Psalm 5

Introduction

Welcome back, everyone, to Torah Today Ministries. This is our next episode in Tehillim Talks, Studies in the Psalms. And today we’re gonna look at Psalm number 5.

What I’m gonna do is just go through the Psalm on the screen and point out some of the Hebrew words I find most intriguing, and that will help, I hope, open up the Psalm to you as well. So, this week’s Psalm, Psalm number five, opens up the same way as Psalm four did. Lamnatze’ach (לַמְנַצֵּחַ), to the conductor.

Now, if you recall from Psalm four, Lamnatze’ach means to the conqueror, to the one who’s victorious. And Rashi had said, if you want to conquer in this world, conquer your yetzer hara (יֵצֶר הָרָע), read this Psalm. So, the same goes for Psalm five, as for Psalm four.

One of the things I failed to mention in Psalm four is that the last three letters, netzach (נֵצַח), which means victory, is one of God’s names. We will encounter it later in the Book of Psalms. And God has called netzach, the victorious one.

Psalm 5:1 – Words and Groaning

So, let’s begin with verse one.

“Give ear to my words, Adonai, consider my groaning.” (Psalm 5:1)

Like we noticed the first half of the verse is external. Give ear to my words, I’m speaking words.

But it’s possible to speak words without anything coming from your heart, without any internal groaning at all. God hears things on two levels. You know, there’s a Psalm later on where it says one thing God has spoken, two things have I heard.

Same thing goes the other way. If we’re really speaking with our whole being, there are words that come from our mouth. There’s also a groaning that comes out of our heart, and God hears both of those.

That word for groaning has the same root as hagah (הָגָה), the word for meditate, the word that we found back in Psalm 1 and in Psalm 2. We saw in Psalm 1, the righteous man meditates on the Torah day and night. But in Psalm 2, we find that the nations of the world, the wicked people, they meditate on emptiness.

So this word for groaning is something comes from deep within from what we’re meditating on. I think it’s based on this verse of Psalms that Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:2. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.

And then again in Romans 8:26, likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. It’s wonderful and comforting to me to know that if I can’t find words for what’s going on in my heart, it’s okay, God can interpret the groanings that are going on deep within our souls.

Psalm 5:2-3 – Prayer as First Resort

Verses 2 and 3, excuse me, continue, “give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.”(Psalm 5:2-3a)

The commentators, the sages, always comment on this, and they say this is extremely significant. Because too many times we call ourselves believers, but we’ll run to a specialist, we’ll run to a self-help book, we’ll run to whatever there is for help, and then we’ll say, well, all we can do now is pray.

As if prayer is the last resort. When prayer should be our first resort, and oftentimes our only resort. And that is what David is saying here.

Says, to you alone I pray. I’m not asking anybody else to help with this. This is something between you and me.

Psalm 5:3 – Morning Prayer and Watching

So I’m going to you. And then he says this. “Adonai, in the morning, you hear my voice. In the morning, I arrange a sacrifice for you, and then I watch.” (Psalm 5:3b)

So the first thing I do in the morning, priority number one, is to come and pray to you. To bring a sacrifice of praise, to order my words before you, and then when I’m done praying, I don’t walk away and forget what I said.

But I begin to watch for what you’re going to do about it. And how many times we pray, and then just go about our day. And we think, I’ve got my prayers done.

I’m good. God’s happy with me. And then we forget about him the rest of the day.

How many of us pray, and then we watch for God to act? Because he always does in one way or another.

The Word “Arrange” – Arakh (עָרַךְ)

Now that word arrange, I think, is very interesting. Your English translations probably use a different word, but this is the word that it should be. One of the principles that you should learn to use in Bible study is to understand a word, find the first place it’s used in the Bible. And then the second and the third, and see if it is used in different ways.

And that will provide a full commentary and array of meanings for that word. And if you look up this word for arrange, you’ll find that it’s the word arakh (עָרַךְ). Maybe you’ve heard of the word called the Shulchan Arukh (שֻׁלְחָן עָרוּךְ), the prepared table.

And it comes from this word, the arranged table. It’s an ancient, not ancient, but centuries old, work by one of the rabbis of Israel. But the first place you’ll find this word used is in Genesis 14:8.

And there, it’s armies arrayed for battle. Now there’s a new way to think of the words that you arrange for prayer. Think of it as armies that are arranged for spiritual battle.

There are spiritual enemies arrayed against us, but our words should be like weapons. Especially if our words are infused with our spirit, with connection with God, with faith in him, and they’re filled with the scriptures and God’s promises, then our prayers are very dangerous to the enemy and we should arrange them.

And here’s something else about this word arrange. If you’re going to have a conversation with somebody, an important conversation, you’re going to be thinking ahead of time how you’re going to approach the conversation, how you’re going to frame your words, what you’re going to say, what you’re going to avoid saying. But too often when we pray, we don’t do that at all. We just flippantly jump into God’s presence and then flippantly jump back out again.

But David is saying, I’m going to arrange my words, I’m going to arrange my prayers and thoughtfully put them together in an array before I approach the king. He’s treating prayer as something very serious, very real, that has real outcomes and consequences.

Well, we look for the second place that this word is used. It’s in Genesis 22:9. And if you know your Bibles, you know that Genesis 22 describes the Akedah (עֲקֵדָה), the binding of Isaac. And it tells us there that Abraham and Isaac went up the mountain.

And then Abraham arranged the wood to put his son on. If you build a fire, you know you have to build the fire. You have to arrange the wood in the right way if you want the fire to really be something that’s going to endure and be strong and is going to grow and become what you want it to be.

We need to arrange our words and prayer as we would arrange logs to build a fire. The third place we find is in Exodus 27:21, where the priest is commanded to go into the holy place and arrange the flames on the menorah. I think these three first uses of this word, arakh, give us a beautiful picture of prayer.

As armies arrayed for battle, as a sacrifice is prepared and the wood is arranged so the sacrifice is consumed, so our request, our praise, our thanksgiving to God completely goes up to him, nothing’s left behind, but also as lights. Because as we spend time in God’s presence, we should sense his light, and we should allow the light of our prayers, our groanings, our love for him, our faith in him, to be something that he enjoys. But all of these take planning and arrangement and some work.

The Word “Watch” – Tzafah (צָפָה)

So he says, I’ll arrange my prayers before you, and I will watch. The word used for watch here is a little unusual. It’s a word, tzafah (צָפָה), tzafah.

And it’s a word that is used to refer to the watchman on the walls. In other words, the watchman looks expectantly. He’s just not, he’s not watching something just to see if something happens.

He’s watching, expecting something to happen. And we find the word over in Habakkuk, chapter 2, verse 1. “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and tzafah, I will watch to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint.”

Here, the prophet is expecting God to speak. So he pictures himself as a watchman on the wall, expecting to see something, to see what God is going to do, to hear what God is going to say. If we really pray to God, if we really have faith in God, we should be expectant.

So after we arrange our words to him, we should start watching to see what he’s going to do. But this word is really fascinating in another sense, as it also means to completely cover. When you read about the construction of the tabernacle, you read about how the bronze altar was completely covered with bronze.

And the poles were completely covered with bronze. And the table of showbread was completely covered with gold. And the incense altar was covered with gold.

And the Ark of the Covenant was covered with gold. In each case, the word cover is the same word, tzafah, to completely cover it, to completely encase it. So why does God use the same word to mean to watch expectantly and to completely cover?

Not quite sure, except to say that we pray to a God who completely watches us, where the apple of his eye, he never blinks, he never takes his attention off of us. We should learn to be the same with him. We should cover everything with prayer.

And when you come to the altar or come to the ark or come to the table of showbread, what you encounter is what it’s covered with. And when people come to us, they should come to what we are covered with, and that is with prayer, with something precious between us and God. You know, the ark of the covenant was just made out of wood, but it was all covered with gold.

And the table of showbread, the altar of incense, the poles, the altar of brass, they were all just made of wood, but they’re all covered with something more precious. And we should be completely encased and covered in prayer. Because those metals were a protection to what they covered.

And our prayer should be a protection to us. And if we are truly praying the way we should be, our prayers will be a great protection. They raise our value, I guess you could say, because what’s covering us is something more valuable than what it covers.

And it is also something that is worth looking at, especially if something is covered with gold. And so we have to watch and expect what God is going to do. And understand that He covers us, He’s watching us, and we should cover everything in our life with prayer.

So think about that. You’ll probably come up with some better insights on why this word, tzafah, I mean two such utterly completely things, different things. But that’s the way Hebrew is.

It’s fascinating. It gives you something to think about for the rest of your life. Well, let’s move on.

Psalm 5:4-6 – God’s Relationship with Evil

“For you are not a god who delights in wickedness, evil may not sojourn with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies. Adonai abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful men.”(Psalm 5:4-6)

That word for dwell is better translated sojourn. It’s the word ger (גֵּר). A ger is a sojourner. And evil doesn’t sojourn with God.

It doesn’t want to be around God. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers.

You destroy those who speak lies. Adonai abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful men.

The Word “Boastful” – Holelim (הוֹלְלִים)

Now that word boastful is probably not the best translation of that word. The word is holelim (הוֹלְלִים), holelim. It really means praisers, but generally it means loud mouths.

The word hallel (הַלֵּל) means to praise. That’s where we get the word halleluyah (הַלְלוּיָהּ), praise Ya, praise God. But it comes from a sound that people make, especially women in the Middle East.

It’s called ululating. That’s where we get the word hallel, ululate. And they go lalalalalala with their tongues, and they can do it really loud.

It’s like a scream, but it’s got this lalalalalala sound. And it’s used to draw attention when there’s danger, and it’s also to show excitement when something wonderful happens. I’ll never forget being in Uganda with a friend, a teaching friend of mine, and he and I were doing a series of teachings in Kenya, and then we spent a few days in Uganda.

And our host drove us away up into the mountains to the banana plantations, and the people were expecting us to come for their service. And when we drove up, all the women started ululating. This lalalalalala sound is very loud, and they were very…

I wasn’t that excited about us coming, but they were excited about us coming. And most of them had never seen a white man before. In fact, there was one old guy who came down out of the top of the mountains, and he walked in and he saw us, and one of the pastors asked him a question, and then he turned around and walked out.

And I said, what did he say? He said, well, he came down from the mountains and says, I’ve never seen a white man before, now I have. And then he turned around and left.

But, uh, ululating, being loud. So we translate it boastful, some translate it fools, but I think the best translation is loudmouths. They’re people who just make a lot of noise.

And it says, the loudmouths shall not stand before your eyes. They’re always going on about something. And it’s usually about themselves, something they’ve done, or something they’re excited about that has no real eternal value to it.

God’s Love and Hate

And it says, you hate all evildoers. I know that’s a problem for a lot of people. Doesn’t God love everybody?

But love is not an emotion. Hate is. So God could love the sinner and hate him at the same time.

If someone’s an evildoer, God loves him and wants the best for him, wants him to repent. But his emotion is one of hatred because he’s angry at the person because of the damage they’re doing to their own soul and to the world and the souls of people around them. So if you’ve ever had kids, teenagers, who go through a rebellious period, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You love them. You die for them in a heartbeat. Well, you sure don’t like the people they are right at the moment.

So God hates the evildoers. That’s his emotion. But he loves them.

That’s the action. Because everything he does in their lives is to bring about the fruit of repentance.

The Word “Destroy” – Avad (אָבַד)

He says, you destroy those who speak lies. That word destroy is another interesting word because it’s the word avad(אָבַד) or abad. That’s where we get the word Abaddon (אֲבַדּוֹן) that’s referred to over, I think, in Peter or Jude. And Abaddon is a place of destruction.

But the word also means to be lost. In fact, the word has all kinds of shadings of meaning that have to do with like disintegration. And the person who invests their lives in wickedness are their own worst enemies.

They cause things to disintegrate. They cause their own souls to disintegrate and to shrink and to turn to dust. If you want to know what this word really means, think of what happens to a dead body over time.

It disintegrates and turns back to dirt. That’s avad. But it also means to be lost.

In the Torah, we’re commanded that if you find a lost object, you’re to return it to its owner. That’s the word avad, lost. And at Passover, we quote that passage from Deuteronomy, that my father was a lost Aramaean, a wandering Aramaean.

That word for wandering is the word avad. He was lost. And a person who is in a place of destruction because they’re rebelling against God is a person who’s lost.

The word means both things. And to be lost from God is to truly experience disintegration and destruction and loss in your own life. So what did Yeshua come for?

To seek and to save that which is avad, that which is lost, that which is under destruction. Well, let’s continue on.

Psalm 5:7-8 – Entering God’s House

“But I, because of the abundance of your chesed, your steadfast love, will I enter your house? I will bow down toward your holy temple in fear of you.” (Psalm 5:7-8)

And I put that in blue for a reason, which you’ll see in a moment, but in Hebrew it’s one word, berov (בְּרֹב), and the greatness and the largeness of your chesed (חֶסֶד), your steadfast love. I’ve been tempted to pause over the Psalms that we’ve done so far to look at the word chesed, but I’m going to save it for a later Psalm. It’s found all through the Psalms.

It’s one of my favorite Hebrew words, and you’ll see why when we spend some time on it. But because of the abundance, berov of your chesed, your steadfast love, will I enter your house? I want you to think for a moment.

You don’t let people into your house unless you believe them to be safe. And you don’t go out of your way to invite people into your house unless you love them, unless you really want them there. And David is saying, I get to enter your house because of your great love for me.

I’m invited to come visit you. That’s the way we should think about this. We are invited to come into God’s house because of his incredible, his large, enormous chesed for us.

Berov chesed. You know, this verse is something that is prayed in the morning prayers, especially when you enter the synagogue. Berov chasdekha (בְּרֹב חַסְדְּךָ).

I will come into your house. That word rov (רֹב) is where we get the word rabbi (רַבִּי), my great one, which really means my teacher. But something that is rov is great.

So because of God’s great love, we get to enter his house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in fear of you. And you have to realize that when David wrote this, there was no temple.

But he often cites the temple, refers to the temple, even though the temple didn’t exist. He wrote a psalm of dedication to the temple, though he never lived to see it. His son Solomon would build it.

So what’s this temple that David is always going on about and talking about going into? Well, just as the tabernacle was built according to a pattern which God showed Moses on the mountain, the Jewish people have always realized that the physical tabernacle, later the physical temple, was strictly a mockup of the real thing. And though they could see the tabernacle and later would be able to go to the temple, they couldn’t really enter the temple.

Only the priests could actually go in. But this temple, the spiritual temple, is one we’re invited to go to. So God gave us a physical picture here to help us understand the invisible, real spiritual temple there.

And David is always talking about this temple. So he says, I will bow down toward your holy temple in fear of you. Where does God dwell?

He dwells in his temple. He dwells in his heavenly places. “Lead me, Adonai, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before me.” (Psalm 5:8b)

You know what makes your spiritual enemies your enemies? They want to see you fail. They want to see you fail. They’re cheering and hoping that you fail.

And so David prays that God would lead him in God’s tzedakah (צְדָקָה), his righteousness, because everybody’s watching me, expecting me to fail. And they want me to fail. So Father, help me to be strong and do well.

Psalm 5:9 – The Abundance of Transgression

Now, the blue phrase, because of the abundance, watch for it again now in this passage, starting with verse 9.

“But there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.” (Psalm 5:9-10)

And that’s a different word from avad that we just saw earlier. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O God.

Let them fall by their own counsels. Because of the abundance. Berov (בְּרֹב), exact same word.

Because the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you. So earlier, David says, because of the abundance of your steadfast love, I’ll enter your house. But with these wicked people, because of the abundance of their transgression, they’re cast away.

The only thing that comes close to the abundance of God’s loving kindness towards us is the abundance of transgressions and hatred people have towards God and his people. God’s love for us is gratuitous. There is no logical reason why he should love us the way he does.

And there’s certainly no logical reason why people should hate God the way they do.

And the Talmud prophesies that the reason, or explains that the reason that the second temple was destroyed was because of sinat chinam (שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם), gratuitous hatred, hatred without a cause. And when Messiah was here, he looked at his persecutors and said, They hated me without a cause. It was gratuitous.

There was no reason for their hatred. Yet they hated him freely and openly with everything they had. And there’s something hardwired in wicked people that they just hate God and everything of righteousness.

They can change, but that’s a story for another song.

The Word “Truth” – Nekhonah (נְכֹנָה)

Now this word for truth that’s in red, for there’s no truth in their mouth. Usually the word for truth in Hebrew is the word emet (אֱמֶת), but that is not the word used here.

This is a different word. The word that is used here is the word kun (כּוּן), kun, which means to be established and be reliable. When Pharaoh had his dreams, he had a dream of the healthy cows coming up, coming up out of the Nile, and then after those seven healthy cows, there were seven really scrawny cows that came and ate the first ones.

And then he dreamed of seven stalks of grain that were healthy and robust, and then seven really scrawny ones that ate the seven healthy ones, and he didn’t understand what the dream meant. So when Joseph came before him and heard the dreams, he interpreted them, and he said God repeated the dreams because the matter is kun. It is established.

It’s going to happen. You can count on it. So that word kun means to establish and be reliable.

Now, when you take that understanding and plug it back into verse 9, there is nothing reliable in their mouth. Oh, they can speak facts, but you can’t trust what they say. You don’t put any weight into it because even though they can use a fact here and a fact there and string together some truths, the whole message is completely unreliable.

It won’t support anything, so don’t believe it. So there is nothing reliable in their mouths.

Psalm 5:11-12 – Focusing on God, Not Enemies

“Let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them that those who love your name may exalt in you.” (Psalm 5:11-12)

We’re surrounded by enemies who are cheering for our destruction and downfall. They love to see us trip up and fail because I think it lets them justify their own bad behavior. Thinking, well, you’re no better than me.

But even with that, we have a choice to either always be watching our enemies instead of watching God. To always be worrying about our enemies and how we’re walking, how we’re being perceived by them instead of rejoicing in God.

If you’ve ever tried to pursue something in sports or in music or I can think of even driving, your instructor will tell you what to focus your eyes on and what not to focus your eyes on. I know when I first started driving, it’s kind of scary. You’re always just looking at the lines on each side of the road, trying to stay in between them.

And as a result, you’re always weaving back and forth. And then someone said, don’t look at the lines, look up ahead where you’re going to go. And when I began to put my attention up ahead, the car went straight.

When I give piano lessons or guitar lessons, I try to get the students to quit looking at their fingers. Quit looking at your fingers. Quit watching your fingers.

Look at the music. Think about something else. And if they quit looking at their fingers, they start doing better.

And if you’re trying to learn to dance, don’t really look at your feet. You’ve got to learn to focus on something different. And if you do, your feet take care of themselves.

And what we need to do is not focus on our enemies, even though they’re focused on us. We focus on God. And we rejoice in Him.

We sing to Him. We delight in Him. And that’s what we’re to keep our focus on.

If we just focus on trying not to trip, we’ll probably trip. We keep our eyes on Him. We’re going to do just fine.

The Word “Shield” – Tzinah (צִנָּה)

That word for shield is not the typical word for shield, which is the word magen (מָגֵן). We saw that back in one of the earlier Psalms. But this word for shield is the word tzinah (צִנָּה).

Tzinah. This shield is a large shield that covers the entire body. You can get behind it from head to toe.

You’re covered and protected. It’s a massive shield. That’s the shield that’s used here.

So look at it again. You cover Him with favor as with a shield. God covers us with favor.

And though we may have enemies that are rooting for us to fall, God is covering us with favor. This is a favor that works as a shield that protects us. Now, here’s an interesting thing.

Some of you who know Hebrew can see that word and think, well, that can be pronounced another way. And you’re right. It can be pronounced tzon (צֹאן), which means a flock, like a flock of sheep.

Why would God choose for a word to mean a large shield of favor and also to be a flock of sheep? Well, we are warrior sheep. And though sheep have no natural protections in this world, without a shepherd, sheep don’t stand a chance.

God invites us to live as sheep in a very dangerous world filled with wolves. And yet, his tzon is covered with a tzinah, and his favor covers us and protects us. So that’s the kind of God we have.

Conclusion

This psalm is a psalm of warfare. It really is. But it’s a warfare in which we sing, which we dance, we offer our sacrifices, our weapons, our spiritual, we arrange our words as a sacrifice of love to Him. And then we watch.

We watch and expect. And we’re going to do just fine if we do that. So I hope that these psalms, I’m sorry I get choked up on this, but as I study these psalms, the more I study them, the more I realize that they describe my own life.

I used to think they were just David moaning about something, but they’re really the groanings I have, and I think probably you do too. So I hope this psalm has been a blessing to you. And you’ll learn to, as the song goes, learn to dance in the minefield.

So as I go and collect myself, I’ll wish you shalom, and I’ll see you back here for Psalm 6 at a future date. God bless you, bye bye.

Links

Primary Scripture References 

Read Psalm 5 

All Referenced Verses (ESV)

---

Hebrew Text Resources 

1. Psalm 5 – Hebrew Text with Vowel Points
2. Rashi’s Commentary on Psalms 5

---

Strong’s Concordance – Hebrew Word Studies

BlueLetterBible.org Links:

1. H5329 – Natsach (נָצַח) – Lamnatzeach – “To the conductor/victor”
2. H6186 – Arakh (עָרַךְ) – “To arrange/array”
3. H6822 – Tsaphah (צָפָה) – “To watch/cover”
4. H2617 – Chesed (חֶסֶד) – “Steadfast love/lovingkindness”
5. H1984 – Halal (הָלַל) – “To praise/boast”
6. H6 – Avad (אָבַד) – “To perish/destroy/lose”
7. H3559 – Kun (כּוּן) – “To establish/be reliable”

---

Additional Context Resources

1. Sinat Chinam – My Jewish Learning – Gratuitous hatred
2. Ululation – Wikipedia – Cultural context