HEBREW WORD STUDY – JOY COMES IN THE MORNING לבקר  רנה  

Psalms 30:6; “For His anger is but for the moment, His favor is for a lifetime.  Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes in the morning.”

Frankie is a regular on my disability bus.  One day I took Frankie to the cemetery. It was his 69^th wedding anniversary.  However, his wife only made it to their 62^nd anniversary before she passed away from cancer.  Frankie was going to the cemetery where his wife was buried to celebrate their 69^th wedding anniversary together.  It was a time of reminiscing so I let him talk as I flipped my iPod to some romantic music from the 40’s and 50’s. “When Let Me Call You Sweetheart” came up he said he used to sing that song to his sweetheart and then he began to sing in his deep baritone voice.

We made a stop at the florist and I waited as Frankie tottered into the shop. It didn’t take long, the clerk had his dozen roses ready for him and then we made our way to the cemetery.  When we got to the grave site I helped Frankie out of the bus.  As I climbed back into the bus Frankie turned toward me and said, “Play it and turn the volume up.”

I took my iPod and queued it up to Harry James playing:  “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You.”  That was Frankie and his sweetheart’s favorite song. Was it a vision?  I would swear for a moment I saw a Frankie in his twenties slow dancing with a beautiful woman wearing a 40’s style hairdo and gobs of lipstick.

As I watched Frankie visit his sweetheart, I could not help but think of  Psalms 30:6 where we learn that His anger is but for a moment.  The word anger in the Hebrew here is aneph which I explained in an earlier chapter is just an expression of intense emotions, joy, sorrow, anger etc. In Psalms 30:6, I would render aneph as disappointment. His disappointment is but for a moment.  His favor or ratson in Hebrew which delight or pleasure is for a lifetime.  The word lifetime is chayim which is just simply the word life.  I render it as His favor or delight and pleasure is life-giving.

Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes in the morning. Night is ‘erev in Hebrew which is really a reference to the evening. In ancient times evening was always considered a very brief moment between light and darkness. Thus, you had an old expression, “It is just an evening.”  In other words, it will pass quickly.  The next word rendered as tarry is lun which means to lodge. Lodging is a temporary place to sleep not a permanent resident. Weeping or sorrow is just a stopover it is not permanent.

Then joy comes in the morning. The morning, of course, was a symbol of a new beginning when everything is bright and fresh.  There are a number of words in the Hebrew for joy, this one is ranan which in its Semitic root is an archers term for the twanging of a bowstring.  It is the sound that is made when an arrow has been released and the archer can now relax.

As I listened to Frankie tell his stories and lay the flowers by his beloveds’ grave and then as I drove him home and listened to him sing along in his deep baritone voice with Harry James rendition of I Don’t Want to Walk Without You, for the first time I understand the word ranan. Ranan is not so much exuberant joy but just a sense of release, relaxation, and peace.  I sense this little time for Frankie was a morning and he had let that arrow of grief and sorrow fly and now he felt a release, a joy over the memories of the days when he did not walk alone but walked with his beloved and basked in the joy of her ratson, pleasure, and delight.

We walk through the ‘erev with weeping but morning has come, our Savior is by our side ready to walk into the morning with us and his ratson, His pleasure and delight releasing that arrow of weeping and we can feel ranan, a sense of release of our sorrows and  relief as we bask in the ratson or pleasure of the Lord.

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