Today we will study Tehilim chapter 62 pasuk ח:
עַל־אֱלֹקים יִשְׁעִי וּכְבוֹדִי צוּר־עֻזִּי מַחְסִי בֵּאלֹקים
Upon Hashem rests my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God.
There are many nuances and lessons contained in these words:
עַל־אֱלֹקים יִשְׁעִי
Upon Hashem rests my salvation
According to Rav Eliezer Ben Ramoch, a Rishon, this means that God is , so to say, forced to save me, because His rule is that if you seek refuge in Him, He will protect you and save you.
God set up the world in such a way that if someone relies on you, you take care of them. Therefore, God, David HaMelech says, It’s (so to say) on You- it’s Your responsibility to take care of me. I seek refuge in You, and based on Your rule system, You have to come through for me.
Another explanation of these words, from the Sefer Ikarim, is that we don’t know exactly how things should end up- Sometimes we have an opinion, but sometimes we have no idea, because don’t know what’s good for us.
So, as David HaMelech says earlier in this Mizmor,
אַךְ אֶל־אֱלֹקים דּוּמִיָּה נַפְשִׁי
My soul is silent -I don’t know what is good for me.
We see this in another perek of tehilim, where David HaMelech compares himself to an infant that doesn’t know which food to choose….
Therefore, he asks Hashem,
עַל־אֱלֹקים יִשְׁעִי
You choose the salvation, You choose the honor. I am relying on You, because I don’t know what’s good for me.
Yet another way to understand this pasuk is as follows-
עַל־אֱלֹקים יִשְׁעִי וּכְבוֹדִי
On God is my salvation and my honor.
David HaMelech is not just asking to be saved. He wants to saved in an honorable way.
As we say in Bircat Hamazon,
We don’t want to rely on מתנת אדם,the gifts man, or their loans- we want from Hashem’s open hand.
So, Hashem, when You save me, save me in a honorable way. I don’t want to take gifts from man.
The Bircat Hamazon printed in the Siddur Bet Menucha (from Levorno) has a slightly different text for this section, which is translated as, “Their gifts are small, and their shame is great,” and it comes from the Yerushalmi in Berachot, Perek ד, where it says, Don’t hand us our Mezonot/sustenance from hands of flesh and blood- their gifts are small and the embarrassment is great.
Sometimes, you when you get a gift from someone, it is a small gift but it comes with a lot of shame.
So David HaMelech is asking that his salvation should come with honor.
Finally, עַל־אֱלֹקים יִשְׁעִי וּכְבוֹדִי
On God is my salvation and my honor, can also mean that when God saves a person, in His great mercy, He does so in a way that the person gets Kavod/honor.
It’s really that Hashem saves us, but God makes it look like we won the war.
I remember many years ago, when a hijacked plane was rescued in Entebbe by the Israeli army, there were T-shirts made with a picture of Idi Amin, the dictator of Uganda, saluting, with the caption,
“כל הכבד לצה׳ל
All the honor and respect goes to the IDF.”
So, like the victory in Entebbe, God allows us to get the kavod, but it’s really His victory.
It’s all from Hashem, but God allows people to take kavod in His salvation.
To recap the many wonderful lessons in these words,
עַל־אֱלֹקים יִשְׁעִי וּכְבוֹדִי
1 It’s on God- He’s responsible to save me
2 He should choose the outcome because I don’t know what is good for me,
3 He should save me in a way that I’m not embarrassed (it should come directly from Him)
4 When he saves me, He should allow me to get honor from the salvation.