HEBREW WORD STUDY – A SHIELD – GANAN  גנן  Gimmel Nun Nun

“Psalms 18:2: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust.”

I remember my uncle telling me of the day he landed on Omaha Beach during the D-Day Invasion of WWII.  He was in the second wave that hit the shore. Both he and his squad ran from the landing craft, onto the beach and started running toward the hill when someone up front touched off a land mine.  Suddenly, just for an instant, everyone froze.   Their purpose, their duty, and their mission were to move forward.  At that moment, that didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.  An officer behind them instantly  shouted, “Move.”   Just as quickly as they paused, they began their run to the hill again.  They really had no choice, they could not go back, they could not just stand there and even though moving forward was not their dream date, it was the only game in town.

This Psalm was written after God delivered David from the hand of Saul.  David must have felt himself in similar situations, he could not retreat, he could not move to his left or right and he certainly just could not stand there, but moving forward was not such an appealing option.  

Do you ever get the feeling that as you seek to move forward in your relationship with God,  you are also advancing toward the stronghold of the enemy?   You are  filled with the fire of the Lord, you move forward until a land mine goes off.  You freeze and begin to think that maybe it is not so bad just making camp where you are at.  You can’t go back, to advance forward runs a risk of another land mine,  so you’ve been thinking the best thing to do is dig a hole in the sand and stick your head in it. 

David discovered that in such a time, God was his “rock”  The word for rock here is sale’i  This is a rock that serves as a shelter.  To David, the Lord was a rock a  sale’i that he could hide behind in his advance forward.  

That is wonderful and I am sure many of us could sure use a sale’ i  right now, but just how do you get behind it.  The word itself has a built-in commentary and tells you how.   The word is spelled Samek which represents a shelter that comes through the Lamed which indicates prayer and through this Lamed or prayer you will receive the Ayin which is spiritual insight or discernment. When we are faced with moving forward for God we need to pray for spiritual insight. 

We find that David also found God to be a fortress, the Hebrew word that is used here is ‘aved which means to hold captive as well as a stronghold.  Anyone who has had a prison ministry knows that it is just as difficult to get into prison as it is for someone to escape.  So too is God a prison for us.  We can’t get out and no one can get in to get at us.  The next word is a poetic contrast.  It is palesh which can mean to deliver.  In its Semitic root form, it has the idea of escaping.  That is the irony of his situation, by being held captive in God we can escape the captivity of the enemy.  Then David says that God is his strength. There are a number of words in Hebrew used for strength. David stays with his motif by using the Hebrew word sur which means a rock but this is a cutting type rock, a rock used as knife.  It comes from a Semitic root meaning to advance forward by cutting your way through like cutting your way through a heavy brush.  Perhaps you could say that the Lord is our machete.  The word sur is spelled Sade, Vav, and Resh and these letters explain that the Lord will be our cutting tool when we humble (Sade) ourselves and connect (Vav) with the Holy Spirit (Resh).  

Finally, David says that the lord is our shield.  That is in Hebrew, ganan. Ganan is a covering.  That is what a shield does, it covers us as we advance forward.   That sounds great, but once again, how do I get this shield?   By looking at the root word we find it is spelled  Gimmel, Nun, Nun.  This combination of letters suggests that you are running or advancing in faith and trust.  Indeed, Paul even talks about faith being our shield.  We certainly may not want to advance, We may be very afraid of those land mines, but suddenly you hear a voice behind you saying “Move” and so move you must, but the thing about moving is that once you move as the Gimmel is advancing forward, the two Nuns of faith and trust suddenly arises and you have a ganan for shield. 

There is a story in the book of Judges about a military commander named Gideon who was terrified to move forward into battle against the Midianites.  He needed faith to go against the Midianites and God gave him that faith.  But to get that faith he had to go into the Midianite camp, advance forward into that which he feared most before God gave Him the sign that strengthened his faith.  The first step in strengthening your faith is to advance in the faith that you have.  God gives you enough faith to take that first step and then supplies what you need as you keep moving forward. 

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