Hebrew Word Study – Twirling Wheat – Gol – גּ֣וֹל  Gimmel Vav Lamed 

Psalms 37:4-6: “Delight thyself also in the LORD, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. (5) Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring [it] to pass. (6) And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.

This was a very popular passage when I was in Bible College. I often heard it applied when some male student had a crush on a girl and was praying she would acknowledge his existence.  I don’t know what went on in the women’s dormitory, but I suspect they had the same theological discussions when some young lady had a crush on a guy.  Such individuals worked very hard at delighting themselves in the Lord with the hope of bribing God to work some miracle on their object of affection.  Alas, not even God could turn a young lady’s heart toward the praying and delighting young man.  I mean God can’t even make the world love Him, how is he supposed to make a young woman love a man?   Oh, I suppose He could but the whole concept of love is an act of the will and God cannot violate another’s will.  

There are limits to what desires of the heart God can give.  Far too often verse 4 is quoted and verses 5-6 are ignored.  Just a surface study of these verses will bear out that the desires of your heart are those which are in harmony with God. When you commit your way to Him and trust Him He will bring it to pass, but note in the next verse what He will bring to pass, righteousness, and judgment.  The word judgment is not negative here like you are being tried in a court.  It is the word misphat which means to make a decision and to carry it out.  Thus, when you delight yourself in the Lord you are going to want to do what pleases Him, and what pleases Him is righteousness or doing the right thing and making the right decision. 

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So all that lovelorn student was praying for was to do the right thing and make the right decision about the young gal for which he was so enamored.  The really important words in all this are to commit your way and trust.  I’ve discussed the word trust many times, it is the word batach which means to be welded to.  Welding involves melting two pieces of metal together and the metal of both mixes with each other. So too, trusting God is mixing your will and desires with God’s.

This commit-your-way business, however, needs some close examination.  The word way is derek in Hebrew which means your lifestyle, the direction you are heading. You commit your course in life to God to direct it or change it as He wills. Ah, but what does it mean to commit?  Yeah, that was my thought also, to surrender your will to God or resign yourself to His will.  But that is not the word used in Hebrew.  The word that is used in the Hebrew here is gol. This word is used for rotation, to roll stones, to cast off by spinning something around.  It is an agricultural term used by farmers who twirl wheat around their heads or in a circular motion to cast off the grains.  

By committing your way to God you are spinning all your desires around and casting off the seeds of the things in your life that could grow into something that will separate you from God.  Take the young smitten Bible College student who tries to win God’s favor by delighting Himself in God.  If he really does delight himself in God he will soon commit or gol, spin off all that is unhealthy to his relationship with God and his desire for this young woman.  Maybe this young female student is called to be a missionary and the young man is called to be a pastor.  Maybe he is willing to compromise this calling to win her heart, but that needs to be spun off. Maybe it is just plain infatuation that needs to be spun off or even lust. By the time God gets done spinning this guy around He may have just spun off all the carnal desires he had for this young girl making him realize she just doesn’t fit God’s plan for his life or maybe she does. But whatever, he will make the right mispaht, judgment, or decision. 

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