Another angle on this theme comes from an analysis of Psalm 33:14-15 which in the A.V. reads as follows – “The Lord looks from heaven; He beholds all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation He looks upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashions their hearts alike; He considers all their works.”
Our interest centres on the clause, “He fashions their hearts alike.” Referring to my Interlinear Hebrew Text of the Psalms, I find it reads, “Who forms together their hearts.” On turning to the Hebrew Concordance, the word in question is YACHAD, occurring some 139 times in the O.T., and in all but a handful of cases, it’s translated “together”. The Lexicon confirms that this is the true meaning of the word.
Two examples may be given, to illustrate the point. Deut.33:5 “All the tribes of Israel were gathered together.” Amos 3:3 “Can two walk togetherexcept they be agreed?”
What does this verse in Psalm 33 mean? How shall we understand the verb “fashions”, or “forms”? It is YATZAR, and first occurs in Genesis 2:7-8“The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord planted a Garden in Eden eastwards, and there He put the man whom He had formed.”
In other words YATZAR is one of the “creation” words, and it tell us about God’s initial act of creation of man. In the Psalm 33 text, it tells us about the creation of men’s hearts, and we are told that He performed this creative act “together”, in other words at the same time. It doesn’t suggest that all of our hearts are the same, because the word heart is used in the Bible as the seat of the human will. “Out of the heart proceed murders . . . etc.”, and “With the heart one believes unto righteousness.” No, the “togetherness” refers to a temporal act. We were all created at the same time, prior to the formation of the earth. We dwelt in the heavens as spiritual beings, awaiting our time to be sent down to the earth.
