HEBREW WORD STUDY – HIS WORD – DAVARO דברו   Daleth Beth Resh Vav

Psalms 107:19-20: “Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses. (2) He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered [them] from their destructions.”

We read these verses and the first thought we have and what we are taught is that the Word of God is the Bible. Well, what Bible?  There was no Bible during the time of David.  The Apostle Paul says in Romans 10:17 “So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” I mean Paul was writing the Bible at this time, so what is the Word of God that he is referring to?  

It is uncertain that the Old Testament was canonized before the time of Jesus.  Scholars argue that the 24 books of the Tanach or Old Testament was not fixed until 140-40 BC, forty years before Jesus walked the earth. There are some who argue that it was not fixed until 100 years after Jesus walked the earth. This is even supported by the Jews. So, was the Word of God that is spoke of by David the written Word?  Was this what he meditated on day and night as we learn in Psalms 1?

During my years of Bible college and Seminary we learned much about the canonization (official recognition) of the New Testament as the inspired Written Word of God, but virtually nothing about the canonization of the Old Testament. It was almost virtually overlooked.  So, I really have to go to Jewish sources to find when even the Torah was first written down.  That is sketchy as well but the belief among orthodox Jews according to the Talmud in Baba Batra 15a and Menachot 30a is that before Moses there were traditions, rituals and stories that were passed down through oral traditions. Exodus 24:4 seems to suggest that when Moses went to the mountain he presented the people with the Book of Genesis and part of Exodus up to the event at which he was standing.  “And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD,” Moses most likely has a few scrolls in his possession from more ancient times which were the written record of Oral Tradition.  There was obviously a lot of editing of the manuscripts. This doesn’t make it any less a Divine work of God.  God can work with editors and probably preferred some editing. Ok, that is my liberal Biblical higher criticism talking, but I am persuaded the final work was exactly as God wanted it, inspired, inerrant and infallible. God used fallible men to create his infallible written Word.  I know that is not what the higher critics would say.  But, like Spinoza the father of Biblical criticism believed that God is an object, a passive state who was not concerned about the world and would not communicate with man, hence as the father of Biblical criticism you can guess what role his “children would take. This lead to Julius Wellhausen of the Graf Wellhausen theory of higher criticism in the 19th Century who was fascinated by the idea of history like any scholar in his century and that meant Hegel.  Everything had to happen progressively through conflict of social dynamics, thesis – antithesis – synthesis which moved man closer to enlightenment and, of course, the Bible had to fit that 19th Century progressive mold. 

K.A. Kitchen who is one of the foremost scholars of antiquity  in the 20th Century (still alive at 95) was professor of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool and wrote the definitive work that totally destroyed Julius’s theory of higher criticism by using Archeological discoveries that were not known during the time of Wellhausen.

So, I feel confident that there was a written record of the Torah or first five books of the Bible during the time of David.  Which brings me to the question, is this the Word of God that David and Biblical characters speak about. Perhaps.

His Word in Hebrew is devaro which means to speak but in its Semitic origins which include the Persian, Akkadain, Ugaritic and other Semitic languages the meaning is quite broad and basically has the idea of guiding, directing in a personal and intimate way.  

There are people all over the world who do not have a Bible, yet they have a personal relationship with God.  They experienced God’s Word or His devaro, his leading, his prompting his guidance.  My brother was a Bible Translator with Wycliffe Bible Translators and translated the Bible into the Amanda language of a village tribe in Papua New Guinea.  After learning befriending them, learning their language and leading them to the Lord one villager told him one evening as they were sitting under the stars reflecting on the majesty of God. “You know, Andy, I prayed to your God that He would send someone to teach us about Him and then you came.”  These people had no one to tell them about God, yet they knew Him and even gave their hearts to Him before they ever received a written Word. 

We must be clear in what we mean by the Word of God. Are we referring to the written, inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God or are we referring to the davaro that is not written, His creation, His heart’s promptings, His personal revelation as with these villagers that my brother ministered to who followed their hearts revelation as people of the Old Testament followed, as the Gentiles of the Old Testament, Rahab, Naaman and so many others who followed the revelation that God gave them. 

It is not unusual to find a believer in a third world nation or even here in the Western world who were brought to a saving knowledge of God through the personal revelation that God sent them. Then they encounter a believer like you and me who open up God’s infallible, inspired and inerrant Written Word to them and they say: “Yeah, I already knew that, His book now confirms it.”  

Helen Keller was born a blind, deaf mute.  Eventually a dedicated teacher was able to communicate with her. A servant of God was introduced to  Hellen Keller when she was an adult. He communicated the message of Jesus Christ to her.  She signed back to him: “Yes, I know all about Him.”  God communicates with all mankind and His Written Word confirms His communication.

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