 Is God's word really above his name? Well, maybe, maybe not. We know how important God's name is. As a matter of fact, the Bible says it at his name as well as at Jesus' name that every knee shall bow. That his name is above every other name. His name is fully exalted. The question is, is his name above his word or is his word above his name? Or are they equal? And where we get this understanding or this difficulty is from a text that many don't realize this is actually a difficult text because you're probably reading Psalm 138 out of your favorite translation but then when you compare to other translations you're gonna notice something a little bit different. So I'm gonna look at two different translations. One, we're gonna look at the King James Version and then we're gonna look at the NASB. And so this is where the problem comes in in Psalm 132, I'm sorry, 138 too, says, I will worship toward the holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth, for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. Read the same way, obviously the new King James Version and there are a few other translations that has it written that way where it says that you will magnify, you will magnify his word above thy name. But when we go to the NASB and other modern translations you're gonna notice something a little bit different. So let's go to Psalms 138 too again. I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth, for you have magnified your word according to all your name. So notice the difference. Here it says you have magnified your word according to all your name, whereas the King James Version would say that you have magnified your word above your name or above thy name. Well, which one is it? And to be honest, most don't realize this is a difficult text. Plus the implication is that there's something that's actually above his name. Well, obviously, if we're talking about his word, that's not something that's trivial. That's not something else. We're still speaking of God. He's known by his word. He's known by his name. And oh, by the way, the name that we're speaking of isn't necessarily his nomenclature, but the word name refers to who he is, his reputation and so forth. So is there anything above him, his name, his reputation? And also truth be told, in some senses that you might say his word is equivalent to that. Now, the problem with this is when you ask different scholars what they think, how they view it, there are different words, different ways they've kind of come up with this. Let me just go ahead and read a few of these that I've jotted down just in and just look at other people's translation. Oh, by the way, some even think that there might even be a textual variant where the wha or the and is missing or there might be a textual variant when it comes to the word shem, instead of in shemkai it might be shemai, which means the heavens. There are a myriad of different understandings depending upon who you ask. One translation might say according to your name, over all your name, magnify your word and name. There are some that says the Maserati text. We'll look at that in a second and have the Maserati text read. But it reads you have made great over all your name your word. Others have read that you have exalted over everything your name and your word. Also, you have exalted over all the heavens, your name and your word. Is there a conclusive understanding of what was stated in the original text? That's where the difficulty comes from. And then ultimately what does it mean? Well, I think we can kind of get to it. I'm gonna be kind of partial to this understanding. Let's go back and read 138 again and I want you to notice something. Rather than just picking up here in the second part where it says for you have magnified your word according to your name or to all your name, I think we need to focus on something. And that is the word for the Hebrew word key. This word right here. And so it's stating that matter of fact, let's just kind of read this thing. It says, and give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth. Now I want you to notice kind of what's being stated rather than sometimes get kind of caught up in the weeds. Let's just look at what he's stating, what he's saying. So let's start in Psalm 38 one. I will give you thanks with all my heart. I will sing praises to you before the gods. I will bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name. I think that's important. And the same word that's used here is the word Shemkai, which is your name. I will give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth. For you have magnified your word according to all your name. And so this might be the preferred understanding because we're going off of how the Hebrew text is written. And so if we just slide over just a little bit and then just kind of read this, I'm gonna go a little bit slow so we can kind of look at this together and get a pretty good understanding. Notice he says that for your name, which is important, he says for your name all according to the loving kindness and according to your truth because or for that you magnified according to all your name and your word. Well, and I understand you all have to pardon me for just the clunkiness of it and the slowness of it, but I wanted to kind of see if you can pick up what I'm picking up. Since he starts off speaking about his name, then to come back and say that I bless you name, I think highly of your name for you have magnified your word above your name, that's where it seems it'll be a little bit odd. If the emphasis that he speaks about in the beginning of two, let's go back to it. I will bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name if the emphasis is on your name. And I think we should leave that. This is just how even we read normally, whether it's in English or any other language, he is giving thanks for what? For his name. Then he comes back and says to your name for your loving kindness and for your truth for you have magnified your word according to all your name. It would seem a little bit odd to turn around and say that I give thanks for your name, but then you've magnified your word above your name. Those two just, it seems a bit odd, not necessarily contradictory, but kind of in opposing to each other. And so this word, I think it makes more sense just like it's rendered here in English as well as the Hebrew, the Hebrew gives you this English rendering and says for you have magnified your word according to all your name. In other words, that your name has been magnified, I'm sorry, in other words, your word has been magnified upon your name. Your name and your word in this case would really be synonymous because what you have said, what you have done, that is who you are. Now, I could be wrong. Again, there's a lot of scholars who differ, who see it differently for different reasons, trying to figure out what the actual translation is. There's not a lot of debate in terms of what the first part is, in terms of where he says, I will bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name. There's not a lot of debate on that. So that part is clear. It's just the second part. And so because there's not a lot of debate on that, I think just in just the normal regular reading, just the flow of it, you would have to conclude, at least for me, I conclude that he's not putting anything above his name either, but his word goes hand in hand with his name.