Welcome back to the podcast in our Bible reading this week we hit

Psalm 43 and within Psalm 43 we find one amazing little verse that

unfolds into all sorts of implications, leading to a wonderful

question from a pastor named Robert who lives and ministers in Wisconsin.

Hello, Pastor John, I thank you for the way you have served and encouraged pastors like me from a

distance over the decades through your faithful labors. I love Psalm 43. 4, a life

verse for me and one I want to better understand. I know you love this text as well. Here it is. Then I will go to

the altar of God to God my exceeding joy. If I remember correctly, somewhere I heard you translate the Hebrew of this text like this, quote,

then I will go to the altar of God to God, the joy of my joys. God is the joy of our joys.

I can't find where you said this,

but you're not the only one

as I have come to see this in other interpretations of this verse

from Puritan Thomas Goodwin in the 17th century to William de Berg

and the 19th to classic Hebrew scholars today. So can you walk us through the

Hebrew briefly and then explain what this means that God is the joy of our joys.

I've historically thought of this text saying what the E.S. V here implies that God is the most

exceeding joy above all other joy is a comparison.

But you seem to indicate that this text is speaking of source,

that God is the joy, that is the giver of all other joys, that the text completely if so expand on this this seems like a huge

discovery well that's not quite what I mean let me uh, I totally love what he loves here and want to get at it because there is something really quite right.

I don't mean source when I say joy of our joys. What I mean is God is the essence of our joys. God is the substance of all our joys. He's the best part of every joy if we are enjoying things rightly.

So he's not only supreme joy, which is what the ESV brings out, exceeding joy, but he is also the best part of all other joys.

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