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דֶּ֫רֶךְ (Derekh): The Course of Life Before God · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reform thinking. I am really glad you were with
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  us today. We are going to take a look at
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  something that it seems incredibly simple on the
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  surface, but it actually frames, I think, the entire biblical
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  worldview. It really does.
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  We are talking about vocabulary today.
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  Specifically, we're zeroing in on one single Hebrew word.
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  And it's a word that you have likely read probably thousands
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  of times in translation without even realizing you were dealing
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  with a technical term, right? It's one of those words that
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  just sort of disappears because it's so common.
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  It feels like a plain simple word.
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  The word is Derrick in Hebrew. That's Dalai Reshkov.
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  And just to give you a sense of the scale we are dealing with,
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  because I was honestly a bit shocked when I looked at the
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  data, this word appears roughly what, 710 to 712 times in the
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  Hebrew Bible? It's a massive amount of data.
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  It's huge. It is statistically huge.
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  I mean, if a word shows up 700 times, you just can't ignore it.
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  It's not some obscure term that appears once in a minor prophet
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  and has scholars guessing at the meaning.
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  No, this is everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.
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  So the mission for this deep dive is well, it's pretty
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  straightforward, but I have a feeling it's going to get
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  complicated pretty fast. It always does.
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  We want to understand how a word that essentially describes a
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  dirt Rd., a physical patch of ground, becomes the main way
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  Scripture talks about human behavior, divine administration,
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  and that that massive divide between righteousness and
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  wickedness. It connects the physical act of
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  walking to the moral reality of living.
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  That's the hook in the Hebrew mind.
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  You don't just be righteous or wicked.
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  You walk a path that leads to one or the other.
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  It's active, it's kinetic. It's all about motion.
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  OK, let's unpack this, and I want to start at the very
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  bottom, literally at the ground level.
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  I'm looking at the notes here and we have the noun Derek.
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  But words come from somewhere that usually have a root.
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  Where does this one come from? That's the perfect place to
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  start. To understand the noun, you
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  really have to look at the verb. The root is Darak.
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  Darak. And this is where the imagery
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  starts to get really, really vivid.
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  Darak is a very physical word. It means to tread or to trample.
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  Treading like just walking or something more?
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  Yeah, but with force it implies placing weight on something.
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  Think about stomping on grapes in a wine press.
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  That action is Dirac. OK.
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  So it's got an intensity to it. It does.
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  Or another example, drawing a bow, an ancient war bow.
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  You would have to step on the lower limb of the bow to bend it
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  enough to string it. That act of stepping on it is
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  Dirac. It's putting your foot down
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  hard. So it's the action of feet
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  hitting the ground with purpose, not just a casual stroll.
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  Spot on. And that leads us directly to
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  the noun Derek. A Derek is not necessarily a
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  road that has been engineered or paved.
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  We think of road and we immediately picture asphalt,
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  painted lines, curbs, right? That is not a Derrick.
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  A Derrick is a stretch of land that has become a road
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  specifically because people kept walking on it.
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  It has been shrodden solid by feet.
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  That's a great image. It's created by use.
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  Like if you walk through a field of tall grass enough times you
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  eventually wear a path into the dirt.
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  You create a Derrick. That's the idea exactly.
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  It's the result of traffic, and the Hebrew language actually
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  distinguishes this from other types of roads.
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  If you look at the other terms available, you really see the
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  difference. OK, like what are the words are
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  there? Well, you have Aura, which is
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  just a path, maybe a game trail, not very defined.
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  You have Nativa, which is more like a byway or a track, but
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  then you have Mesola. Mesola, that sounds a bit more
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  formal, more significant. It is a mesola is a highway, or
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  what the King James Version often calls a cast it up Rd.
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  Cast it up. What does that mean?
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  The route implies piling things up.
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  This involves engineering. You're clearing stones out of
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  the way, You're grading the land.
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  You're building a Causeway over a low spot.
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  It's constructed. So Mesola's is like our modern
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  Interstate or a paved St. but a Derek is more like a cow path or
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  a well worn trail through the woods.
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  In many cases, yes. It's the natural organic result
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  of feet hitting dirt over and over and over again.
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  Now, just as a grammatical note, Derek is usually a masculine
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  noun, though it is one of those interesting Hebrew words that
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  can occasionally pop up as feminine.
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  Oh, really? Yeah, you see that in places
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  like Exodus 18.20 or Ezra 8.21. But the core concept remains the
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  same regardless of gender. It's the place where feet of
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  trodden. And the Bible uses it literally
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  in so many places. I was scrolling through the list
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  of occurrences and it's not always this deep metaphor.
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  Sometimes a road is just a Rd. Absolutely, you have to start.
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  There you see things like the weight of the tree in Genesis
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  3.24. Right, right when Adam and Eve
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  are kicked out of the garden, the cherubim are placed there to
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  guard the Derek to the Tree of Life.
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  It's a specific physical location, a path.
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  Or another one that stuck with me was The Road to Sure in
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  Genesis 16.7. That's a fantastic example.
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  And think about the context there.
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  That's Hagar. She's running away from Sarah.
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  She's pregnant, she's desperate, she's alone in the wilderness
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  and she is on the way to shore. And where is sure?
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  It's where is Egypt. She's an Egyptian.
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  She's trying to go home so she is on the literal dusty dirt Rd.
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  that leads back to where she came from.
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  A harsh desert Rd. A very harsh Rd.
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  So when the Angel of the Lord finds her, he finds her on a
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  specific Derrick. It grounds the story in a real
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  geographical reality. This is not a fairy tale
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  happening in Once Upon a Timeland.
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  She was on an actual trade route.
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  Or Genesis 38.21 by the wayside, right?
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  Tamar sitting by the road. Again, very physical in these
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  contexts. We were talking about physical
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  geography. You can point to it on a map.
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  But it also seems to function as a direction right?
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  And it acts homes like a preposition in some sentences.
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  I noticed a lot of translations will just say toward.
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  It does. It very often means toward or in
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  the direction of and the logic makes sense because if you are
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  on the road to a place, you are facing that place.
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  If you read First Kings 18.43, Elijah is up on Mount Carmel
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  praying for rain. After the showdown with the
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  prophets of Baal, he tells his servant, go look toward the sea.
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  The Hebrew is Derekayam, literally the way of the sea.
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  So he's not telling him to walk all the way to the sea.
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  He's just saying look in the direction that the road to the
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  sea would take you. Correct.
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  It provides orientation. It's a way of giving directions.
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  You see it again in First Kings 8, where Solomon is dedicating
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  the temple. He prays that if the people are
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  carried off captive, they should pray toward the city.
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  Derek here. Way the city.
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  Exactly. Or in Ezekiel 8, the vision he
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  has, he's told to look toward the north.
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  The road defines the orientation.
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  If you are on the road to the north, you are facing north.
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  Simple as that. It's just so interesting how the
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  road defines the geography you define the land by how you move
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  through it. That's precisely how the
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  ancients thought about space. They didn't have GPS
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  coordinates. They had relationships between
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  places, and those relationships were connected by lines of
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  travel by the Derrick. Speaking of lines of travel, I
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  want to talk about the famous roads because the Bible mentions
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  some what you might call superhighways.
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  We hear about the King's Hwy. That Derek Amalek, ah.
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  Yes, that's a very specific historical location.
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  It's mentioned in Numbers, chapters 20 and 21.
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  This is when Israel is coming up out of the wilderness and they
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  need to pass through the territory of Edom.
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  Right. And the Edomites are not happy
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  about it. Not at all.
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  And Moses sends messengers to the king of Edom and says, let
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  us pass through your land. We will not pass through field
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  or vineyard. We will go along the Kings
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  Highway. Sounds kind of like a toll road.
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  It effectively was. This was the ancient trade route
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  that ran down the Transjordan. That's the high plateau east of
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  the Jordan River. It connected Damascus in the
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  north all the way down to Acaba in the South on the Red Sea.
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  So it was a major artery. A major artery of commerce.
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  Spices from Arabia, gold textiles from the East.
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  Everything moved on the Derek Hamelich.
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  So when Moses says we will not turn to the right or to the
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  left, he's essentially saying we're going to stay on the
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  pavement. Well, not pavement, but the hard
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  packed main drag. He's making a promise.
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  He's saying they won't wander off into the fields and let
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  their flocks eat the crops. They will stay on the clearly
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  defined trade route. It shows that Derek implies A
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  defined boundary. There is the road and there is
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  not the road. And then there's the other big
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  one, The Way of the Sea, the Derek Hayam.
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  That's the other major one. Isaiah 8.23 mentions it.
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  That's the coastal Rd., The Villameris.
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  It connected Damascus to Gaza, running down along the
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  Mediterranean coast. These two roads were the
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  superhighways of the ancient Near East.
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  Wow. So when the Bible uses this
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  word, it's not some abstract idea, it's grounded in the dust
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  and dirt of real historical travel.
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  OK, so that brings us to the next layer of meaning.
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  Because Derek doesn't just define the ground you're
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  standing on, it seems to define the distance you're covering as
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  well. That's right.
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  I mean, in a world without odometers or Google Maps, how do
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  you measure how far away something is?
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  By how long it takes to get there.
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  Exactly. You measure it by the road and
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  the time it takes to walk it. And we see that phrase a three
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  days, Derek. I remember seeing that in
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  Genesis 30.36, Laban sets a distance between himself and
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  Jacob. Right.
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  The tension between Laban and Jacob is at a breaking point.
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  They can't live together anymore, it's too volatile.
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  So Laban puts a three days Derek between his flocks and Jacob's
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  flocks. That's a buffers up.
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  It is a measurement of separation.
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  To put away between two parties is to create space.
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  It's not just about the dirt on the ground, it's about the
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  interval between two points. It implies safety, or at least a
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  reduction of friction. But the word also signifies the
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  action itself. I notice that it's not just the
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  noun for the road, it can be the noun for the act of travel.
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  Yes, the word is dynamic. It's not spatic.
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  We see the phrase to go on a Derek in Genesis 28.20.
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  Oh, that's Jacob's vow at Bethel.
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  It emphasizes the movement you are undertaking a trip, and the
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  text even distinguishes between different types of journeys,
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  which I think is fascinating for us as Reformed believers who
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  think a lot about the sacred and the secular.
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  Oh, this is that distinction in First Samuel, right?
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  Yes, Yeah. First Samuel 21.6 David is
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  fleeing from Saul. He's desperate.
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  He goes to the priest Ahimelech at Nob and asks for bread.
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  And the priest only has holy bread.
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  Right, he only has the showbread from the Tabernacle, and he says
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  he can give it to David, but only if the young men with him
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  are ceremonially clean. And David replies that the
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  vessels of the young men are holy, even though it is a Derek
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  Chol. And chol means common or
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  profane, right? Correct.
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  So a Derek Chol is a common journey.
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  It's a secular trip. It's business or travel, or in
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  this case, fleeing for your life.
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  It is explicitly distinct from a pilgrimage or a sacred
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  procession to the temple. So there's a category for that.
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  There is It implies that the daily mundane travel of life,
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  running errands, fleeing enemies, going to the market, is
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  categorized differently from the sacred assembling of God's
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  people. That's really helpful.
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  Not every walk is a pilgrimage. Sometimes you're just going to
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  the store. And yet notice that God's holy
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  provision, the bread, interacts with and sustains them on that
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  common journey. That's good.
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  That leads to one of the most fascinating definitions I found
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  in the source material, and this one really stuck out to me
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  because we I don't really use the word way like this in
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  English very often. Derek can mean business or
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  enterprise. This is where we start to see
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  the bridge forming between the physical and the abstract.
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  It seems like a big jump. It is, but it makes sense.
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  Think about it. And enterprise is a course of
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  action you set out on. It's a way you decide to go.
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  In Two Chronicles 13.22, the text is summarizing the reign of
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  King Abijah. It says the rest of the acts of
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  Abijah, his ways and his sayings are written in the story of the
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  prophet Ito, his ways, his ways, his Derek.
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  It refers to his enterprises, his public affairs, his
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  policies, his administration. It's the stuff he did as king.
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  And we see it in Deuteronomy 28.29.
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  This is the blessing in the curse section.
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  The text says that if you are disobedient, you will not
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  prosper in your ways. And in that context, it
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  certainly doesn't mean you won't have a nice walk down the
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  street. It implies that it means you
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  won't prosper in your undertaking, your vocation, the
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  thing you are setting your hand to do.
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  That feels very relevant to the whole Protestant work ethic.
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  We talked about vocation and calling a lot.
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  It is absolutely essential. The way you walk includes your
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  job. It includes the tasks you set
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  your hand to everyday. Your daily work is a Derek.
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  It is a path you are treading and God is interested in the
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  prosperity and righteousness of that enterprise apprised just as
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  much as He is interested in your prayer life.
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  So if I'm an accountant, my way is the spreadsheets and the
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  audits and the tax forms. That's your Derek.
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  That is the path you are treading day in and day out.
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  And the question Scripture is always asking is, is that path
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  straight? Is it honest?
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  Is it leading somewhere good? OK.
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  So we have the physical Rd., the distance, the act of travel and
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  the business enterprise. Now we need to make the jump to
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  the full blown metaphor because while all that physical stuff is
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  great, when we read the Psalms or proverbs, Derrick seems to
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  mean something else entirely. It becomes manner or custom or
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  behavior. The logic of the metaphor is
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  actually really intuitive if you go back to that route, meaning
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  we started with. Treading the ground.
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  Right. We said earlier that a Derrick
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  is formed by treading the ground repeatedly until the grass is
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  gone and the earth is hard packed.
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  A groove is formed. That's it.
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  A groove. That's the perfect word.
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  Human behavior works the same way.
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  We tread a groove of habit. If you do something once, it's
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  just an act. If you do it repeatedly, it
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  becomes your way. It becomes your character.
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  It's like what they say about neuroplasticity, the more you
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  think a certain thought, the easier it is to think it again.
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  You are literally blazing a trail in your brain.
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  That is exactly how the Hebrew mind saw character.
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  Character isn't this abstract, static substance you hold in
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  your soul. Character is the groove you have
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  worn into the world by your repeated actions.
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  The sources mentioned the way of the Ant in Proverbs 6.
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  Go to the Ant O sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.
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  The Ant has a Derrick. Now does the Ant have a moral
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  philosophy? Of course not.
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  No. But it has a habitual,
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  instinctual pattern of behavior, gathering food in the summer,
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  preparing for the winter. It is a fixed groove of conduct.
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  Solomon is saying look at the pattern, look at the habit.
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  And this applies to nations too, right?
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  We see references to the way of Egypt in Amos four and Isaiah
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  10. Yes, that refers to the manner
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  in which Egypt operates. What is the way of Egypt?
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  It's their military reliance on horses and Chariots.
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  It's their agricultural dependence on the predictable
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  flooding of the Nile rather than on rainfall from heaven.
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  It's their complex system of idolatry that is the way of
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  Egypt. It's the cultural custom of the
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  people, the national habit. It is, and Israel is constantly
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  being warned not to walk in the way of the nations, to not adopt
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  their customs, their habits, their grooves.
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  I found the euphemisms associated with this word to be
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  really really interesting. Shows just how flexible the
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  language is. For instance, you have the way
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  of all the Earth. That is a poetic yet very sombre
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  euphemism for death. Joshua says it at the end of his
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  life. I'm about to go the way of all
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  the earth in Joshua 23.12. David says it to his son Solomon
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  in First Kings 2. I.
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  Call it the way of all the Earth.
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  What's the logic there? Because it is the one Rd. that
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  every single human being eventually walks.
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  It doesn't matter if you are a king or a servant, rich or poor,
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  wise or foolish. You are on the on ramp to that
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  road from the moment you are born.
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  It is the universal human destiny.
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  It makes death feel like a journey, a final part of the
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  path rather than just an event or an endpoint.
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  It does if it's the metaphor perfectly.
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  You walk through life and eventually the road takes you
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  into the grave. And there's another one which is
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  a bit more biological, I guess, the way of Women in Genesis
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  31.35. Right, this is the story of
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  Rachel. A very clever and deceptive
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  moment. She has stolen her father La
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  Bond's household. Gods, the tariff.
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  Him and Laban is furious. He comes tearing into Jacob's
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  camp, turning the place upside down, looking for them.
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  Rachel is sitting on the camel saddle where she has the idols
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  hidden, and she says to her father, Let not, my Lord, be
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  angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is
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  upon me. She's talking about her
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  menstrual period. She is.
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  It's a biological cycle. But think about why the word
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  Derek works so well there. It's a regular occurrence.
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  It's a pattern. It is the manner or custom of
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  female biology. So you see, the word Derek is
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  broad enough to cover everything from the physical dirt road, to
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  the way you conduct your business, to the biological
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  cycles of life, and finally to death itself.
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  It really does seem to encompass the entire human experience.
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  It captures the idea that life is not static.
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  Life is movement. You are always going somewhere
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  and you are always following a pattern.
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  Whether you realize it or not, you are never just standing
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  still. And this brings us right to the
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  moral landscape. This is where the rubber meets
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  the road, pun fully intended. In the wisdom literature,
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  Proverbs, Psalms, this concept of the Derrick becomes intensely
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  binary. And I feel like in our culture,
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  we hate binary categories. We want nuance.
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  We want 50 Shades of grey, but the Bible seems to give us 2
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  roads. It creates what theologians call
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  the doctrine of the two ways. You see this most clearly and
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  most foundationally in Psalm One, which is the introduction,
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  the gateway to the entire Psalter.
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  It sets the stage for everything that follows.
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  It really does. Blessed is the man who walks not
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  in the counsel of the wicked, but his delight is in the law of
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  the Lord. And the Psalm ends by saying,
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  the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the
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  wicked will perish. It's just a stark contrast.
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  There is no third option presented.
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  You're not bushwhacking through the middle ground.
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  No. In the wisdom literature, you
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  are either on the path of life or the path of death.
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  Jesus picks this up so clearly in the Sermon on the Mount,
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  right? The broad Rd. that leads to
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  destruction and the narrow Rd. that leads to life.
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  It's a fundamental biblical construct.
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  Proverbs 14.12 is the classic text here.
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  I mean, I have heard this preached 1000 times, but let's
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  look at it through the lens of Derek.
• 18:12
  There's a way that seems right to a man, but it's end is the
• 18:15
  way of death. That is a scary.
• 18:17
  Verse. It is terrifying.
• 18:19
  It is because it implies that our own perception of the road
• 18:22
  helps us very little in determining where it actually
• 18:24
  goes. You can be walking on a road
• 18:27
  that feels smooth, it's paved, it's wide, the scenery is nice,
• 18:30
  you feel good about it, all your friends are on it.
• 18:33
  It seems right. But the destination is
• 18:36
  destruction. It highlights the absolute
• 18:39
  deception of the unregenerate human heart.
• 18:42
  We are not good navigators. We are terrible navigators,
• 18:46
  that's the whole point. The road looks like a messila, a
• 18:48
  beautiful well constructed Hwy. But it's a trap.
• 18:52
  And This is why we need revelation.
• 18:54
  We need a map from someone who is not walking on the road but
• 18:57
  sits above it and sees where it leads.
• 18:59
  And we see so many moral descriptors attached to this
• 19:02
  word. It's like the Bible is labeling
• 19:04
  the different roads on this divine map.
• 19:06
  We have the way of peace in Isaiah 59.
• 19:09
  The way of peace they do not know.
• 19:11
  That's a condemnation. They don't know how to walk on
• 19:13
  that road. They don't have the direction.
• 19:14
  Or the way of truth or faithfulness in Psalm 119.
• 19:17
  Psalm 119 is basically a long love letter to the Derek of God,
• 19:22
  the psalmist says. I've chosen the way of
• 19:24
  faithfulness. It's a conscious choice of which
• 19:27
  road to get on. And then conversely, the way of
• 19:30
  lying or falsehood in the same Psalm or or the way of the
• 19:34
  sluggard, which we touched on with the Ant.
• 19:36
  But Proverbs 15.19 has this incredible image.
• 19:39
  The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns.
• 19:42
  I love that image, it's so counterintuitive.
• 19:45
  It makes me think of my garage when it gets too messy.
• 19:47
  Yeah, it's easier not to clean it, but then you can't find
• 19:49
  anything and it becomes this thorny mess.
• 19:51
  But lightly, That's a perfect modern analogy.
• 19:54
  The sluggard thinks he's taking the easy path by not working.
• 19:57
  I'll just relax. I'll put it off.
• 19:59
  But what happens? His life becomes a hedge of
• 20:01
  thorns. Things break and don't get
• 20:03
  fixed. Bills pile up.
• 20:05
  Relationship sour. His laziness actually creates a
• 20:08
  more difficult, painful Rd. The easy way becomes the hard
• 20:12
  way. Whereas the way of the upright
• 20:13
  is a level highway. Exactly.
• 20:15
  The discipline of righteousness creates a smoother path in the
• 20:18
  long run. I.
• 20:19
  Want to go back to Genesis for a moment?
• 20:20
  Genesis 6.12. This is right before the flood.
• 20:23
  The description of the world is just chilling, the text says.
• 20:27
  And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all
• 20:30
  flesh had corrupted its Derek upon the earth.
• 20:33
  That is a massively significant theological statement.
• 20:35
  It doesn't just say everyone did a lot of bad things, it says
• 20:38
  they corrupted their way. The whole system was broken.
• 20:41
  What does corrupt mean in that context?
• 20:44
  The Hebrew word is shashit. It implies ruin, decay or
• 20:48
  spoiling. Think of milk going bad, or a
• 20:52
  road that has been washed out by a landslide and is now
• 20:55
  impassable. The path was designed to go in
• 20:58
  One Direction, toward God and human flourishing, and humanity
• 21:01
  fundamentally twisted it, ruined it.
• 21:04
  This connects so deeply to the reformed understanding of total
• 21:07
  depravity. Doesn't.
• 21:07
  It it's the very definition of it.
• 21:09
  Total depravity doesn't mean that every person is as evil as
• 21:12
  they could possibly be at all times.
• 21:13
  It means that the walk, the Derek, is corrupted at its
• 21:17
  source. The corruption effects every
• 21:19
  step, every aspect of our being. So it's not just a few wrong
• 21:22
  turns. No, Our intellect, our will, our
• 21:25
  affections, the whole way is twisted.
• 21:28
  There's no part of the human journey that isn't touched by
• 21:31
  this ruin. So the natural Derek of man post
• 21:34
  fall is the way of death. We are born on the wrong Rd.
• 21:39
  Precisely. We don't have to go out and find
• 21:42
  the way of death. We are on it by default.
• 21:44
  That is our starting position and that is why we need a new
• 21:47
  way, a different way to be revealed to us.
• 21:50
  That transitions us perfectly to the next segment, the way of
• 21:53
  Yahweh, because if our way is ruined, we desperately need to
• 21:56
  know about His way. We hear this phrase all the
• 21:58
  time, the way of the Lord, but the sources suggest this has a
• 22:01
  couple of different meanings. It's not always talking about
• 22:03
  the same thing. No, it's nuanced.
• 22:05
  We have to be careful with the context.
• 22:07
  Sometimes the way of the Lord refers to God's own behavior,
• 22:10
  how God himself acts, his own character in motion.
• 22:12
  Like in Deuteronomy 32.4 The Rock, his work is perfect for
• 22:16
  all his ways or justice. Exactly that is the description
• 22:19
  of God's character in action, or you see it in Psalm 145.
• 22:22
  The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all His works.
• 22:26
  It means God follows A consistent pattern of holiness
• 22:29
  and justice. He doesn't deviate from His own
• 22:31
  nature. He has a groove, if we can use
• 22:34
  that word reverently. He is not erratic, he is
• 22:36
  trustworthy. He is not erratic.
• 22:38
  You can trust his Derek. It's always true to who he is.
• 22:41
  The source has also mentioned God's creative activity as a way
• 22:44
  that this one was a bit more abstract for me to grasp at
• 22:46
  first. Proverbs 8.22 is the key text
• 22:50
  there. This is the famous passage where
• 22:51
  Wisdom is personified as a woman, and Wisdom says the Lord
• 22:55
  possessed me at the beginning of his way before his works of old.
• 22:59
  So his way there refers to what his plan.
• 23:01
  It seems to refer to the act of creation itself.
• 23:04
  The unfolding of the cosmos was a Derek of God.
• 23:07
  He stepped out, so to speak, in his power and wisdom and created
• 23:11
  reality. Creation is the path his power
• 23:13
  walked. And even now, nature follows
• 23:15
  God's way. I love the references in Job.
• 23:17
  I was reading through the Job passages in the notes and they
• 23:19
  are just beautiful. Job is an absolute master of
• 23:22
  this imagery. In Job 28.26 it speaks of God
• 23:27
  making a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the
• 23:30
  Thunder. The Lightning has a Rd.
• 23:32
  It does. It looks chaotic and random to
• 23:34
  us, doesn't it? It zigs and zags across the sky.
• 23:37
  But God has a Derek for it. It follows a path that he has
• 23:40
  ordained. Or in Job 38.19, God challenges
• 23:44
  joke. Where is the way to the dwelling
• 23:46
  of light? Wow.
• 23:47
  God has an administrative Derek over the entire universe.
• 23:51
  Everything from the stars in their courses to the storms on
• 23:54
  the sea follows a track laid down by the Creator.
• 23:57
  That is deeply comforting. The universe isn't random chaos.
• 24:00
  It is governed. It is administrated by a wise
• 24:03
  and powerful king. But then there's a second
• 24:04
  meaning of the way of the Lord, which is probably the one we
• 24:07
  encounter most often as a command to us.
• 24:09
  Yes, and this is the conduct required by God.
• 24:12
  When the Bible says keep the way of the Lord, it is not asking us
• 24:15
  to govern the universe or make lightning right.
• 24:17
  It is asking us to walk in the groove, the pattern that God has
• 24:21
  described for human beings. Genesis 18.19 is a perfect
• 24:24
  example. This is God speaking about
• 24:26
  Abraham, His chosen 1. He says, For I have chosen him,
• 24:30
  that he may command his children and his household after him to
• 24:33
  keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.
• 24:37
  And notice the definition is right there in the text.
• 24:39
  What is the way of the Lord for Abraham and his descendants?
• 24:43
  It is doing righteousness and justice.
• 24:45
  It is fundamentally ethical. So this is where Derek becomes
• 24:49
  almost synonymous with the law, with the Torah.
• 24:51
  Exactly Psalm 119 begins Blessed are the undefiled in the way who
• 24:55
  walk in the law of the Lord. The law is the map for the
• 24:59
  Derek. The Torah lays out the
• 25:00
  boundaries. It says this is the road, stay
• 25:03
  on it. Don't turn to the right or to
• 25:04
  the left. So if the law is the map, the
• 25:07
  Derek is the actual walking of it.
• 25:08
  They're not quite the same thing.
• 25:10
  That is a very helpful distinction.
• 25:12
  You can have the map in your pocket and still be sitting in
• 25:14
  the ditch by the side of the road.
• 25:15
  The blessing is for those who walk in the way.
• 25:17
  It requires active obedience. And we see this tension
• 25:20
  throughout Scripture between watching 1's way and forsaking
• 25:24
  one's way. King David charges his son
• 25:27
  Solomon in First Kings 2.4. He tells him to watch his way,
• 25:32
  to pay attention to his conduct, to walk before God and
• 25:35
  faithfulness. It implies constant vigilance.
• 25:38
  You have to look where you were stepping.
• 25:40
  But then a prophet like Isaiah in Isaiah 55.7 calls the wicked
• 25:44
  to forsake his way. Right, let the wicked forsake
• 25:47
  his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
• 25:50
  Let him return to the Lord. Repentance is essentially
• 25:53
  abandoning 1 road to get on another.
• 25:55
  You cannot stay on the wicked road and just try to walk a
• 25:57
  little better. You have to get off it entirely.
• 26:00
  I want to get into the theology of sovereignty here because
• 26:03
  we've established that we have a way, our habits, our choices,
• 26:06
  and God has a way for us, his commands.
• 26:08
  But there's a verse in Jeremiah that puts a serious a serious
• 26:12
  check on our sense of autonomy. You're thinking of Jeremiah
• 26:15
  10.23. Yes, this verse when I was
• 26:18
  preparing it just stopped me in my tracks.
• 26:19
  Jeremiah prays. I know, O Lord, that the way of
• 26:22
  man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to
• 26:25
  direct his steps. This is a cornerstone text for a
• 26:27
  Reformed understanding of God's Providence.
• 26:30
  The source material offered two slightly different glosses on
• 26:32
  this. One was man determines his own
• 26:35
  condition, but the other, which seems to fit the context so much
• 26:38
  better, is man cannot direct his own steps.
• 26:42
  The Hebrew text absolutely supports the latter.
• 26:45
  The literal reading is something like not to man is his way.
• 26:49
  It suggests that while we are the ones walking, while we are
• 26:52
  making choices and training a path, the ultimate direction and
• 26:55
  the final destination are not under our sovereign control.
• 26:59
  It connects directly to Proverbs 16.9.
• 27:02
  The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his
• 27:05
  steps. There is the tension right
• 27:07
  there. We plan the Derek, we sit down,
• 27:09
  we say I'm going to build this business or I'm going to raise
• 27:12
  my family using this method or I'm going to retire at 65 and
• 27:16
  move to Florida. That is the plan.
• 27:18
  That is the imagined Derek. But the establishing of the
• 27:21
  actual steps. The actual outcome, the success,
• 27:24
  the failure, the unexpected detour that belongs to Yahweh.
• 27:28
  He is the one who ultimately directs the path.
• 27:30
  That is both comforting and terrifying at the same time.
• 27:33
  It is terrifying. If you want to be God, if you
• 27:35
  want total control over your life, this verse is a nightmare.
• 27:39
  But it is deeply comforting if you realize you are not God and
• 27:42
  you're glad you're not. It means that even when we
• 27:45
  stumble or when our path takes a turn, we did not expect a
• 27:48
  layoff, A sickness, a tragedy. The Lord is the one directing
• 27:52
  the steps. He is the ultimate administrator
• 27:55
  of the road. So our job is to walk in
• 27:57
  faithfulness, to follow the map He's given us, but the final
• 28:00
  destination and the exact route are in his hands.
• 28:03
  That is the very essence of walking by faith and not by
• 28:06
  sight. Now I want to pivot for a second
• 28:09
  to something for the real linguistic enthusiasts who might
• 28:11
  be listening, because there was a note in the source material
• 28:14
  about a very specific rare meaning of Derek, and it comes
• 28:18
  from studying euchreitic parallels.
• 28:20
  Oh yes, this is where we get into the weeds of ancient
• 28:23
  Semitic languages, but it really pays off.
• 28:25
  Ugaritic is a language that was spoken in ancient Ugarit on the
• 28:28
  coast of Syria. It's very, very close to
• 28:30
  biblical Hebrew. OK.
• 28:31
  And in Ugaritic texts, the cognate word for Derek can
• 28:34
  sometimes means strength or power or even dominion.
• 28:38
  Wait hold on, you're saying the word for Rd. can also mean
• 28:41
  power? That feels like a stretch.
• 28:44
  How do you get from walking to power?
• 28:46
  It does sound strange to our modern ears, but think back to
• 28:50
  the imagery of ancient conquests we talked about right at the
• 28:53
  beginning. Derrick to tread.
• 28:55
  Like treading on your enemies. Exactly.
• 28:58
  To conquer a land was to tread upon it.
• 29:01
  To place your foot on the neck of a defeated enemy was the
• 29:04
  ultimate sign of victory. In Joshua 10, Joshua tells his
• 29:08
  commanders to come and put their feet on the necks of the
• 29:11
  captured kings. So treading is an act of
• 29:13
  dominion. It is so you can see how the
• 29:15
  semantic range might stretch from the dirt road to the act of
• 29:18
  walking, to the habit of life, and in some contexts,
• 29:22
  potentially to the power or dominion that comes from that
• 29:24
  treading. And some scholars think this
• 29:26
  might explain a few difficult passages in the Bible.
• 29:29
  Right. Take a verse like Hosea 10.3.
• 29:31
  The standard English translation is usually something like you
• 29:34
  have plowed iniquity, you have reaped injustice because you
• 29:37
  trusted in your way in the multitude of your warrior.
• 29:40
  OK. Trusted in your way that makes
• 29:41
  sense? Trusting in your policy or your
• 29:44
  strategy? It does make sense, but look at
• 29:46
  the poetic parallel in the second-half of the line, in the
• 29:48
  multitude of your warriors. Warriors represent strength,
• 29:52
  military power. Exactly.
• 29:53
  So what if we translate Derek as power or strength?
• 29:57
  The verse reads. You trusted in your power, in
• 30:01
  the multitude of your warriors. It creates a perfect poetic
• 30:04
  parallel. It just snaps into focus.
• 30:06
  Oh it. Really does.
• 30:07
  Or look at Proverbs 31.3. This is the advice to King
• 30:11
  Lemuel from his mother. Do not give your strength to
• 30:14
  women, nor your Derek to that which destroys kings.
• 30:17
  Nor your Derek. Again, you have strength in the
• 30:19
  first half of the line and Derek in the second.
• 30:22
  If you interpret Derek as power or royal dignity, it makes
• 30:25
  perfect sense. Do not give your strength to
• 30:27
  women, nor your royal power to that which destroys kings.
• 30:31
  That is fascinating. It just shows how rich this
• 30:34
  language is. It's not a flat 1 dimensional
• 30:36
  word. It has all these layers of
• 30:38
  meaning. It certainly does, and it
• 30:40
  reminds us that translation is always an act of interpretation.
• 30:43
  So we have covered a lot of ground, literally.
• 30:46
  We've gone from the physical dirt path to the Kings Highway.
• 30:49
  We've talked about distance and business.
• 30:51
  We've looked at the moral habits, the two ways of wisdom
• 30:54
  literature, and the sovereignty of God over our steps.
• 30:57
  It's a comprehensive picture, isn't it?
• 30:59
  It is. When you synthesize all of this,
• 31:02
  what is the big take away? If I'm listening to this and I
• 31:05
  want to apply reformed thinking to my life, what do I do with
• 31:09
  the word Derek? I think the main thing is that
• 31:11
  the Hebrew mind is holistic. We in the modern West, we love
• 31:17
  to separate our theology from our ethics.
• 31:20
  We think believing is one thing, it's what happens in our head
• 31:22
  during a sermon. And doing is another thing,
• 31:24
  right? Believing versus behaving.
• 31:26
  Exactly. But the word Derek just
• 31:28
  collapses that distinction. You cannot separate believing
• 31:31
  from walking. Your belief determines your
• 31:33
  walk, and your walk demonstrates your belief.
• 31:35
  The way is not just what you think.
• 31:37
  No, the way is the track you leave in the dirt.
• 31:40
  If you claim to be on the way of the righteous, you have the
• 31:42
  right confession. You sign the church membership
• 31:45
  papers, but your daily tracks are leading toward the House of
• 31:48
  the wicked. Then you are not on the way.
• 31:50
  It's evidential. Your walk is the evidence.
• 31:52
  It is, and it brings us back to that crucial concept of teshuva,
• 31:56
  or repentance. We talk about repentance a lot
• 31:58
  in our circles, but in Hebrew, repentance is not just changing
• 32:01
  your mind or feeling sorry for your sins.
• 32:04
  It is turning. It is a physical change of
• 32:06
  direction on the Derek. Ezekiel Thumb 3 point Love N
• 32:09
  comes to mind. Turn back, Turn back from your
• 32:12
  evil ways, for why will you die, O House of Israel, it is a
• 32:15
  command to stop walking in One Direction, do a 180° turn and
• 32:20
  start walking in the opposite direction.
• 32:22
  You cannot repent and keep walking the same, Derek.
• 32:25
  That is a contradiction in terms.
• 32:27
  So for the listener today, this isn't just an academic exercise
• 32:30
  about Hebrew roots, it's a call for a serious self examination.
• 32:34
  Absolutely. You have to ask the hard
• 32:36
  question. What Derek am I on?
• 32:38
  Not what do I say I believe or what theology do I affirm, But
• 32:43
  where is my daily habit, my daily walk, actually taking me?
• 32:47
  Look at the groove you're carving.
• 32:49
  Is it the way of life or the way of death?
• 32:52
  Because there are only two ways, only two, I want to leave us
• 32:55
  with a final thought from the sources that I found really
• 32:57
  evocative. It's from Proverbs 30, verse 19.
• 32:59
  The sayings of Agur, A mysterious figure.
• 33:02
  He is. He speaks of three things, No 4,
• 33:05
  things that are too wonderful for him, things that he does not
• 33:08
  understand. And he lists them.
• 33:11
  The way of an eagle in the sky, The way of a serpent on a rock,
• 33:14
  the way of a ship on a high seas.
• 33:15
  And the way of a man with a virgin.
• 33:17
  The common thread there, especially with the Eagle and
• 33:20
  the serpent in the ship, is that these are ways.
• 33:23
  These are derricks that leave no trace.
• 33:25
  That's the mystery of it, isn't it?
• 33:26
  The eagle flies and the air closes up behind it.
• 33:29
  There's no path left. The ship sails through the ocean
• 33:32
  and the wake disappears. The path is real, the movement
• 33:35
  happened, the destination was reached, but there is no
• 33:38
  permanent scar left on the world.
• 33:40
  We live in a world that is obsessed with leaving a legacy.
• 33:44
  We want to build a missile, a highway with our name on it.
• 33:47
  We want to leave a permanent mark.
• 33:50
  We want people to look back in 100 years and see the road we
• 33:53
  built. We do.
• 33:54
  We want our Derrick to be seen by everyone forever.
• 33:57
  We want to be like the Romans who built roads that last for
• 33:59
  2000 years. But Agar points out that some of
• 34:02
  the most wonderful and mysterious ways of God are
• 34:05
  trackless. That is a beautiful and humbling
• 34:08
  thought. God's Providence often moves
• 34:10
  like a ship in the sea. It gets you where you need to
• 34:13
  go, but you can't always look back and see the line that it
• 34:16
  took. So the question for you as
• 34:18
  you're listening is this Is there value in the trackless
• 34:22
  ways of Providence? Are you content to walk a path
• 34:25
  of faithfulness that perhaps only God sees?
• 34:28
  A path that might not leave a massive, impressive highway for
• 34:30
  history to admire, but gets you safely to the right destination.
• 34:34
  That is the ultimate question of faith, isn't it?
• 34:36
  Trusting the pilot of the ship even when the water leaves no
• 34:39
  mark. Something to think about as you
• 34:40
  walk your Derek this week. Thanks for listening to Reformed
• 34:43
  Thinking. We will see you next time.