your commandments are my delight.

144 Your testimonies are righteous forever;

give me understanding that I may live. Psalm 119: 137-144 ESV

A continuation of Psalm 119, the righteous testimonies of God.

Tsadhe or Tsade is the 18th letter of the Hebrew alphabet with a numerical value of 90. The pictograph is said to represent someone laying on their side (in need). It is said that the righteous person is revealed in the letter shape, consisting of a Nun which represents a humble servant bowed, and the Yod representing a lifted hand, raised in humility.

…7 Would the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O mankind, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6: 7-8

Sarah was 90 years old, passed her cycle, when she became pregnant with Isaac, through whom Abraham's seed would be reckoned. 

Righteous are You, O Lord - This speaks to God's Being, His very nature, and in the humble heart, which is the honest heart, it will invoke fear. Righteousness is not the state of the natural man, and the more one is exposed to the righteousness of God, His holiness comes to be understood, the more reverent our posture becomes. You chose to love me, and so I see Christ and so the Nun and so the Yod. Angels are transfixed by these things, and so who am I that I should not be in awe?

And right are Your rules - As You are righteous then that which flows from You will be too. My aversion to the law comes not from righteousness but from self righteousness, which is none at all. It comes from the love of all the things that Your law holds in contempt. Men would prefer it in parts that suit what comes easily to them, or a practice of outward ritual which other men affirm for them, but Your eyes see my soul and require the whole of it. 

My zeal consumes me - None exists without Your word, but everywhere I look I find those who have forgotten You. I find those who claim You by name, but they hate Your law. The cross has become an ornament to them, Christ is no longer recognizable in their teachings, they have all strayed from Your word. 

12 Then Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves. 13 And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” 14 The blind and the lame came to Him at the temple, and He healed them.… Matthew 21: 12-14

Your promise is well tried, and Your servant loves it - Cited from Enduring Word:

For the Hebrew Scriptures, the quality of the text was preserved by the diligent practices of the professional scribes. According to researchers (such as Josh McDowell in Evidence that Demands a Verdict) they practiced the following in the preparation and copying of manuscripts:

· The parchment was made only from the skin of clean animals. It had to be prepared by a Jew only, and the skins were fastened together by strings taken from clean animals.

· Each column must have no less than 48 and no more than 60 lines. The entire copy must be first lined before writing began.

· The ink must be of no other color than black, and it had to be prepared according to a special recipe.

· No word and no letter could be written from memory; the scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and he must read and pronounce out loud each word before writing it.

· He must reverently wipe his pen each time before writing the word for “God” (Elohim) and he must wash his whole body before writing the word used in place of “Jehovah” [LORD in the New King James Version) so as not to contaminate the Holy Name.

· Strict rules were given concerning forms of the letters, spaces between letters, words, and sections, the use of the pen, the color of the parchment, and so forth.

· The revision of a roll must be made within 30 days after the work was finished; otherwise it was worthless. One mistake on a sheet condemned the entire sheet; if three mistakes were found in any larger section, the entire manuscript was condemned.

· Every word and every letter was counted, and if a letter were omitted, or an extra letter inserted, or if any letter touched one another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed.

iv. The manuscript evidence for the accuracy of the Hebrew text is established. Until 1947, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts were from about AD 900. In 1947, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls brought to attention manuscripts from 150-200 BC. In comparing the manuscripts, almost 1000 years apart, there were remarkably few differences. This proved that the diligent practices of the professional scribes had accurately preserved the text of the Hebrew Scriptures.

v. Regarding the Greek Scriptures, there is a similarly astonishing rate of accuracy. Because of the vast number and quality of ancient Greek manuscripts, and the existence of relatively early copies, scholars often say that error rate is between 0.5% and 2%.

vi. “New Testament specialist Daniel Wallace notes that although there are about 300,000 individual variations of the text of the New Testament, this number is very misleading. Most of the differences are completely inconsequential–spelling errors, inverted phrases and the like. A side by side comparison between the two main text families (the Majority Text and the modern critical text) shows agreement a full 98% of the time.” (Greg Koukl)

vii. Of the remaining differences, virtually all yield to vigorous textual criticism. This means that our New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. In the entire text of 20,000 lines, only 40 lines are in doubt (about 400 words), and none affects any significant doctrine. (Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible).

viii. Indeed: Your word is very pure, therefore Your servant loves it. This is true for both the original autographs and the extremely reliable copies we have of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. “Therefore; because of that exact purity and holiness of it, for which very reason ungodly men either despise or hate it.” (Poole)

I am small and despised - 

- The beauty of the Psalmist's piety was that it was calm and well balanced, and as he was not carried away by flattery, so was he not overcome by shame. If small, he the more jealously attended to the smaller duties; and if despised, he was the more in earnest to keep the despised commandments of God. C. H. Spurgeon

Your righteousness is righteous forever - You do not change, all Your Holy attributes are eternal. What You have spoken in the past is not archaic, but timeless as You are. 

Give me understanding that I may live - It is not within himself he looks for this life, and he constantly cries for teaching and understanding. Honest introspection of oneself, holding me up to the mirror of the law, finds that I must look outside myself, my hope comes from the Lord.

- The more the Lord teaches us to admire the eternal rightness of his word, and the more he quickens us to the love of such lightness, the happier and the better we shall be. As we love life, and seek many days that we may see good, it behooves us to seek immortality in the everlasting word which liveth and abideth for ever, and to seek good in that renewal of our entire nature which begins with the enlightenment of the understanding and passes on to the regeneration of the entire man. Here is our need of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, and the guide of all the quickened ones, who shall lead us into all truth. O for the visitations of his grace at this good hour! C. H. Spurgeon