Psalms 12:1: “To the chief Musician upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David. Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.”

The word sheminith means the eighth and is believed to refer to the eight cords or strings of the harp in The Sanctuary. I was reading about this in various Christian commentaries that pass this off as nothing more than a musical instrument in the Sanctuary and move on as if it bore no significance.  Yet, this is Bible, every word, every letter is inspired of God and surely God did not put this little item in here to just take up space.  There had to be a purpose for mentioning the eight cords or strings of the harp in this passage.

I ran across something very interesting this morning while I was reading in the Talmud in Arakin 13b.  According the Rabbi Ben Bag Bag (I’m not making this up) the harp of the Sanctuary had only seven cords or strings. If the harp has only seven strings why does this passage mention eight cords or strings?  According to Rabbi Ben Bag Bag the harp with eight strings will be played during the Messianic days. Somehow from Psalms 92:4 he discerns that the harp played in the world to come, which is in heaven, will have ten strings.

The passage does not say that this is to be sung or played upon the Sheminith but it says that it is to be according to the Sheminith.  According to the days of the Messianic period.  In other words David is making a plea to the time of the Messiah.  More specifically I believe he is making a plea to the Messiah Himself.  At the risk of rabbis throwing salt at me I wish to proceed in a Christian context here. There are many different interpretations on this so I will just throw my personal interpretation out there and let any who wish to go ahead and tear it apart. This is just a pondering.

David is making a plea to God for help.  The word help is hoshiah, yep this word is from the same root as Yeshua. Boy, I can hear the rabbis now, “I’ll bring the tar, you bring the feathers and we’ll ride this Chaim Bentorah fellow out on a rail.”  So on my way out I would like just to make a few comments.

I believe David is calling on the Messiah – Jesus and is literally saying that the godly man ceases.  In the Hebrew a godly man is the word chasad or righteous. It is the righteous man that ceases.  The word ceases is gamar which means to attempt some task, carry it to the very end and at the end you have failed. Trying to live a righteous life through your own strength always ends up in gamar failure.  Then he says that the faithful fail.  The word for faithful comes from the root word amen which means steadfastness, firmness. Even those who are firmly planted in their beliefs and determination to serve God will fail.  That word for fail in the Hebrew is from the root word pasas which means to disappear or vanish.  It comes from an old Phoenician word meaning to scatter. Let’s say you have a group of soldiers standing firm ready to fight when all of a sudden they see an overwhelming army where it is obvious that they stand about as much chance as a snow ball in summer time of getting out alive and then someone shouts, “Run for your life, every man for himself.” Pasas takes place as everyone who was so firmly planted to begin with, sudden takes off and vanishes.

What I believe David is saying here is that no matter how determined you are to live a righteous life and to stand firm in your faith, it just ain’t gonna work.  You will end up in failure. Only through the work of the Messiah, Jesus Christ will you be able to live the righteous life and stand firm in your faith.

That would take place in another 1,040 years for David and has taken place 2,000 years ago for us.  However, God does not live in time. He lives outside of time.  David did not have wait 1,040 years to partake of the Messianic benefits.  On a spiritual level outside of our timeline where God exist the Messiah Jesus was already there and ready to offer the benefits of his sacrifice. On a natural level you are stuck in a time warp where you have to muddle through sun up and sunsets, but according the Einstein, time is relative, he proved it.

So when David said to offer this prayer upon Sheminith he was telling the chief musician, this is a prayer which can only be answered during the time of Messiah, but since God lives outside time, let’s take advantage of it now.