Pesach Special
This original episode is airing during FULB, and because in real time we are in the midst of a study of Psalms, I thought it would be timely to do a meditation this morning on Psalm 136. It is a much-beloved psalm, and it is a psalm that is part of the current Jewish liturgy for Pesach (Passover). Many years ago, Psalm 136, which is fashioned as an imperative, would have been chanted by a community during public worship. It was recited a couple of days ago during our Pesach Seder, the meal at the evening conclusion of Nisan 14 and bridging the beginning of Nisan 15. (In real time I am crafting this lesson on Nisan 16 and 17.)
For the past couple of years, my husband and I have hosted a Pesach Seder in our home. The first year, we had 22 people in attendance. This past year, there was a conflict of scheduled events in our local congregation, and so we only had 14. But, lately Father Yahweh has been teaching me about His sovereignty, and to actually look for signs of His hand moving in my circumstances. This has been going on since last summer. I tend to be Type A and a “Director” personality. So, that being the case, I have had to LEARN to submit to His will, when things don’t go as I had planned, or as I had wished.
In connection with this theme, I was reflecting this morning before starting the planning of this teaching….you know how lots of believers look at the end of the year or the beginning of a new year for a key word that defines their year? Well, I have done that a couple of times, but if I’m not hearing anything from the Ruach HaKodesh, I don’t really sweat it. And, at the start of 2025, I did not hear anything. But, this morning, four months in, I realized what my word for 2025 is. It’s JOY. In my kitchen, I have a small plate mounted on the wall beside my stove top. There is one big, beautiful word on it, and that word is JOY. Last December, at a party, it got accidentally knocked off the wall, and was nearly dropped on the floor. An agile friend caught it in midair. I was glad it was saved!
How are these two themes related? Because Joy is not happiness. It transcends, rides above, happiness. You can have joy when Father Yahweh “moves your cheese”. There was a leadership book called, “Who Moved My Cheese” a few years ago, and it was a short fable about some mice who freaked completely out because someone moved their cheese and they had to figure out what to do. This often happens in life. For the believer, we just say, “Thy will be done, Lord, for you are ADONAI, a Hebrew title meaning “my masters”. That’s hard, though, isn’t it?
I was also thinking this morning about how I was in a 15-year depression about some things the Lord allowed to happen within my family, because it did not line up with my wishes or my timetable. Thank God He has delivered me from that. I truly praise Him to the core of my being for that.
On a more mundane level, as I am recording this in real time, hubs and I were supposed to have an outing with another family this past Lord’s Day, an adventure I had been looking forward to for weeks and weeks. Then, the night before dear hubs got sick, and the other family had to go on without us. I was so disappointed.
But, you know? God’s chesed (lovingkindness, mercy) endures forever, as it says in Psalm 136. What mercy God extended toward us! Who knows what troubles and trials He saved us from? We’ll never know. And, although I was disappointed, I talked to Father Yahweh about it and said, “Your will be done, Beloved One!” I’m not super-spiritual, believe me. I’m just an ordinary woman. But, I love Him, His Word and know that by applying it to my life, I’ll reflect my Mashiach’s glory even more. That’s what I try to do.
Most of you viewers know that I study Hebrew, and have been studying it for over 3 years. Currently, again in real time, I am in a Hebrew reader book that recently dissected some of Psalm 136. This was another reason I chose to feature this psalm for the Passover special.
The psalm itself is what we call in music a “call and response”. The response, in musical terms, is usually the same words, repeated after each “call” or verse. And, that is the case here in Psalm 136 also.
There are 26 verses of Psalm 136, and the sages say that this corresponds to the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton, the most sacred, most personal name of GOD, which is usually transliterated Yahweh. I read something interesting on social media recently, concerning the “heartbeat of the earth”. I had never heard of this, but apparently, every 26 seconds, the earth emanates a “heartbeat”. This following info is from “Rabbi Google”, as I like to call it. This is a faint, seismic series of tremors, a rhythmic pulse, that is believed to originate deep within the Atlantic Ocean, below the equatorial line. No one can explain what generates it.
It was first discovered by seismologists in 1961 and seismic stations measure it the world over, even though they are still trying to understand it.
Again, the number 26, the number of God’s most personal name. Some of you don’t understand this letter/number phenomenon; so, let me explain a little deeper. Each of the Hebrew letters has a numeric value. When you add up the 4 numbers that correspond to the 4 letters of the Tetragrammaton, the Yahweh name, those four numbers added equal 26.
Going on….When we attempt to vocalize the four-letter name with no vowels, it sounds like breathing in and breathing out. The first thing a newborn baby does as its lungs fill with oxygen (yah) is to exhale that air out, often in a loud cry! So, as we enter this world, we utter the most sacred name of our Creator. Literally, every breath we take as living beings “speaks” His name. When we sigh deeply in distress or grief, our breath calls out for more of Him. And, as we lie dying, our last breath that leaves our body calls for Him.
This psalm not only outlines the prime elements of the Creation of the universe, it also celebrates both the high points of the Exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan. Every Sabbath morning those who keep the Sabbath, particularly Jews, will recite this psalm as part of morning prayers. The Talmud, in Pesachim 118a, calls Psalm 136 “The Great Hallel” (the Great Praise) bc it celebrates Father Yah’s most enduring, ongoing achievement - - the sustaining of every living thing. Do you see this root of the exclamation “Hallelujah!” Hallelu means “we praise” and then we have the YAH on the end. There is no “j” in Hebrew.
We are going to begin our in-depth study of this great Psalm by looking at the layers of meaning in the “response”, the “refrain”, if you will.
The sentence “His chesed endures forever” is in Hebrew - - Kee L’olam Khas-doh. Literally translated this is: “Because to eternity is His lovingkindness.”
The Hebrew word I translated “lovingkindness” is “chesed”, and it is difficult to translate into English. It can also mean grace; favor; covenantal faithfulness; loyal love. From the Hebrew for Christians website glossary: Chesed includes the concepts of loyalty and fidelity along with love; it therefore represents faithful love, and so on. Chesed also refers to an act of lovingkindness or gracious action, i.e., the giving of oneself to help others without regard to repayment or personal benefit. Chesed is therefore the essense of the great mitzvah to "love your neighbor as yourself." עוֹלָם חֶסֶד יִבָּנֶה - olam chesed yibaneh - "The world is built with chesed" (Psalm 89:3).
The sages compared chesed with charity, saying that in three ways is chesed greater. Charity is done with money; chesed can be either with one's person or one's money. Charity is for the poor; chesed can be done for either the poor or the rich. Charity is for the living; chesed can be done for the living or the dead (Sukkah 49b). The act of burying a dead person is called chesed shel emet -- "true kindness" -- since this is an altrusitic act done when the other person is powerless to repay. And of course gemilut chasidim refers to acts of lovingkindness or benevolence.
H4C - - Micah 6:8: “What does the LORD require of you except to do justice (mishpat), and to love mercy (chesed), and to walk humbly (hatznea lechet) with your God?” Having a humble heart walks with the LORD. Humility begins with the awareness that 1) there is a God and 2) you are not Him.... It is the practice of da lifnei mi attah omed: “knowing before whom you stand” and living your life in light of this fundamental truth. As He is full of lovingkindness, so should be we, His disciples, His children. May “the apple not fall far from the tree…”. The sages say that true chesed is only characteristic of Elohim, because in mankind, attempts at lovingkindness are always tempered with ulterior motives.
The Talmud says that there were 26 generations that lived in the time period that extended from Creation to the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. They go on to say that it took that many generations before the world was ready to receive it. The giving of Torah was regarded as the ultimate chesed, although we who affirm that Yeshua is our Mashiach know that HE, our Mashiach, is the ultimate chesed of Father Yah, demonstrated to us. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in that the Messiah died on our behalf while we were still sinners.” Romans 5:8 CJB
As we go through the psalm, we will make other observations of this refrain, more closely related to each verse. Now, as the song, “Do Re Mi”, from The Sound of Music said, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
Verse 1
Here it is in the Hebrew:
Praise to Yahweh that (is) good
Because to eternity is His lovingkindness.
What does it mean for God to be “good”?
He is “good” in His most exalted function - - that of the Sustainer of All Life. Even to those who reject “so great a salvation” (Hebrews 2:3) He is still so good! Someone framed it this way. We deserve nothing more than physical death and eternal death apart from God. Everything else, every other good thing, is God’s mercy. Mercy is being spared God’s wrath, that is, not getting what we truly deserve. Grace is God extending to us His favor, which we do NOT deserve.
Verse 2
In the Hebrew:
Praise to the Elohim of elohim.
Now, here, we have the first Elohim with a capital E and the second with a lower-case e. It is not such in the original text. When one has to decide how to translate this name for “god”, either big G or little g, context must guide, since the word is variously used to refer to the one, true GOD and also with the lowercase “g” to false gods. What this verse is trying to say is that the God of Israel is the only true one, among the false gods of other nations. That is why in this context, the first upper case E Elohim is a proper name (with a plural ending), and why the second one is a more general plurality.
Furthermore, when in Scripture we have a word pair in which the first word is followed by a very similar second word, this denotes a superlative, a degree of comparison that conveys the supremacy of something, an unsurpassed level of being (greatness, awfulness, whatever the adjective may be).
Verse 3 is a similar superlative to verse 2.
Here it is in the Hebrew:
Praise to the Masters of the masters.
Now, that sounds strange in English, doesn’t it? But, our word Adonai, the title used as a substitute for the sacred tetragrammaton name in the Tanakh/Old Testament, is a plural, as is “Elohim”. So, basically, all that I said about the structure of verse 2 applies to verse 3, except that verse 2 emphasizes the echad of God, the oneness of the Divine Majestic Mystery, and verse 3 emphasizes the lordship, the rulership of Him as well.
One of the sages, Alshich, says that the lower case “l” lords, refers to 70 high-ranking angelic beings who are assigned to the various 70 nations of the earth, referred to in the book of Genesis, chapter 10 - - the so-called 70 nations of the earth. You may not know that, during the festival of Sukkot, the Jews in the days of the Temple would sacrifice 70 bulls in honor of the 70 Gentile nations and their contributions to the world.
Verse 4
In Hebrew:
Literally: To the One doing great wonders to His separateness.
Jews and Christians alike believe that God at times acts through intermediaries, whether they be angelic or human. The Bible is full of stories that bear this out. However, although He has delegated some of his power at times to finite beings, this verse acknowledges that the great wonders of Creation (creating the heavens, the earth, the celestial bodies in the sky) were done by Father Yahweh alone, who is infinite. The connotation of alone, as interpreted by the sages, is that many of His wonders are performed in secret, such that we do not understand them. An example of this would be when one’s car won’t start, which throws you late to an appointment. When you finally get onto your route, you see a horrible, fatal accident, and realize that you could have been the victim, had you left “on time”, on your time, that is. Other times, He does wonders on our behalf that we are not even aware of. He is not doing this for His own glory, but truly out of His godly character, His attribute of lovingkindness.
Verse 5
In Hebrew:
Literal Translation: To the One making the heavens in understanding
Your translation may include a phrase similar to “with understanding”. Father Yahweh created these celestial bodies, but in His infinite knowledge and wisdom, He also “programmed them”, setting their orbits, determining their patterns, etc. It is form PLUS function highlighted here as an example of the LORD God’s chesed. Isaiah 40:26 states that He calls each of these bodies by their names. And, of course, there are untold billions of them, that we even have knowledge of. No telling how many there are “in all”. But, God knows. Do you have trouble remembering names? Father Yah doesn’t.
Have you ever wondered why Father has allowed us to see and study the heavens? Well, one reason is that the heavens continually declare His glory, and show His handiwork. But, another reason is that He has often pictured in the constellations actions that were to come. One such example was the so-called Star of Bethlehem. Then, in the book of Revelation, we have the messages of the woman giving birth and the dragon there to snatch up the child and so forth. These are constellation messages. One teacher I have studied with has said that the Lord God frequently pictures in the stars what will eventually take place on earth. I have not studied that overly much, but I think it would be an interesting topic, for sure. And, to be clear, that is not “astrology”, the belief that the heavenly bodies control our future.
Verse 6
Here’s the Hebrew:
And, translated literally: To the One spreading the Land upon the waters.
On the day I wrote this lesson, I spent a lot of time sitting by flowing water, just taking a relaxing day, actually. And, the water flowed endlessly on. When you consider the power of water over soil, water is almost always the victor, because it is the nature of soil to sink below the water. But, look at how Father God operated in this verse, during the initial Creation. He caused the earth to push back against the water and to hem it in. Alshich, the sage, sees this an allegory for our lives - - that in order to do the will of God, we must curb our natural inclinations, and that it was a manifestation of Father Yah’s chesed that He gave us this potent lesson.
Verse 7
In Hebrew:
Literally, in English:
To the One making great lights.
The two great lights referred to here are the sun and the moon, without which our planet could not function to sustain life. Then, in the following verses, the most broad function of each luminary is referenced. An example of the Lord’s lovingkindness is that these two great lights do their jobs faithfully, without fail.
Verse 8
In Hebrew:
Literally:
The Sun, for the jurisdiction/governance/dominance in the day. Of course, the sun provided the light and heat needed to power the earth and sustain its life.
Verse 9
In Hebrew:
Literal translation into English:
The moon and stars for the dominations in the night.
In Hebrew, the word translated as “stars” is not a plural. It is a collective noun, which means that although there are many stars, they rule together, as one, as a singular. In perfect harmony. Isn’t that amazing?
The moon controls the tides and also has a role to play in sustaining the life system, according to Deuteronomy 33:14. Another important function of the moon is that its movements form the basis of our biblical calendar.
Verse 10
In Hebrew:
Literal translation into English:
To the One causing Egypt/Mitzrayim to be smitten/struck in their firstborn (choice ones)
Now, that translation sounds a little awkward to our English ears, because we want to change it to say, that God smote the firstborn of Egypt. But, that is not what it says. It says that He smote them THROUGH their firstborn ones, their choice ones. There is a midrash, a commentary, by the sage named Rashi which says that there was advance notice given to the Egyptians that their firstborn children would be slain, and that the firstborns rose up to demand that the Israelites be set free. However, Pharaoh would not agree to that. So, the firstborns rose up and precipitated a civil war against the rest of the country, causing many to be killed. Therefore, it was a double blow to Egypt. All the firstborns who were not under the blood of the Passover lambs died, plus all those who were killed in the civil war by those same angry firstborn ones. An interesting midrash, for sure….
It is difficult to comprehend causing all those firstborns’ deaths to strike Egypt could be construed as any type of kindness. But, in doing so, God was teaching mankind that He punishes “measure for measure”, an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth type of justice. Israel was God’s firstborn, His chosen nation. Since the Egyptians had oppressed Israel for so many hundreds of years, their firstborns were required fo them. There is a midrash that says that Moses’ mother, Bisyah, the daughter of Pharaoh, was a firstborn, and that accordingly she should have had her life required of her. But, that Moses prayed to God on her behalf and that her life was spared. Another commentary says that many people not publicly known to be firstborns were killed and that this unexpected news startled and terrified many Egyptians.
Verse 11
In Hebrew:
Literal translation:
And He caused Israel to go forth from the midst of them.
Not all of Israel went, however. And, it was not a group of only Hebrews who went. Some rabbinical sources speculate that a very large percentage of the Hebrews remained in Egypt, because they could not envision themselves as a free people. Furthermore, many Egyptians were on the side of the Hebrews, agreed to convert to Judaism, and left Egypt when the Hebrews left. One thing is sure: those whom Father Yahweh wanted to go - - those are the ones who went.
Verse 12
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
In a strong hand and in an outstretched arm
Ibn Ezra interprets this to mean that when the Hebrews left Egypt, hastily, in the middle of the night, they did not have to sneak out. Egypt was in such disarray that they were actually encouraged to leave and that they left triumphantly, with their heads held high.
Verse 13
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
To One splitting the Reed Sea to divisions/parts/pieces
No, I did not mispronounce “Red Sea”, as many of you are accustomed to call it. In the Hebrew, the word is Reed, and it is a collective plural. Another way to say it would be to say “Sea of Reeds”, as we will see it put in verse 15 shortly. Exodus 14 and 15 record this miracle of the parting of the Sea of Reeds.
We have always been taught in our Bible story books that the sea was split into only two parts, and they could have been the case, surely. But, some of the sages say that it was split into 12 parts, one for each of the 12 tribes, so that each tribe had its own route.
Verse 14
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
And to cause to cross over Israel in the midst of him (the Reed Sea)
“Him” here refers to the Sea of Reeds. The Hebrew word for “sea” is yahm, which is a masculine noun. The sages say that the Hebrews never even got their feet wet, because Father Yahweh had so thoroughly dried up the sea bed before they crossed over. Notice that this physical salvation of the Hebrews was a salvation for the entire world, because had the nation perished, they never would have received the Torah at Mt. Sinai, nor could the Mashiach have been born, centuries later.
Verse 15
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
And discarded (shook off) Pharaoh and his virtue (army) in the Sea of Reeds.
This sounds like a strange translation of the verse, but in Hebrew there are two or three words that can mean “army” of “host of warriors”, etc. One of them is “virtue”. In other words, a king/ruler is virtuous is he has a strong army. So, the military force is referred to as the virtue of the king.
The sages say that this was a very dramatic event, one that could not be misconstrued as an accident of nature. One sage says that God did not merely wait until the waters closed over the Egyptian army, but that, rather, He forcefully launched them into walls of water to make clear this was an execution, not an accident. A dramatic punishment to fit a heinous crime.
Verse 16
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
Causing His nation to walk in the wilderness (place of speaking)
The Hebrew word we translate as wilderness does not have the same connotations as we give that word in English. In English a wilderness is a desolate, solitary, often dangerous place - - a place you would not want to go into alone. In Hebrew, the word means “place of speaking”. In other words, it is in the wilderness that God speaks to us. Isn’t that true? There are times that God has to get us to a quiet, desolate, often desperate place before we can hear His voice. In the case of the Hebrews, all of this was certainly true. God had to get the Hebrew nation out into the wilderness, specifically at Mt. Sinai, before He could deliver to them the Torah. God’s chesed was certainly demonstrated to the Hebrews and to the world, over these many generations later, when we see how He led them with the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day, supplied all their needs for 40 years, cared for and protected them. Such lovingkindness!
Verse 17
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
For causing great kings to be smitten/struck down
The Jewish sages say that the kings referred to here in this verse were the 31 mighty Canaanite kings who were in place, ruling their Canaanite kingdoms before they were vanquished by the Hebrews, under Joshua’s leadership.
Verse 18
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
And He murdered majestic kings
The sages say that this is a reference to the Egyptian pharaoh and his mighty army, because although the 31 Canaanite kings were powerful, they paled in comparison to the Egyptians. AGR says that the kingdom of Egypt never again attained the majesty and power they possessed in the dynasty that was vanquished by God through the deliverance of His people in the Exodus. The Egyptian Empire began to decline and it never regained its former vigor. Next, the psalmist highlights two of the Canaanite kings referred to in verse 17.
Verse 19
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
With respect to Sihon the king of the Amorite nation
The Amorites were a people group, a heathen nation, located east of the Jordan River, in the area called the Transjordan.
Verse 20
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
And with respect to Og, the king of the Bashan
In both verses 19 and 20 there is a Hebrew letter called lamed that precedes the name of each of the two kings. This is called the “lamed of specification”, and it means “with respect to”. The area called Bashan was also east of the Jordan River, but further north than Amorite territory. It was north of the Jabbok River. You can read about the defeat of these two mighty kingdoms, as well as others, in Numbers 21.
There is a lot of midrash concerning these two Canaanite kings, and some of it is woo-woo, waaaay out there, but I am going to share it with you regardless. First, it is said that both Sihon and Og were the sons of a giant named Achayah ben Shamchazai, both very mighty, but also both very arrogant. Yalkut Simoni says that Sihon was conquered in the month of Elul, the last month of the year. Then, the new year, day of atonement and Sukkot were celebrated, after which Og was vanquished..
It is also believed by some of the sages that Og was the only living human (or Nephilim) to escape the flood outside the Ark. We find this story in Niddah 61a.) As the story goes, Og grabbed onto a gangplank that protruded from the side of the Ark and swore to Noah and his family he would be their slave forever if they would save him. Accordingly, Noah agreed, and then every day he passed rations through a hole he drilled in the ark. There is no record of how Sihon would have survived the Flood, although presumably he was born before the Flood, like the rest of the Nephilim. One theory is that, just prior to the Flood, Achayah ben Shamchazai fornicated with Ham’s wife and that she was pregnant when she boarded the Ark, giving birth to Sihon there. Og and Sihon, then, were exceedingly long-lived. In fact, by the time of Moses, these half-breed dudes, these Rephaim were well over 1000 years old, and Og was said to be between 9 and 13 feet tall. (The Bible says they had to build a special bed over 13 feet long to accommodate him!). See Deuteronomy 3:11.
Where is all of this coming from? These are theories to explain how Nephilim and other giants came to be on the earth after the Great Flood, when most of them were wiped out. In Genesis 6:4, we read
The N’filim were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; these were the ancient heroes, men of renown.
We definitely see references to Nephilim-like races after the Flood. They are called by various names that sound a lot like Nephilim - - Rephaim and Anakim, for instance. Goliath and his four brothers are said by the Jewish sages to be the sons of Orpha. Remember her? The Moabitess who was married to one of Elimilech’s sons? The SIL of Ruth? We see no more references to these races after the time of King David, who presumably wiped them out.
Verse 21
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
And he gave their land for an inheritance
The land possessed by Og and Sihon had not originally been included in the land grant Father Yahweh gave to the Hebrew nation. So, the inclusion of these TransJordanian lands and going up into Syria, represented a gracious kindness, in that He expanded the Israelites’ borders with this annexation.
Verse 22
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
An inheritance for Yisrael His servant
This reiterates the Abrahamic Covenant, which was made with the chosen people, Israel. That land, so hotly contested today, belongs to the Jews, according to Scripture.
Verse 23
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
Who in our abased, lowly state, He remembered (for) us.
What abased state is being referred to here? It could refer to any of the many times Father Yahweh took pity on the oppressed Hebrews. However, one of the sages, Rashi, says that this abased, lowly state refers to their Egyptian captivity, as neither the Assyrian conquest of Israel, nor the Babylonian conquest of Judah, had yet occurred. Another sage, Radak, says this is prophetic, that it reaches into the future to refer to the Jews’ exile from Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of the Temple, shortly after Yeshua’s earthly ministry in 70 CE.
Verse 24
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
And He rescued us from our oppressors/distressers
Again, these tormentors were the Egyptian taskmasters, according to the sages.
Verse 25
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
He is the Giving One of Bread to all flesh
The use of the word “all” here indicates that this verse praises Yahweh because He sustains and gives food to all living things, not just to the nation of Israel. He created what we today call “the food chain”, and he expects us as humans to honor it. This is why I recommend to followers of Yeshua that we eat as He ate, a biblically kosher diet, avoiding animal flesh that was not meant for human consumption. To quote the ArtScroll Tehillim book I’m using for this study: “Thus we understand why the perpetual maintenance of the food cycle is hailed as God’s most awesome and enduring iracle. Every day, infinitive numbers of creatures are provided with their precise nutritional requirements by food of myriad compositions, consistency and flavor.” The Talmud claims that this miracle is on par with the splitting of the Sea of Reeds.
Even Yeshua lauded the Father for His provision when He was teaching His talmudim how to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread....”
Verse 26
In Hebrew:
In literal English:
Cause your arms to be cast up to the God of the heavens
Praise Him, all ye who claim His Name!
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