HEBREW WORD STUDY – AND HE FELL – VAYIPOL ויפל Vav Yod Pei Lamed

Psalms 118:10: “All nations compassed me about, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.”

This passage tells us that David is saying that when he is surrounded by all the nations he will destroy them “in” the name of the Lord.  That preposition is a Beth that is attached to the word shem. The Beth could be rendered as in, on, or with.  No modern English translation that I have read uses the word with except the Living Bible which says “with the authority.” Yet, in reading Jewish literature I find that the Jewish sages use the word with, that is that David will destroy the nations “with” the name of the Lord. 

I understand why our translators will not use the word “with” because that would imply that David will destroy the nations just by speaking the name of God. That, of course, is ridiculous. Nations falling just by speaking the name of God? Such a rendering sounds just too mystical. By why could not nations crumble at the sound of the name of God? He is after all the Creator of all things. Isn’t there something in your heart that would like to believe that God is so powerful that even the mention of his name will cause nations to crumble? The Jewish Midrash Rabbah says; “Knowing God’s name implies knowing how to actually make use of it.” Maybe the reason we do not see that power is that we do not know how to use His Name. 

A recent study showed that the biggest complaint people have about the church in America is that it is not spiritual enough. People want, they long to connect with their Creator in some, shall I say, mystical way? They want to feel His presence, they want to experience His power, they want a mystical experience. I remember as a child listening to Billy Graham speak and something he said clearly sticks in my mind. “God made you for Himself.”  Think about it, we were made for God. He created us to love us and then gave us a free will to choose to love Him in return. He could have created us like an android and programmed us to love Him, but that is not where the true joy of love comes from.  I remember as a pastor doing some premarital counseling for a young couple. I remember the young woman saying about her future bridegroom: “I am just absolutely amazed that of all the women in the world, it is me that he loves. He chose to love me.” It is one thing to love someone, but if they love you in return, that is what makes it’s special. 

God created us, He gave us free will, but He also loves us with an everlasting love, it is our choice if we love Him in return. The amazing thing is that if we choose to love Him in return, we feel a special rightness about it, like that missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle of our life is finally in place. That is why I ask you again, isn’t there something deep inside of you that wants to believe that the mere mention of the name of God when used properly and correctly will bring down giants? 

Some years ago, I was trying to find a passage of Scripture to study that I could put up on my blog. Normally, something pops up very quickly that quickens my spirit and I know and recognize the Spirit of God directing me to my study for the day. However, this day nothing was coming up. So, just out of boredom I decided to play around with some translating. 

You see, the Masoretic text which is used by the translator for all our major Bible Translation actually came about some 700 years after the birth of Christ.  The Masoretic text put a mathematical formula to the Hebrew so to speak.  It added vowels that were not in the original inspired text.  It also helped create a more detailed and scientific grammar. However, the Masoretic text is not the inspired word of God. Check the Torah Scrolls and you will find what we believe is the inspired word of God. The Torah scrolls have no vowels, just consonants.  In fact, the original text had no chapter, verse, or word divisions.  The sages teach the whole Torah is one word. Tradition and familiarity with the text determine where a word begins and ends and what vowels to use. 

Just to relieve the boredom, I decided to play around with the original text, less the complex grammatical rules developed long after the text was written, and see if I could come up with an alternative rendering for the popular story of David and Goliath in I Samuel 17:49.

Ok, here is a mystical experience.  I Samuel 17 tells us the story of David defeating Goliath.  We all know the story, he went to the brook, chose five smooth stones and used one of them to kill Goliath with his slingshot, and then chopped off his head. I took a very close look at this story and found that the words used in I Samuel 17:49 which is rendered in our KJV as: “And David put his hand in his bag and took thence a stone and slang (it), and smote the Philistine in his forehead that the stone sunk into his forehead, and he fell upon his face to the earth.”

Now I have a few problems with the syntax of this translation but it is an accepted translation. Using the wide range of meanings from the Hebrew words I came up with an alternative rendering: “And from the Name, David made words with power and clapped his hands and sent the words to the mockery of the Philistine, slandering it.  And he sent out the strength (of the words) upon him and the power penetrated his mockery and he fell to earth.”

In other words, a deeper understanding of this story could be that David did not kill Goliath with the stone in the forehead.  The passage could be telling us that David clapped his hands and spoke the name of God sending out a power that overcame Goliath such that he fell under this power and while under this power, David lopped off Goliath’s head and killed him.  

I would probably have every Christian Hebrew teacher throwing salt in the air if they ever read this, but I just wanted to use this as an example to demonstrate the power of God’s name if we could really learn to use it properly. It may be why to this day no one really knows the proper pronunciation of God’s Name.

I do believe that any giants that come into our lives will fall at the sound of that Name. Perhaps God is saving this in reserve for the very last days when Christians will need it.

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