HEBREW WORD STUDY – CHILDLIKE – PATAH פתה  Pei Taw Hei

Psalms 116:6: “The Lord preserves the simple, I was brought low and He helped me.”

Psalm 116 was written after God delivered him from those who were seeking his life while he was on the run from King Saul.  He is saying that God preserved  him. The word preserve in Hebrew is shamar which is to watch over, take heed or to put a hedge or a wall of protection.  

God will do this protecting for the simple. Who are the simple? It is the word pathi which has a wide range of meanings as demonstrated by the different renderings in our modern English Translations.  The NIV calls them the unwary (whatever that is), NLB says those of childlike faith.  The Berean Study Bible says the simplehearted, CSB says the inexperienced, ISV, it is the innocent, Net calls them the untrained, God’s Word says the defenseless and the Douay Bible says little ones.

Some commentators say this is a reference to children who are innocent, inexperienced and untrained and cannot protect themselves.  The Talmud in Sanhedrin 110b says that it is a reference to children of the wicked who merit the Word to Come and need the protection of God because the wicked will not guide their children spiritually.  Sort of like the age of accountability as we call it in our Baptist circles. Isa 7:16: “For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good…”  There is a point where a child understands the different between that which is in harmony with God and that which is not and before the child reaches that point he is not held accountable before God. 

The word pathi comes from the root word patah which means a fool or one who is easily seduced. Some one who is vulnerably minded, that is someone who is easily conned as we say today, a mark. Someone who is gullable to those emails from the Nigerian prince. It is that trusting person who is easily deceived.  It is that parent of the drug addict who continually believes the child when he says he will never do it again.  A patah is that person that just breaks your heart because they are so vulnerable to the wicked in the world. These are the ones that David says God is protecting because he believes that he himself is a patah.  He has trusted people who stabbed him in his back.  He believed King Saul when King Saul supposedly repented.  He had such simple childlike naivete that as a youth he went up against a giant with no more than a sling and a stone believing that God would shamar, watch over him – which God did by the way.

Because of his childlike trust in the world and others David says he was brought low.  Practically all modern translations use that expression brought low, but that is an English idiom. What does it mean to be brought low?  When we say we are brought low we are saying we have run out of options, we are at our wits end.  Some translations will say helpless, or in danger, humbled or even weak.  There are two possible root words for this Hebrew word daloti rendered as being brought low.  One could be dalal which means to be dried up, reduced to poverty or impoverished.  The root word could also be dalah which means a swinging bucket like a bucket swinging over a well.  That bucket is helpless and under the control of the operator. In our modern idiom we would say we are left hanging.  That idea originated from hanging clothes on a clothes line in the backyard to dry. It was abandoned to the elements.  When we say we are left hanging, it means we are abandoned. People make promises to us and then when we act based upon those promises but the promises get broken and we are left hanging so to speak.   I believe that is the best definition of daloti.  David trusted people and they left him hanging, hanging out to dry that is left on his own to face the elements and the wicked, yet, God was there to protect him. 

Do you ever feel that way, people have broken promises, let you done, left you in the lurch?  David knew what that was like, he was like a naïve little child, a little lamb as he calls himself at times, trusting and then being stabbed in the back. Yet, he had the assurance that despite his innocent nature, God was watching shamar over him, God had his back, just like you can be assured God has your back.