So, I read this in the Psalms and, frankly, I find it puzzling. Maybe you wise readers can come up with a helpful suggestion to aid my understanding.
Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with men who do iniquity; and do not let me eat of their delicacies (Psa 141:4) (NASB)."Well," some might say, "that's what you get for reading a modern translation. Take a look at an older version."
Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties. (KJV)Yeah, that's not much better. Newer translations say something like, "Do not let my heart incline to any evil," but you won't find that in any of the literal translations. No, David here prays that God would not incline David's heart to evil.
My first thought was, "Huh?" I know ... deep thinker ... that's me. I though it was kind of like my wife asking me, "Please don't flap your arms and fly up onto the roof today." Okay, dear. Because, of course, I cannot. But that wasn't right. It isn't that God cannot. So it was more like "will not." My wife, for instance, has never had sauerkraut in the house -- ever. It would be like when she says, "What would you like for dinner?" I would answer, "Anything but sauerkraut." What nonsense! Sauerkraut has never been on the menu. There was no reason that it couldn't be, but it never was. To me, David asking God not to incline his heart to evil was very similar. It would be like David asking, "Please, God, train my hand for war (Psa. 144:1) and, oh, when I go to battle, please don't let the enemy use elephants." Huh? Of course they won't use elephants in war. They didn't do that then. It was outside of the realm of reality in David's day. So the request didn't make sense to me.
Is David saying that God has the capability to and actually has inclined people to evil? Is he saying that God does that at times and "please don't do it to me right now"? The "God is a gentleman" crowd would argue that God never interferes in human will. Obviously, then, it is absolutely impossible that God would incline anyone's heart to do anything at all ever. Which begs the question, then, "What is David asking of God?" Then there is the fact that James wrote, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one" (James 1:13). But is it temptation to incline a person's heart to evil? What about the time in 1 Kings when God sent a lying spirit to the mouths of Ahab's prophets (1 Kings 22:23)?
It would seem that if God never ever inclined anyone's heart to evil that requesting He not do that would be somewhat ridiculous. On the other hand, if He does on occasion incline hearts to evil (Remember, He hardened Pharaoh's heart.), how does that correlate with James? Where is the line? Exactly what is God capable of in terms of interfering in human will? The "God is a gentleman" concept just doesn't seem to hold up, but neither can I seem to get to "God inclines people to evil." So I'm not getting what David intended in this prayer from Psalm 141.
6 comments:
I would put this in the same category as when David said he would be with his still-born son in heaven. Or when Moses changed God's mind. I don't know that everything everyone says in Scripture (I mean quotations) is 100% accurate of how God works. It is from a man's heart, and thus might not be exactly how God works, but how a person might perceive Him working.
There is something to be said about poetic language. You may have a point there. (Although I understood David to simply mean that he would join his son some day. Nothing poetic or even odd about that.) Still, we do have the account of "an evil spirit from the Lord" falling on Saul and "a deceiving spirit from the Lord" being sent to Ahab's prophets.
Interestingly, the ESV (which is supposed to be word-for-word like the KJV) translates it "don't let my heart incline". I haven't checked the Strong's yet...
The ESV and the NIV suggest that it's my heart that inclines itself. None of the older translations agree. (Of course, if it is actually "Don't let my heart incline to evil," the suggestion there would be that God would intervene in my own free will, wouldn't it?)
I am not exactly sure what the problem is here. In Romans 1 we read that, as a penalty for sin, God does incline our hearts to evil. In effect he lets go of the leash and lets us run.
We sin first, and then God, as a penalty for sin, heaps us more and more into sin. It is not a 'temptation', since we are tempted by our own lusts. But God provides the emphasis and the opportunity for us to 'hang ourselves'.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Is there a difference between "incline" and "cause"? Is there a difference between "incline" and "tempt"? More to the point, is it the same thing to say "let go" and "incline"?
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