Hebrew Word Study – A Thorn in the Flesh – Yagun יגון  Yod Gimmel Vav Final Nun

Are You A Lame Horse?

Psalms 31:10, “For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.”

Did you ever do something wrong either intentional or unintentionally, a mistake or make a bad decision?  Then you just agonize over it.  People tell you: “Hey just forget it, move on.”  In fact, they are annoyed with you that you will not move on. But you can’t and it even begins to affect your work. You still keep beating yourself up over your mistake and you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. I think that would describe the Hebrew word yagun. 

David is saying that his life is filled with grief.  Some translations say it is filled with pain, others say sorrow, another will say misery.  There is a difference in our English language between grief, pain, sorrow, and misery.  You can be in pain when you hit your thumb with a hammer, but you may not be in grief.  You can be in misery without sorrow or grief.  By why split hairs, David is saying he is feeling just crappy. He is saying that his life is spent in grief. This is just not a one-time event, it is a lifelong event. We learn further in this verse that it is due to some iniquity. Some commentators say that he is referring to just his sinful nature, but I don’t think so.  We don’t usually get so depressed over our sinful nature.  This has to be some sin in his past that still haunts him.  

The word grief here in Hebrew is yagun.  As indicated it has a number of different translations it is either, misery, sorrow or pain and all are correct although each tends to mean something a little different.  When you trace this word to its Semitic root you find that it comes from an ancient Persian word used to describe a horse that has pain in his foot such that it makes the horse lame from a thorn in its flesh.  A lame horse is useless for performing any work or function.  This lameness can be caused by something simple as a thorn or a small blister or sore on the hoof. David is saying that from taking counsel in his own soul he has become useless, he is so crippled by his sorrow that he cannot function or perform any work. Somewhere there is some sin, mistake, error in judgment in David’s life that just keeps coming back to haunt him. Even though it is forgiven, the enemy will still keep bringing this back to his mind such that it has a crippling effect.

In I Corinthians 12:7-10  Paul talks of a thorn as his flesh.  It is some sin in his background and although God has forgiven him, it still keeps haunting him when he seeks counsel in his soul. He calls it a messenger of Satan.  God has forgiven him, cleansed him from the most horrendous sins and yet, Satan will bring back this little memory, will send him a message, “Hey, Paul, look at you, you are a mass murderer.  This family that you are fellowshipping with right now, you killed their father, their son, or dear friend just because of their belief in Jesus.  Yes, Paul, they hate you, they will not accept you, they will never forgive you for such a crime.”   Poor Paul sits there and scratches his head and says, “You know, you’re right, perhaps I should just sidestep Corinth here as there are too many bad memories.”

Like Paul and David, even though God has forgiven you, the enemy can still bring up the past to haunt you to the point where you cannot even serve God. We all have our personal yaguns, you cannot make it through life without them.  We all make mistakes, we all sin, maybe we are not the mass murderer like Paul or have so much blood on our hands like David that God would not allow him to build a temple in His honor, but we have enough iniquities that the enemy can sneak in, maybe even through a dream, cripple us or make us lame like that poor horse.  A mighty, powerful, well-trained horse can be brought down by a simple thorn and would be unable to work. 

We don’t go to a worship service seeking the presence of God so we can have a moment of feel-good to get a spiritual rush.  We go to worship God and feel His presence to defeat this thorn in our flesh, this yagun.  For when we feel the sweet presence of God we are reminded that our failures, our sins, our iniquities were nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago. For if it were not forgiven, God would not come near us with His presence.  Thus, when the enemy comes and says, “Who do you think you are to seek God and share the love of Jesus with that person with all your iniquities?”  You can turn right around and say, “Satan, you’re a liar, those iniquities were nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago and I stand pure before the God I love and I can feel His presence as a reminder that I have been forgiven. 

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