TAU – ת

169 Welcome my cry before Your face, O LORD;  give me understanding according to Your word!
170 Welcome my supplication before Your face, deliver me according to Your word.
171 Worshipful shouts my lips will pour forth, for You teach me Your statutes.
172 Wake, my tongue! – to sing of Your word, for all Your commandments are righteous!
173 With Your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen Your precepts.
174 Watchfully waiting for Your salvation, O LORD;  what great delight is Your Torah† to me!
175 Would that my soul may live and praise You,  while Your ordinances deliver me!
176 Wayward I have wandered like a lost sheep – seek Your servant!*  Wherefore I will never forget Your commandments!
*Or, “Wayward I have wandered like a lost sheep – You seek Your servant. Wherefore I will never forget Your commandments!” The translation depends on the vowel pointing.

Meditation: “Tau”

It is now Thanksgiving, and it is a special delight that we have come in this writing to the meditation for the letter Tau. Several things come together. Number one, I learned at some point in my education that there is a Proto-Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew. During the history of the language the shaping of the letters shifted to be much closer to the letters of Aramaic. Aramaic was spoken in many more countries and was a more popular and widely used language. The Aramaic letters were more squared and “boxy.” There were less curves and angles. 
Number two, while taking a class in Ezekiel we studied chapter 9. While in exile in Babylon Ezekiel said (in typical Ezekiel imagery) that the Spirit of God picked him up by the hair and carried him off to the temple in Jerusalem so he could see what they are doing. While going to the temple Ezekiel saw: altars to foreign gods; what I can only describe as a “frat-boy bug-eating” cult. Outside Ezekiel saw the worship of sun, moon and planetary bodies. “And shall they not be swept away?” But beforehand in chapter 9 a man in a white linen garb with a tablet and either brush or pen was commissioned to go through Jerusalem and mark with a Tau on their foreheads all the faithful who would be preserved. 
Number three, and then the ad came on the radio that the Field Museum in Chicago would be hosting a display of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There was only one thing to do. Pack a few things in the car and the wife, who is also interested in languages, and head off for a seven hour drive to go see. So after seven hours of driving, and an overnight stop at my mother’s, we got to the Field Museum and went in. I spent hours staring at and reading everything that I could on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and went over to the Paleo-Hebrew display. Now, the Paleo-Hebrew Tau was very different. The more modern begins at the top left and has a horizontal line that then curves downward and follows the right-hand of the block of the letter and reaches the bottom right. There is at the bottom left what looked to me like a backward L and then a short stroke off to the left. The Paleo-Hebrew Tau is what looks like a lower case “t” leaning off to the left 45 degrees. I’m not going to ask you to look it up and see if you think it does not look like a cross, leaning to the left 45 degrees, but it sure does look like that. It’s like if you picked up a cross, put a shoulder under the junction of the upright and the crossbar, and started dragging it along the road, outside the city of Jerusalem. Again, I may not tell you to be impressed by the significance of that, but I sure am. Impressed by how this amazing Psalm, finds its way at the end to the cross of the hill of Calvary. This amazing meditation on the Word of God and all of the related terms comes home. And I remember that same professor who taught Ezekiel said “Torah” can be translated in many ways, including one of them being “Gospel.” Exactly! That is also why I chose throughout the translation to render the word “Torah” as the same word “Torah” with an inserted superscripted small cross following the “h”. 
Now to verse 169. There is the concentration of more frequent words beginning with the appointed letter. (In English it is W.) (There is a bit more alliteration going on in this section.)
169 Welcome my cry before Your face, O LORD; give me understanding according to Your word!
Verse one is a call out from a sheep, a disciple, who must walk following his shepherd in an alien and hostile world. But God is the God who hears and the God who welcomes our cry.
170 Welcome my supplication before Your face, deliver me according to Your word.
And why should our prayers and supplications be heard? Simply because they, and we, are carried along in the prayers of Jesus from the cross. There are three: one “Father, forgive them . . .” ; two “Eloi, Eloi” (My God, My God); three, “Father, into Your hands . . . “
171 Worshipful shouts my lips will pour forth, for You teach me Your statutes.

Now the cry out of the sheep, disciple, becomes the celebrating shout of worship. Assured, we celebrate because You connect me with Your Word.

172 Wake, my tongue! – to sing of Your word, for all Your commandments are righteous!

And the call goes forward, “Wake my tongue!” That is similar to Psalm 103, “Bless the Lord O my soul.” The sheep, disciple, calls out to his own tongue, and then shifts who he is addressing and calls out to God, to sing of Your statutes. 

173 With Your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen Your precepts.

And again the call out of prayer. He is not only the God who welcomes the prayer, not only the God who welcomes our worship. He is the God who acts “with Your hand. . . “ It goes together like two apologetics books back in the 1970’s titled “He is There” and “He is There and He is not Silent.” There specifically defined, He is not silent; He answers with His hand. He acts. Is He worth following then? Yes, yes, oh yes He is! Even if I do not see? More than me seen - He sees; and He acts. Yes, yes, yes He is! 

There is someone who comes along carrying and dragging what looks like a Paleo Tau. It is a cross, and He says “Follow Me.” And what the Spirit has put inside me, calls out in response “Lord!” And though my little-faith steps are faltering and I have no way of keeping up with Him, He patiently leads and guides. I know Him as my Shepherd and Savior. 

174 Watchfully waiting for Your salvation, O LORD; what great delight is Your Torah† to me!

Watchfully waiting, yes. What great delight indeed is Your Torah! And again, the final completion of the Torah, is the cross.

175 Would that my soul may live and praise You, while Your ordinances deliver me!

The great desire is to live in praise and experience God’s great story of delivering.

176 Wayward I have wandered like a lost sheep – seek Your servant!*
     Wherefore I will never forget Your commandments!
*Or, “Wayward I have wandered like a lost sheep – You seek Your servant.  
          Wherefore I will never forget Your commandments!”
   
The translation depends on the vowel pointing.

Wayward have I wandered - notice the alliteration. It is the prayer of one who is far from God. Again, pointing to the cross and the middle prayer from the cross “Eloi, Eloi . . . “ He had to come all this way to meet me where I was. He comes all this way to stand with me and to carry my separation. He calls out “follow Me” as He begins to head home. Psalm 22 verse one, “Eloi, Eloi” must be the path that leads to Psalm 22:22 “I will praise You in the assembly.” There He will gather us, and as the One with the cross gathers us, it becomes the place of blessing. “Follow Me.”

And then a little puzzle. Is it “You seek Your servant” or “seek Your servant!”? “You seek Your servant” is an imperfect (hifl) and a statement of faith. The first vowel point looks like a capital “T”, but it is a vowel point that comes from the “A” vowel. The other possible translation, “Seek Your servant!” is an imperative (piel). It is a call out to God in the prayer. The first vowel point that looks exactly like the other, looks like a capital “T”. Its origins are from a short “o”. They sound exactly the same. Look exactly the same. I spent a week trying to figure out which one it had to be, and concluded it’s a matter of take your pick. My choice is to take it as an imperative in the prayer. In the Hebrew, piel, it is an intensive form of the word. Great passion is expressed. The Psalm has been leading up to this great expression of feeling for one hundred seventy-six verses. 

Prayer:
Psalm 119 is a Psalm of great feeling. In no way is it a dry psalm, listing 176 things I can say about the Word. Rather it is the Psalm of the Great Disciple, Who comes to gather His sheep, to stand with His sheep, and call to His Father as He begins to bring us home It is the Psalm of journeying and questing, discovery and gathering, the cry out and the long journey back home to where there will be celebration forever. 

Oh Lord, My Friend, You have come to seek and to save, and to bring us home. When I hear You call “Follow Me” and see Your cross, help me to know  what lies ahead: the gathering, the celebrating, the rejoicing to be together and the long, long, path of eternal life. Amen.