Hebrew Word Study – My Shadow – Tsalal צלל  Sade Lamed Lamed

Is God Your Shadow?

Psalms 121:5: “The LORD is your keeper; The LORD is your shade at your right hand.”

Me and my shadow
We’re closer than pages that stick in a book
We’re closer than ripples that play in a brook
Strolling down the avenue
Wherever you find him, you’ll find me, just look
Closer than a miser or the bloodhounds?   Lyrics by Frank Sinatra 

Many years ago, there was an old Vaudeville melancholy song that came out of Tin Pan Alley which expressed loneliness called Me and My Shadow.  The song end with: “All alone and feeling blue.”  Frank Sinatra took this song, teamed up with Sammy Davis Jr., and rewrote the lyrics to express a close friendship. He transformed a song that used the image of a shadow as loneliness into what it actually does and that is to mimic one’s movements.

When I read this Psalm I could not help but think of this song. Where “me and my shadow” is grammatically incorrect (should be my shadow and I) so is this verse grammatically incorrect to render the Hebrew word tsalal as shade when it should really be translated as shadow.  You will find every English translation translates this as shade or protection which is what a shadow does but a shadow does something even more basic which is why no translator will translate this as shadow.  To translate this as shadow is to say that God mimics us.  How dare we suggest that the God of the universe just mimics our behavior?  We are to mimic His behavior.

Well, if Frank Sinatra can transform an old melancholy song about loneliness into one which celebrates a close friendship by using the basic image of a shadow why cannot I do the same with a Bible verse to express a close friendship with God.  

What does a shadow do?  It mimics our movements. I move my hand, my shadow moves the hand. I jump up and down my shadow jumps up and down. We often say that a student will shadow his teacher. In other words, he will imitate his teacher’s behavior. When one admires someone they will act like that person and dress like that person. It is said the greatest form of flattery is when someone tries to mimic you or imitate you. There were many young entrepreneurs who wear a blank turtle neck sweaters like Steve Jobs because they admire him and his success and want to be like him. 

Yesterday I discussed the fact that when we worship in song, we cause God to sing to us.  When we tell God how much love Him, does He just sit back and say; “That’s nice.”  Imagine if a young woman tells a young man that she loves him and he responds by saying; “That’s nice.”  Of course, she is wanting him to mimic her and say that He also loves her.  If we tell God we love Him does it not stand to reason that He will whisper back to you: “I love you.”  When we sing praises to God would He not sing right back to us?  

We stand in church during a worship service with our hands raised saying; “I love you, Lord, I praise you, I adore you.”  If we are God’s creation and He has cleansed us by the blood of His own Son, how can we not say that He responds to us by saying; “I love you, I praise and I adore you.”  

I personally will walk off the reservation on this verse and will not translate it as “The Lord is my shade” but use the proper English word, which also means shade, but is not limited to shade. I will use the word shadow.  A shadow responds to your movements. If God is your shadow then if He gives you a gift, do you not long to give Him a gift in return?  If he shows his love to you in some special way, will you not respond in love to Him?  

Now if God is your shadow then if you give a gift to Him, will he not want to give you a gift of like-kind?  Try it out sometime.  If you go out of your way to show kindness to a stranger, doesn’t a kindness come to you in return shortly thereafter?  

Frank Sinatra took the image of a shadow to show his close friendship with Sammy Davis Jr.  as they sang his version of the song, “where they find him, they will find me.”  Can people say that of you?  Where they find you they find God.  God is not just your friend, He is your shadow, He will follow you wherever you go and when you offer Him an act of love He will, like a good shadow, return that act of love to you.  A shadow is not an image of loneliness, it is an image of a friend that sticketh closer than a brother Proverbs 18:24.

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