Most translations of the Bible usually translate the Hebrew word paniym with some word other than its most common meaning, which is face.  Did you know, for example, that the word shewbread should literally be translated bread of faces?  Shewbread means nothing to us, but the bread (food) of God that, when eaten, will work in us to the salvation of souls does mean something, doesn’t it?  That is the meaning of the bread of faces in the Tabernacle of Moses.  By continuing our study of the word paniym we find this salvation of our souls more fully described in Psalms 42 and 43.

The word paniym occurs four times in Psalms 42 and 43, but most English translations allow you to recognize the word only once.  The other three occurrences remain pretty well hidden, yet those three times comprise the theme of both these psalms.

Why are you cast down
oh my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall again praise him,
the salvation of my face…. (Psalm 42:5)

What! bowest thou thyself,
O my soul?
And what! art thou troubled within me?
Wait for God,
for still I confess Him,
The salvation of my face, and my God! (Psalms 42:11)

What! bowest thou thyself,
O my soul?
And what! art thou troubled within me?
Wait for God,
for still I confess Him,
The salvation of my face, and my God! (Psalms 43:5)

Who are you?  Who am I?  What does God see when he looks at us?  What part is it of us that God saves? These verses proclaim that God saves our faces, saves our faces, saves our faces.  Consider the phrase, “so and so did that just to save face.”

You and I are known by our faces.  All of us want pretty, handsome, or likable faces; no one wants to be considered ugly or unfriendly.  Likewise, we want to be seen and known as honorable and trustworthy, not as a cheat, a liar, or as dishonest.

So, consider your face.  You want to look good.  Thus we have hair color, lip stick, eye shadow, hair growing drugs and transplants, wrinkle removers, tooth polishers, and countless other products designed to make us look better.  We comb our hair, brush our teeth, and do many other things that we believe make our face look presentable or attractive.  Some of us put on airs when we go to church or any other place in society,  We are known by our face, and if our face is not quite what we want it to be, we do things to it to make it look like it is.

Most men usually hide their true faces.   So, we have crafted smiles and replies like, “I’m fine, how are you?” to hide the reality of our lives.  And, of course, many of us lead secret lives that we cover with plaster so that no one can see within our shell.  We have become whitewashed tombs of death. We want to look like something we are not.  We hide our true face and pretend.  We become hypocrites.

But God is looking for a man in whom there is no guile, like his disciple Nathaniel.  He looks for a true man, a man unafraid to show his true face.  And so we see that in Scripture, in God’s paradigm, the word face means far more than our mere physical appearance.  Our face represents who we really are. Face thus becomes another word to describe our soul.  Our face reveals our essence and so our face pictures our mind, our will, our emotions, our plans, our dreams, and all our desires.  So examine yourself and consider, what does your face look like?  No, not your natural face.  God is not that interested in how pretty you appear to another.  What does God see when he gazes upon your nakedness, the real you?

Are you cast down?  Wait for God.  Do you realize you walk the road of the hypocrite?  Repent.  God is the salvation of your face, your being, your soul.  Confess and trust in him.  Walk out your salvation in fear and trembling, and he will lift up your face in his great hands until you can, and want to, look into his eyes and see him as he is.