צֶדֶק וְשָׁלוֹם נָשָׁקוּ
His help is very near to those who fear Him,
to make His glory dwell in our land.
Faithfulness and truth meet;
justice and well-being kiss.
Psalm 85:10~11
1.
I get excited when I see the word "well-being" in scripture as I know that it most probably is "Shalom" in the original!! When I read this scripture this morning I got so excited to see the Hebrew that indeed it is
Shalom!! I recently started keeping a notebook of when I come across the word "Shalom" in scriptures, and this verse surprised me to see with the special "kiss" between justice and shalom.
Justice = Tzadek and well-being= Shalom
The Hebrew word for "kiss" is new to me, so I just looked for a few scripturew with the same word, and lo and behold, wouldn't you know, there is a verse in our very parsha this week where Joseph "
kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; only then were his brothers able to talk to him." Genesis 45:15
וַיְנַשֵּׁק לְכָל-אֶחָיו, וַיֵּבְךְּ עֲלֵהֶם; וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן, דִּבְּרוּ אֶחָיו אִתּוֹ
Shalom was restored with a kiss!!
Remember in the beginning of meeting Joseph and his brothers the Torah tells us they couldn't speak to each other and there was "no shalom". (Genesis 37:4)
וַיִּרְאוּ אֶחָיו, כִּי-אֹתוֹ אָהַב אֲבִיהֶם מִכָּל-אֶחָיו--וַיִּשְׂנְאוּ, אֹתוֹ; וְלֹא יָכְלוּ
דַּבְּרוֹ לְשָׁלֹם
Justice and shalom, come together in this scene, when seen in the light of the psalm!!
Its so interesting and Torah-ly fascinating with the words used to see how at first the brothers couldn't speak to each other as there was "no shalom" before the episode of them throwing Joseph in a pit. And years later after when they meet again after the brothers have had to understand the "injustice" that they did towards Joseph, it literally says the same word "talk", that after they kissed and wept, they were able to talk to each other again!!
(note: always just a "caveat" that these are my personal explorations in Torah and in my study that I share here as a "journal", so I am sure there is much more depth in the meanings, as I just share these discoveries at the "level" that I am at!)
2.
It was a quiet morning with the light streaming in, and the fragrance of daffodils, in Japanese
suisen, was filling the room. Flowers given me by my friend yesterday, the daffodils release a delicate scent that brings out His fragrance of Shalom!! It even made the rose revive. The soft sweet scent you wouldn't think it had that strength, but indeed the rose was wilted before the daffodils came.
A subtitle of this post, the fragrance of Shalom!!
And speaking of Shalom, I want to thank all of my blog friends who left a comment on my Shalom in Psalms giveaway post!! I am happy to announce there were two winners !! Since the first year I did it, the prize was not redeemed, so this year I decided to make it 2. Congratulations to Joyful and Hobbyloes, whose name was drawn from a Blossoming Challah bag with the names of those who left a comment on that post!! I will hope to do other giveaways as it was fun to have the first one successfully go through!!
Blessings and
well-being to all who read this.
Shalom Aleichem!
Peace be with you!
May justice and well-being kiss, as truth springs up from the earth and the LORD bestows His bounty!!
Truth springs up from the earth;
justice looks down from heaven.
The LORD also bestows His bounty;
our land yields its produce.
Justice goes before Him
as He sets out on His way.
Psalm 85: 12~14
3.
After writing the post, I opened up my copy of "
Shalom in Psalms" to Psalm 85, which is the Psalm I talk about in this post. Apparently I am not the first to "discover" this beautiful Psalms 85 verse about Justice and Shalom kissing!! Though when I came across it today, its the excitement to discover a verse "for the first time" that it feels like it was there just for us to discover it!
This is a quote from
Shalom in Psalms, beautifully referring to the verse about the attributes of Shalom and Tzedek kissing each other, and the commentator's prayer.
O God, You have been restoring more and more of Your people to the land. Now we appeal to You to revive more and more of Your people with Your Ruach. Surely chesed and emet meet together in Messiah. Surely tzekek and shalom kiss each other in Yeshua. Revive us, ADONAI!
Quoted from Shalom in Psalms, p. 202, commentary by Glenn Blank, I enlarged here for emphasis of the verse
and we all say...
Amen!!
♡
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PS a Challah and Cherry Blossoms Shalom QUIZ for anyone who might like to try!
We know Yeshua greets his disciples with
"Shalom Aleichem", Peace be with you, in many instances in the Brit Chadeshah (New Covenant) scriptures. The quiz question is: where in the Torah do we see this expression "Shalom (a)Lechem?
Hint: It also pertains to a recent reading !!
Hint: It is said by someone who we see to have many parallels to Yeshua, so I found it exciting to find him use this greeting as it was a connection to our Messiah's greeting.
I will put the answer in the comments section in the post below so those who want to try it can check it!! (PS any Hebrew experts please correct me if I make any Hebrew mistakes or misunderstandings!! I am learning as I go along!)
