Hebrew word study –Because You Are With Me – ki ‘atah ‘imadi  כי אתה עמדי  kap yod, aleph taw hei,   ayin mem daleth yod

Psalms 23:4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

“For thou art with me.”  Did you ever stop to meditate on those simple words and its implications?  I mean this is absolutely awesome. In fact, of all that the wonderful, glorious words we find in the 23rd Psalm, I believe none are more profound and wonderful as “thou art with me.”  Think about it, God the universe. The Creator of all things.  Billions of stars and planets in this universe and the earth is just one little speck of dust and on that earth are 7.9 billion other people like you and yet we dare to say that this God is with each of us personally? 

Our finite minds immediately think, “Surely, God does not have the time to spend with me with such a vast creation.”  Right away, that thought has a major, fatal flaw, God doesn’t need time, He is the creator of time, He does not exist in time.  We could say He is not only the creator of the universe but he is the creator of universes.  He has created a special universe just around you and you alone.  It is just you and He in that universe which has the ability to interact with other universes, yet in your universe there only exist God and you.  He handles each universe, each person differently and personally.  There is just no other way to explain those cryptic words ki ‘atah ‘imadi – because you are with me.   

“With me” is the word imadi from the root word  ‘imad which Strongs lists as a preposition which can be rendered as against, by, from, me, mine, of, that I take, unto. How do we know which preposition to use?  Whatever fits the context.  We will fear no evil because “you are against me?”  Nope, that doesn’t work.  How about “You are by me.”  That works. Suppose we say “You are from me.”  I would say that is a little too pretentious.  We might say “you are me.” No, I don’t think so.  How about: “I will fear no evil for you are mine.”  Whoo! I like. Let’s come back to that one.  Let’s see what else do we have “you are of me.”  No that is too one-sided.  Hey, how about this one: “You are unto me.”  A little awkward but you get a solid point. 

Let’s check some Jewish sources like Rabbi Samson Hirsch the 19th Century linguist and Hebrew master.  He teaches that ‘imad’s general meaning is to stand in preparation to act. Now we are really getting somewhere.  “I will fear no evil for thou art standing in preparation to act.” He is like that Secret Service Agent who is always on alert, focused on nothing more than protecting his charge. He is ready, skilled, and able to act appropriately if he even suspects the hint of danger to his assignment.

Let’s dive a little deeper into this word ‘imad.  We will fear no evil because He is ‘imad – “sustaining us.”  Again, this is another use of ‘imad given to us by Rabbi Hirsch.  Rabbi Hirsch also sees the word rising from ‘imad.  We will fear no evil because God is rising. How about that one.  Oh, but I love this one from Rabbi Hirsch on ‘imad, We will fear no evil because God is giving us strong support. This one, however, gives me chills. We will fear no evil because God is stationed by our side. I associate this as “he is mine.”  We are His priority, His primary concern.  These all tell us more than just the fact that He is with us. He is ours, a personal bodyguard whose whole focus is on our welfare. But even more than that, He is supporting us and sustaining us.  

Is that really all?  Well, let’s look at the evolution (I’m sorry does that word offend you, I guess I need to be a little more woke) of this word ‘imad. This comes from the Akkadian language and was used for a warrior who was standing guard or leaning against something, sometimes a comrade who is wounded and needs to support him and keep him from falling. In ancient battles, once you fall, I mean that is it, there is no getting up.  You need a good buddy to keep you standing until moved out of harm’s way.  Thus, we will fear no evil for God is standing guard over us, leaning against us to support us if we are wounded, and will keep us standing so we do not fall in battle. 

The word also came into the Persian language and was used for being persistent in maintaining the value of something.  Now that is very comforting. The enemy loves to get us to sin because once we do, we feel guilty. We feel we have lost value to God.  Mixed up in those feelings is that the sense that we have somehow lost our value to God when we sin.  How many times have I said, we all said, to God after we failed: “God I sure don’t deserve an answer to any prayers.  I certainly do not deserve to be blessed.”  But then God answers our prayers anyways, He still blesses us because we have not been devalued in His eyes. We are just as important and precious to Him as we were before we went astray. 

I am personally convinced there are no more precious, profound words than ki ‘atah ‘imadi because you are with me. The word fear‘yara’  which leads into this prepositional phrase is in an imperfect form.  This preposition ‘imadi would grammatically follow the infliction from this verb yara’ which is why translators add the state of being verb “are”.  There is no state of being verbs in Hebrew nor are their tenses and we must decide which state of being verb and which tense to use and which would fit grammatically.  So, we follow this precise rule that the imperfect infliction of the verb will follow with the prepositional phrase, and thus it will be reflected in the English as either present or future tense. Grammatically we would say thou art with me. 

However, grammar is not the only clue.  I used to joke with my first-year Hebrew students that in the first semester we would learn all the rules of grammar and in the second semester, we would learn all the exceptions to the rules.  That was not far from the truth. One thing that brings out an exception to a rule is the context. One common occurrence, particularly with David, is that we may read a verse that says: “The Lord has destroyed my enemies.”  The word destroyed in Hebrew may be found in a perfect infliction which means a completed action. A completed action would be rendered in a past tense in English as the action is complete, over, and done with.  Yet the context clearly says that the enemies are still out there.  Thus, we find an exception to the rule of the perfect infliction. Some Hebrew teachers would call it a future perfect.  To speak of an action as if it already occurred yet hasn’t. 

I believe the words ki ‘atah ‘imadi calls for an exception to the rule. The Lord has not only been with us, He is present with us and will forever always be with us. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it next time you travel through the hood. Unless you are Baptist and don’t smoke so just put that in the index page of your King James Scofield Reference Bible.   A lot of Christian are living in fear today over the future and we need those words ki ‘atah’imadi more than ever. We fear what will happen with politics, our country, our economy, the rise of another plague, and oh so many things steal our joy.  But those simple words ki ‘atah ‘imadi will stop the enemy in his tracks.  The only weapon he has are his lies and if you believe that God is ki ‘atah ‘imadi you will call the enemy for what he is – a liar and we will no longer walk in fear. 

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