Firm And Steady Hearts

“He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid.” – Psalm 112:7-8

The condition of the righteous man’s heart is described here with two similar words. The word translated “firm” is Hebrew kuwn, used over 200 times in the Old Testament, meaning literally “to stand upright,” establish, set up. The word translated “steady” is Hebrew camak, a rarer word, meaning “to place or lay upon something, so that it may rest upon or be supported by it.” If you trace the 49 times it occurs in the Bible, for a long time you read about the laying of hands, by a priest on an animal, by a leader to his successor. You read about Samson, leaning with all his weight onto pillars on either side. Finally, you read about how the psalmists lean on God, who sustains (3:5) and upholds (37:17, 51:12, 54:4, 145:14). And this gem in Isaiah 26:3: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed [camak] on you, because he trusts in you.”

It’s almost as if the second word is an elaboration of the first. This man’s heart is established, not by his own doing or strength, but because he is leaning on God. There is an implication here that we live in a world teeming with the threat of bad news, and the natural thing is to let fear seep in, to be unstable in the interior world of our thoughts, feelings, being. The fear of bad news is often at the root of our anxiety, our inability to wait, our withdrawal, our confusion. What would your life look like if you were never afraid of bad news?

That would be more than mere imperturbability: it would be a perfect peace. But look carefully: it is God who keeps us in perfect peace: our part is to keep our mind stayed on him. When you lean on something, you put all your hopes on it. It is the priest putting all his hopes on the animal sacrifice to atone for the sins of his people. It is Moses committing his hopes for his people onto Joshua. It is Samson placing one last hope at the end of his life onto two pillars. It is the living out of trust. What we lean on is what we actually trust.

Psalm 112 is an acrostic poem, each line beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. There is a kind of liturgy the author follows, in tracing through the familiar, unchanging pattern of the alphabet the truths he knows about God and how the man who fears him is blessed. I’ve been sorting through a lot of news lately, some of it bad. I feel the inner landscape of my thoughts and feelings shifting all the time. But into the change shines these verses, like an anchor of light dawning in the darkness (verse 4). There are a lot of things we can’t lean on, not really, in this world: our jobs, children, health, parents, possessions, minds, talent. But we can lean on God. And He can keep us in perfect peace.