HEBREW WORD STUDY – IN THE HEART OF JEHOVAH – BEBEYETH YAHOAH  בבית יהוה

Psalms 23:6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

“I guess I should be looking, for a better place to live,

But I can’t seem to get excited, about the world and what it can give,  

I couldn’t care less if I could buy it all

With a solitary dime, For what good would a world do me

With leaving on my mind. 

Rusty Goodman wrote these words just a few months before he died of cancer.  Fixing the old house he was living in, didn’t matter when he knew he would be moving into a new house, the house of the Lord. Lionel Harris made the comment that “Leavin On My Mind” is his most requested song to sing at His Christian concerts.  I have met many Christians who have to leave on their minds, I too am one of those Christians.  No, it is not the morbid wanting this life to end, but it is that longing to be in the presence of Jesus.  To just leave this world behind and enter into His heart.  The more you long to be with Jesus, the less you care about this world and what it can give. 

David was so near to the heart of God, that he could very well relate to the lyrics of Rusty Goodman.  No doubt David wrote this Psalm as a young shepherd boy, with his whole life ahead of him, and yet he so long to be with the God he loved that he had leaving on his mind.

Practically every English translation will translate that last phrase as “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Yet, this is not the standard Hebrew word for “forever.” We are automatically assuming that the house of the Lord is referring to heaven where we will live forever. It was this verse that I was discussing with an orthodox rabbi who simply shook his head and said: “You Christians do not understand the heart of David.”  

It was then I realized why the word le’orek rather than olam is used in this passage.  Both mean forever, but le’orek followed by yomim simply means for a length of time. Before this David says that goodness which is tov or to be in harmony with God, and mercy which in this context means to be sheltered in the heart of God, will follow him all the days of his life.  The word “followed” is radapa.  This is in a Piel form which would have the idea of being pursued, chased or sought after. In other words, God is chasing after us to be in harmony with Him and have our hearts joined with Him. We don’t have to beg and plead with Him to be joined with him, we just have to stop running away from Him in pursuit of our own ways. It is interesting the word radapa to chase or pursue has a numerical value of 284.  The phrase: “for his mercies endure forever” also have a numerical value of 284.  

When David says that “Surely goodness and mercy will chase after me all my days, “he is admitting that he is running away from God.  He then says, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord for a length of days.”  In that, he is saying that he will stop running away from God, let God’s goodness and mercy catch up with him and then he will dwell in “the house” of the Lord for the rest of his days.  Note he is speaking of his life on earth, not heaven. Heaven does not exist in time, there are no yoms days in heaven. Length of days refers to an earthly natural existence. The word house is byith which has a broad range of meanings and is metaphorically a reference to one’s heart as a dwelling place. To fit the poetic flow of this Psalm it would be appropriate to render this as: “I will dwell in the heart of Jehovah for all my days.” To David, it was not enough to dwell in the presence of God, he wanted to dwell in the heart of God. 

So when David had leaving on the mind, he wasn’t thinking of dying and going to heaven, he was thinking about leaving this world and it’s problems behind and escaping into the heart of God.  After ten years of searching for the heart of God I have found as Rusty Goodman wrote:

Lately, all I’ve got is leaving on the mind,

Seems that’s all I’m thinking about

Most of the time, 

But soon and very soon 

I will leave this old world behind.

Lately, I’ve got leaving, leaving on my mind. -Rusty Goodman-