HEBREW WORD STUDY – GOD GIRDETH ME – HA’EL HAME’AZERENI   האל המאזרני

Psalm 18:32: “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and makes my way perfect.”

I have been struggling with an issue lately.  So this morning as I sat down for my morning study time I couldn’t concentrate. God has not come through with what I felt was a promise by Him.  I know, I know I said I would be content if God never answered another prayer and I am, but still I can’t help but feel abandoned by God. I mean He doesn’t have to answer this prayer request but could He at least explain why, it is so within His will, at least as I understand His will. I began to feel like Elijah, I had been doing my best to be faithful to God, to give Him first place and to honor Him in all my ways.  You would think the lest He could do would be to give me some relief. If not answer my prayer at least give me a reason why not.  I would be good with that. 

I picked up my old KJV and just let it fall open and it opened up to Psalm 18:32. “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and makes my way perfect.”  “Well, Lord,” I thought, “There you go again talking in mysteries.”   I don’t feel “girdeth” in strength nor does my way feel “perfect.”  

See what I mean?  Surely God would have given a verse to answer my question. Yet, I felt this subtle prompting from Jeremiah 29:13; “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.” Why do I get this strange feeling that if I seek and search for God with all my heart and find Him, I won’t even care that He didn’t answer my prayer or give me an explanation as to why not.  

I looked down at my Hebrew Bible and “Oh, no not you guys, my Hebrew letter friends. Look I am in no mood going behind my Looking Glass.” But there stood the first word in Psalms 18:32 Ha’el  Hei Aleph and Lamed smiling, waving at me and laughing.   Hei said: “Bet you never saw us together before.  Once you understand, you will want to join us behind your Looking Glass.”  This gave me pause. Yeah, Hei is right, in 45 years of studying the Bible in Hebrew how did I miss this combination of letters.  

Hei, Aleph and Lamed just stood there with their arms locked around each other giving me this smug smile.  You see the Aleph Lamed is the word for God but the Hei is a definite article and simple ‘El (God)  has  no plural ending. “It is God that girdeth me…”  Translators render this Hei as that assuming the Hei is introducing the subordinate clause as the subject of the verb girtheth, which is true, but why did David use the Hei to do this? His style as well as this stage of development of the Hebrew language calls for the use of the word ki for that.  I looked at the previous verse: “Who is God, save Jehovah?”   The word for God there is plural and does not have a definite article.  Why did David leave off the plural ending and why the definite article? 

I looked at my Hebrew letter friends who are now dancing around my Hebrew Bible doing a sort of hora, a circle dance, which was being done to the music of Hava Nagila (Let us rejoice) only they were singing , “We’ve got – a secret, we’ve got – a secret.” 

Suddenly I saw the next word, hame’azereni  separate into its root word‘Azar and jump out of my Hebrew Bible.  That is when I saw it – the secret.  It is in the root of hame’azereni the word ‘azar – a girdle.  The girdle was an important part of the Eastern dress for a warrior. When the warrior goes to battle this ‘azar, which is sort of like a belt, is used to draw the garment tightly to the body so nothing hangs loose to interfere or distract with the warrior’s concentration in battle.   

It suddenly dawned on me that this unusual form for the word “God” in using a Hei and putting it into a singular form was a sort of play on words or a poetic way of saying that God is such a personal God that when we do spiritual battle we are drawing him so close to us that we become as one to fight the enemy. 

That was my problem, it wasn’t that God didn’t answer my prayer or even give me a reason.  I honestly don’t care. But I was caught up in a spiritual battle and it was the enemy using this to make me care about an answer and I didn’t even realize it. Like Rocky Balboa said at ring side when his manager asked what was going on inside that boxing ring Rocky said: “He’s winning.”  

“My gosh, thank you guys for showing me what was going on, but what can I do about, I am losing this spiritual battle.”  Hei grabbed my hand and Ha’el ‘Azar dragged me through my Looking Glass where Hei, Aleph and Lamed and  Aleph, Zayin and Resh grew to my size and together we began to dance the hora this time singing Hava Nagil  – Let us rejoice.   As Nehemiah said in 8:10, “The joy of the Lord is our strength.”  I glanced out of the corner of my eye and there I saw my enemy, dressed in a black waist coat, with a black top hat and a handle bar mustache.  He was twirling his mustache as he said: “Curses, foiled again!!!”