- Name 41 of 70My Hiding Place
- HebrewSeter
- In plain wordsA safe cover, the secret place where God keeps me
- Where to find itPsalm 32:7, David's song of a guilty man forgiven
Everyone needs a hiding place sometimes, a spot where nothing can get to you. In Psalm 32:7 David told God, Thou art my hiding place
. What makes this name surprising is where it comes from. David did not write it while hiding from an enemy. He wrote it after he finally stopped hiding from God.
The king who tried to keep a secret
People have been hiding since the beginning. Right after the first sin, Adam and Eve heard God walking in the garden, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden
(Genesis 3:8). Hiding from God is about the oldest human habit there is.
Psalm 32 is David's song about doing the same thing. The psalm does not say what he was hiding, but many Bible readers link it with the worst chapter of his life. As king, David took Bathsheba, the wife of one of his loyal soldiers, and when she became pregnant he arranged for her husband Uriah to be killed in battle (2 Samuel 11). Then he went on ruling as if nothing had happened. It was months before the prophet Nathan came and told him a story about a rich man who stole a poor man's only lamb. When David grew angry at the rich man, Nathan said, Thou art the man
(2 Samuel 12:7).
Whatever the exact background, Psalm 32 describes what hidden guilt does to a person, and it is painfully honest.
When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
Psalm 32:3-4
To wax old means to grow old. David felt worn out and aged. He groaned all day. He felt God's hand pressing on him day and night. Everything inside him dried up like a field in a summer drought. On the outside he was a king. On the inside he was falling apart.
Then everything turned in one verse.
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
Psalm 32:5
Iniquity and transgression are old words for wrongdoing and for crossing God's line. David stopped covering, said it plainly, and was forgiven. Two verses later he calls God his hiding place. The man who had been hiding from God was now hiding in God.
Sether: what the Hebrew word means
The Hebrew word for hiding place is sether (say it "SAY-ther"). Strong's dictionary, a standard word list for the King James Bible, defines it as a cover, in a good or a bad sense, literal or figurative. It comes from the verb satar, to hide. The King James Bible translates it in several ways: secret, secretly, covert, secret place and hiding place.
That good or bad sense is the key. A sether can be the place where someone does wrong in secret. It can also be the safest shelter on earth. The difference is who is in the hidden place with you. When you hide your sin, the hidden place becomes a prison. When God is your hiding place, the hidden place becomes a home.
Psalm 32 also plays with another Hebrew word, kasah, the verb for covering. Verse 1 says blessed is the person whose sin is covered
. Verse 5 uses the same verb when David says he did not hide his iniquity. The lesson is simple: when David stopped covering his sin, God covered it.
Finally, look at the end of verse 7: thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance
. To compass about means to surround. Most hiding places are silent. You hold your breath and hope no one hears you. This one is full of music. People only sing in hiding when they know they are safe.
Key King James verses about God as a hiding place
Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
Psalm 32:7
This is the name itself. Preserve means to keep safe. Notice the three promises: hidden, kept and surrounded with song.
Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word.
Psalm 119:114
The longest psalm repeats the name and pairs it with a shield. It also tells you where hope comes from in the hiding place: God's word.
For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.
Psalm 27:5
A pavilion is a tent. The secret of his tabernacle uses the same Hebrew word, sether. David pictures being tucked into the safest inner room of God's own house.
And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
Isaiah 32:2
Isaiah describes a coming king who will be shelter for his people, like a windbreak in a storm and shade in the desert. A covert is a covered shelter.
A hiding place for real life
Hiding is not always wrong. During World War II, a Dutch Christian family named ten Boom built a secret room in their home in Haarlem, entered through a low linen cupboard in Corrie's bedroom, and hid Jewish people and resistance workers from the Nazis. When the house was raided in February 1944, the six people in the hidden room were not found, and the Dutch underground later got them out. Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie were sent to prison camps, and Betsie died in Ravensbrück. Corrie lived, and later told the story in the book The Hiding Place.
But many of us hide in the wrong direction. Maybe you are covering something right now: a habit, a lie, something you took, something you did years ago. It is tiring to carry. David's words about dried-up bones may sound familiar.
- Stop covering it. Tell God plainly what you did. You do not need fancy words.
- If someone else was hurt, ask a trusted pastor or older friend how to make it right.
- If you are hiding because of something that was done to you, hear this clearly: that is not your sin. Tell a safe adult. God is not someone to hide from.
- Read Psalm 32 all the way through and notice how it starts and ends with joy.
After our refuge and strength in Psalm 46, this name brings safety down to the heart. The next name, our dwelling place, shows that God is not just a place to hide for a night but a home to live in. You can see the full list on the names of God in the Bible page.
