Daily Manna · Day 176 · June 25
The Strong Tower
“The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”
When panic hits, you start running toward something before you have even decided to move.
The word to hold on to in this proverb is "name." In Hebrew thinking, a name is more than a label. It tells you what someone is really like, so God's name shows His character. That is why, when Moses asked to see God's glory, God answered by proclaiming His name in Moses' hearing: "The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." That is the tower. The proverb is not describing a magic word that works if you say it correctly. It is saying that what God has shown Himself to be is a strong building a person can get inside.
The two verbs give you the whole picture: "the righteous runneth into it, and is safe." Running is what you do when you have stopped calculating, when you have run out of other moves. And the word translated "safe" literally means set on high, lifted out of reach. A tower never made the attackers go away. It lifted the people inside above them.
Notice who runs, though: "the righteous," the people who belong to God. This is no charm that works for anyone who shouts the right sounds. And the very next verse shows the false copy: "The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit." So there are two towers, and one of them exists only in the rich man's imagination.
So pray now, before the fear comes, so that the words are already in your mouth when it does.
Lord, when the bad news comes, let my first move be toward You, before I reach for the search bar. I do not know yet what Your name will mean to me in that hour. Let me find out from inside the tower, safe with You. Amen.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 176 is Hid In A Field (Matthew 13:44).