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When Tradition and I Part Ways

28 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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“I have to go downstairs and study ‘evil’.” 

I heard myself say those words to my family and laughed when the responses I received were “okay” and “sounds good”.  Only within the context of a Bible Study can someone announce he or she is going to study evil and no one wonders at it!

I am continuing my study of “evil” this week.  In Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I create evil”.  I’ve already posted a series of studies on the Hebrew word translated “create” in this passage-which is bara-so will not repeat myself but will say I have learned enough to question what is being said here.  “To make something out of nothing” is not an accurate definition of “create” and bara is used often enough in the OT where something new came into being out of already existing materials that we do not have to automatically assume God is saying He is the source of evil.  What is this passage saying?  In the 45th chapter of Isaiah, God is making it clear He alone is God.  There is no evil power equal to Him so-looking at this passage alone-it could be He is claiming to be the source of evil.  And yet, the text allows the equally valid interpretation that God alone is God and not even evil becomes part of the working out of His will: He will come inside it, make it new, and turn it into His good.

I cannot make a determination based on this single passage of scripture.  I hear that done so often: a single verse or at times a fragment of a verse is taken and entire doctrines are built upon it.  Any passage that refutes the established doctrine is either refuted in turn or utterly ignored.  I have seen the truth of the words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.  And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’  For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men-the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things as you do…All too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition” (Mark 7:6-9, Isaiah 29:13). 

And so, because I do not want to keep hold of what the traditions I have been part of have told me evil is and how it came into being, I began first by checking which Hebrew word is translated “evil” in Isiah 45:7.  It is ra and the Strong’s number is 7451.  I then checked whether the word was the same in Genesis 2 for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and, when I saw it was, I decided to read each passage containing the word ra and see what I could see.  I had barely begun when I wondered which Greek words the Septuagint had in place of ra in both in Isaiah 45:7 and in Genesis 2:9.  I had read that it was impossible to show a difference between kakos and poneros which are the two Greek words used to translate “evil” most often in the NT, so I checked the two passages in the OT to see if the same Greek word was used both times.  It is not.  Isaiah 45:7 has kaka which is the nominative/accusative/vocative plural neuter of kakos.  Genesis 2:9 has poneros.  I had to ask myself, why use two different Greek words to translate the same Hebrew word?

I mentioned before I had read that it was impossible to differentiate between kakos and poneros.  I read that statement in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  The first paragraph in the entry for Evil, Bad, Wickedness states: “The two main NT terms for expressing the shortcomings or inferiority of a thing (i.e. bad) and the ethically negative and religiously destructive character of a person or thought (i.e. evil) are kakos and poneros.  In the NT kakos occurs 50 times and the linguistically later poneros 78 times though the LXX uses it only 50 times compared to the 300 cases of kakos.  Unlike the terms dealt with under –Good, it is impossible to show any difference between these two terms.  Both are used even for the personification of evil in the devil or men” (Brown, 561).

Is it impossible to show any difference between the two terms?  Perhaps it is so merely looking up the different passages in our English translations.  It is not impossible if we look up the meanings of the words.  The full definition the Strong’s gives kakos (G2556)is: “apparently a primary word; worthless (intrinsically whereas 4190 (poneros-addition mine) properly refers to effects) i.e. (subjectively) depraved, or (objectively) injurious-bad, evil, harm, ill, noisome, wicked.”  The Strong’s defines poneros (G4190) as: “from a derivate of 4192; hurtful i.e. evil (properly in effect of influence and thus differing from 2556, which refers rather to essential character, as well as from 4550 which indicates degeneracy from original virtue); figuratively, calamitous, also (passively) ill, i.e. diseased; but especially (morally) culpable, i.e. derelict, vicious, facinorous; neuter (singular), mischief, malice, or (plural) guilt; masculine (singular) the devil or (plural) sinners:-bad, evil, grievous, harm, lewd, malicious, wicked (-ness).”

 For the sake of clarification, the Greek word under 4550 in the Strong’s is sapros and means “rotten, worthless, bad, corrupt”.  I had to look up “facinorous” and found it means “atrociously wicked: infamous”.  I admit there isn’t a massive difference between the two definitions as I’ve shared them but I found the difference becomes more obvious as I traced kakos through its familial words and poneros to its root.  The root of poneros is ponos (G4190) and it means, “toil, anguish, pain.”  Ponos can be traced further to penes or peno (G3993) which means, “to toil for daily subsistence, starving, indigent, poor.” 

I won’t share every definition of the Greek words related to kakos: they are numbers 2549-2561 in the Strong’s concordance should anyone wish to look them up.  There isn’t a great variation in meaning which is expected.  What I found interesting is the Greek word kakωs (G2560).  This word is the adverbial form of kakos, is pronounced kakooce, and means, “badly (physically or morally), amiss, diseased, evil, grievously, miserably, sick, sore.”

I find it utterly fascinating that the Septuagint chose poneros for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In Genesis chapter 3, the ground is cursed for Adam’s sake and God says to him: “in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (verse 17) and poneros has the root meaning of “toil.”  Kakos, on the other hand, has the meaning of “illness, affliction.”  It is obvious to me these two words do not mean the same thing and, if word choice by the writers of the New Testament was deliberate, the passages where these words occur were meant to be read with these definitions in mind.  What the different choices in Genesis 2:9 and Isaiah 45:7 mean is something to be looked at in upcoming weeks.

It is a difficult thing to leave tradition behind and look at the scripture without any preconceived bias and be led entirely by the Holy Spirit.  It can be uncomfortable to “test everything”.  I have already come across some difficult passages which I do not want to shrink from nor dismiss out of hand.  They have been recorded in scripture for a reason.  They are important to understand.  I do not want to continue to interpret them as I’ve always been told they ought to be interpreted and I am not satisfied to settle for the vague answers I find in some commentaries.  I want to know the truth and so I continue to pray, “Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Living God, Spirit of wisdom and revelation, continue to teach and guide me.  Renew my mind and open the eyes of my heart that I might see You, Jesus, the One who is the Truth.”

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

 Notes:

Whenever I have typed kakos I am referring to the Greek word spelled with an omicron: number 2556 in the Strong’s Concordance

LXX is the abbreviation for the Septuagint

References:

κακά – Wiktionary

Septuagint | biblical literature | Britannica

Facinorous Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967, 1986, Page 561

Lanier, Gregory R., and William Ross, Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition, Volumes I & II, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2018

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Adding Knowledge, Increasing Understanding

21 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello!  Welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where this week I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7 and specifically look at evil.

If you have read last week’s post, you might be wondering why write anything more on evil if I believe what I wrote is true: that we who belong to Jesus live from His life rather than live our lives determining for ourselves what is good or evil.  I do believe it but I also believe in Jesus’ warning: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.  Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).

It is important to me to understand exactly what the Holy Spirit meant to convey as He inspired the prophets to speak and the scribes to record.  The world system uses words as it sees fit and rarely do these meanings line up with what was intended in the scriptures.  I hear the word “evil” used to describe a person who simply disagrees with the mindset of another.  I don’t think that’s what is meant by “evil” in the Bible but I don’t know for certain.  Any dissent I may attempt will quickly fail as I have no foundational understanding to strengthen me.  And so, I continue my study.

One thing I noticed while studying “create” and bara was, bara is the only Hebrew word translated “create”.  While bara is translated with other words in other passages (to fatten, to cut down), any time you read the word “create” in the King James Version of the Bible, the corresponding Hebrew word is bara.  There will be prefixes and suffixes attached but the root is always bara.  I don’t know that I’ve gleaned any significant meaning from that but I do mention it as a matter of interest because this is rarely the case.  When I look up a word in the Strong’s concordance, I find that one English word has been used to translate several Hebrew (and Greek) words and thus variations in meaning are missing from our translations.  One such word I’ve already looked at is “darkness” and you can take a look at those previous studies if you like.

Going back to previous studies is not necessary though because “evil” in English has been used to translate several Hebrew and Greek words.  In Hebrew they are: ra, ra’a, ra’ah, roa, dibbah, beliya’al, and aven.  In Greek they are: poneros, kakos (spelled with an omicron), kakopoieo, kakia, kakologeo, kakoo, kakos (spelled with an omega), kakourgos, katalalia, katalaleo, phaulos, adikema, blasphemeo, blasphemia, and dusphemia. 

It is obvious that some of these occurrences are variations of a word rather than a different meaning: both the verb and the noun, for example.  Some of these words have only been translated “evil” in one passage so, as I continue in this study, I won’t focus on them.  These words in the Hebrew are dibbah, ra’ah, beliya’al, and aven.  Dibbah appears in Numbers 13:32 and is translated “evil report”.  The word dibbah means “slander, defaming.”  Beliya’al appears in Psalms 41:8 where it is translated “evil disease.”  The word itself means “without profit, worthlessness, destruction, wickedness.”  Aven appears in Proverbs 12:21 where it is translated “evil” as in misfortune.  The word aven means “trouble, vanity, wickedness, to come to naught”.  Ra’ah appears in Job 24:21 but, since it belongs to the same family as the word in my study passage, which is ra, I may be looking at ra’ah as well.

The Greek word adikema is translated “evil” as in “evil doing” in Acts 24:20 and that is the only time the King James Version used it so.  It might be interesting to see how its meaning contrasts with kakopoieo which means “to be a bad-doer” but I probably won’t be considering it in too much depth.  The same with dusphemia which occurs in 2 Corinthians 6:8 where it is translated “evil” as in “evil report”. 

My point of this study is not for you or me to memorize a bunch of Hebrew and Greek words so we can insert ourselves into situations and point out how much we know.  Neither is it for us to arm ourselves with an extensive vocabulary we then use to bludgeon others into silence.  My point is the importance of words.  Those who wrote both the Old and New Testaments certainly were specific in the words they chose to convey what they wanted to say.  Our English translations were less so.  Two different words are translated as “speak evil” in the New Testament: kakalogeo and katalaleo.  They don’t mean exactly the same things. Kakalogeo means “to revile, curse, speak ill of” and katalaleo means “to be a traducer, slander”.  Traduce means to “speak badly of or tell lies about someone so as to damage their reputation.” 

James speaks of the tongue as being “an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” in Chapter 3 verse 8 of his epistle.  The word for “evil” here is kakos spelled with an omicron.  Proverbs 18:21 says, “death and life are in the power of the tongue” but if I were to try and make the point that we speak out of the fullness of our hearts and attempted to use Luke 6:45 to do so, the Greek words translated evil in this passage are not kakos nor are they in any way part of the same family as kakos.  The words here in the Greek are poneros.  So, my point might be valid and I might be able to substantiate it using the English translation, but the Greek words mean different things and my point would not end up being accurate.

I think accuracy is important but it is not more important than our relationship to the Holy Spirit.  Through His indwelling us, we have the very person of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit guides us into the truth that Jesus Himself is our all: our life, our wisdom, our peace, our words, our salvation.  And yet, Paul gave this admonition to Timothy: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).  Peter writes in his epistle, we have been given exceedingly great and precious promises and that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature.  He then writes, “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Peter’s list isn’t possible without the Holy Spirit and that includes knowledge.  We can study all we like but, without the Holy Spirit revealing the truth of what we study to us, our study gives us head knowledge only and there is no life to it.  And yet, study is important.  At the beginning of this post I quoted, “be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”  Some translations have “innocent” and others have “gentle” in place of harmless.  The Greek word is akeraios (G185) and the first meaning given in the Strong’s is “unmixed”.  I like that: I want an unmixed mind.  I want to know what these words meant by the ones who wrote them.  I do not want the world system giving me definitions because then, it will begin to interpret scripture for me and that path ends in death.  And so, in the upcoming weeks, I will look at the different words translated “evil” and their meanings.  I will look at the passages in which these words occur and see if my understanding of them changes.  My ultimate desire is that, through this study, the Holy Spirit will open my eyes and I will know the Truth.  Jesus Christ is the ultimate Truth and my prayer to the Holy Spirit is “increase my understanding that I might know Jesus in a deeper and more intimate way.”

May the Holy Spirit open our eyes that we may know Him!

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

The Comparative Study Bible,  Zondervan Bible Publishers, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Ex Nihilo

19 Monday Sep 2022

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Image by Frantisek Krejci from Pixabay

Hello and welcome to another week and another post on Renaissance Woman.

I am moving on from studying “peace” for now and am beginning to look at “I create evil”.  Different Bible translations have different words here: the KJV has “evil” as does the Amplified although that translation expands evil’s definition to “calamity”.  Calamity is the word in the NKJV and New American Standard while the New International has “disaster”.  Whichever word is used, it does feel as though we’ve reached a point in the study where we have all the ammunition we need to prove God is untrustworthy.  After all, doesn’t He say it Himself?  Evil exists because He created it. 

The Genesis account does seem to confirm this-sort of.  God certainly planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden so, while the Genesis account does not ever show Him actually creating evil, He certainly allowed the potential of it.  The word in Isaiah is not “allow” though: it is bara in the Hebrew and is the same word translated “create” and “created” in the Genesis account.  This ought to make the passage in Isaiah clear but, as I looked up the definition for bara, I found it was anything but.

I do not know if I have ever come across a more confusing definition in the Strong’s Concordance.  The definition for bara (H1254) is; “to create, to cut down (a wood), select, feed (as formative processes):-choose, create (creator), cut down, dispatch, do, make (fat).”  The word is translated these different ways in scripture.  The majority of the time it is translated “create” or “creator” but Ezekiel 21:19 translates it twice as “choose”, Joshua 17:15 translates it “cut down”, Ezekiel 23:47 has “dispatch”, Exodus 34:10 translates it “done”, and 1 Samuel 2:29 does indeed translate bara as “make (yourselves) fat.”  With all these different options to choose from, I wonder why the Bible translators choose “create”?  Wouldn’t it make more sense for God to have said He dispatches or cuts down evil?  Whatever my personal preferences might be, they matter not because “create” is the word agreed upon by the translators and so the question I ask myself this week is; what does it mean to create?

In search of an answer, I turn to Genesis where verse One states, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  Strong’s definition aside, all experts seem to agree that creating means to bring something out of nothing.  In his book The Universe Next Door, James W. Sire expresses this almost universally held Christian worldview:  “God created the cosmos ex nihilo.  God is He Who Is, and thus he is the source of all else.  Still, it is important to understand that God did not make the universe out of Himself.  Rather, God spoke it into existence.  It came into being by his word: “God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light” (Gen 1:3).  Theologians thus say God “created” (Gen 1:1) the cosmos ex nihilo-out of nothing, not out of himself or from some preexistent chaos (for if it were really “preexistent”, it would be as eternal as God).”1

As I think about it, I suppose Mr. Sire expresses what was also once my worldview or, at least if I didn’t hold to this belief buckle and thong, I never questioned it.  I do so now.  Mr. Sire insists creation is ex nihilo-out of nothing-and that it is important to understand God did not make the universe out of Himself.  If that is so, then I do wonder at the meanings of John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:16-17, Romans 11:36, and Ephesians 1:22-23.  The first verses of John we are all familiar with: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”  The passage in Colossians states, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things and in Him all things consist” and the passage in Romans is, “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever”.  

The same Greek words occur in these three passages.  Through is dia (G1223) and denotes the channel of an act.  By is en (G1722) and denotes a “fixed position (in place, time, or state), instrumentality”.  Of is ex (G1537) and means “origin”.  To and For are the same word in the Greek.  That word is eis (G1519) and means “to or into (indicating the point reached or entered) of place, time, or purpose.” Consist is the word sunistao (G4921) and means “strengthened, set together, constitute”.  And then there is before which is the Greed word pro (G4253) and it means “in front of, superior, prior, above, before”. 

As I ponder all of these words together, I am reminded of what I read in one of my Physics books: “The deeper explanation for forces acting on objects is explained in physics with another imaginary concept called energy.  Energy is an abstract idea that can’t be seen or detected directly, but we do see the effect it has on things when it is transferred from one place to another.  Despite the fact it is imaginary, energy is a powerful idea that is important in every field of physics.  Energy is like a force field, a mathematical idea that doesn’t physically exist.  We cannot hold energy or see it directly, only the changes in things when energy is transferred.  Energy is like momentum, a conserved quantity in nature.  The amount we start any event with will always equal the amount we end with.  It can never be created or destroyed, but can be transferred into different forms.  If we can determine the energy of a group of objects before an event has happened, then we know they will have the same energy afterward.  The event, whatever it was, will have transferred energy, so that afterward it is stored in different ways and shared out differently across the objects.  Taking this law of conservation to the extreme tells us that all of the energy in our universe today came from one place, the Big Bang.  No extra energy has been made and none of it lost since the start of time, it has only been shared out among different forms.”2

I have to point out the contradiction: first it is stated that energy can never be created or destroyed but then all energy in existence today came from the Big Bang.  How can all energy in existence coming from the Big Bang be possible if energy cannot be created or destroyed?  Thoughts for another time.  Dr. Still then writes, “It is thought our universe started with a Big Bang.  Before this event, there was nothing, including no space for things to move in, or time to grow old by.  At some point, some quantum fluctuation triggered energy, space, and time to be unleashed…in the moments that followed, energy was converted into different forms, including the mass of many fundamental particles.”3 I find that riveting.  Energy is at the very heart of the particles that bind together to form all that exists.

The God who John’s gospel declares is Spirit cannot be compared with the scientific concept of energy: words cannot express the vastness of the gulf that separates the reality of who God is from the idea of energy as described.  Yet I do see a parallel in the description of energy to the picture painted in the scriptures.  God, the Self-Existent One, cannot be created or destroyed.  He is before all things.  He is the source of all things.  He spoke and His Word is the By and the Through and the To and the Of and the For of creation. 

I am not prepared to agree with those who state God created the universe out of Himself but neither do I agree He created out of nothing.  I do agree that all things came into existence because He declared them to be so and yet I see He is not separate from His creation.  In Him, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, all things consist or hold together.  I like the Amplified version of Romans 11:36: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things-For all things originate with Him and come from Him; all things live through Him, and all things center in and tend to consummate and to end in Him.  To Him be glory forever! Amen-so be it.”  I also wonder if all things existing In Christ isn’t what the Apostle Paul is expressing when he writes, “And He put all things under His feet and gave Him to be head over all things to the church which is His body the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23, Emphasis mine). 

 What does it mean to create?  I haven’t the least idea.  I think it’s far too early in my study of bara to begin drawing conclusions.  That being said, I do not think the passage in Isaiah 45:7 can be interpreted as evil exists because God created it.  Perhaps when God says “I create evil” He is promising there is nowhere we can go from His Spirit and no where we can flee from His presence.  We can ascend into heaven and we will find He is there.  We can make our beds in hell and we will find Him there was well.  We can take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea and still His hand will lead us and His right hand will hold us (Psalm 139: 7-10).  Perhaps “I create evil” is His assurance that we need not fear any evil for He is with us.  (Psalm 23:4).

To Be Continued…

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

1. Sire, James W., The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, Fourth Edition, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2004, Page 29

2. Still, Dr. Ben, Mind Maps: Physics, Unipress Books Limited, 2020, Pages 32-33,

3. Ibid., Page 124

Other References

H1254 – bārā’ – Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) (blueletterbible.org)

The Amplified Bible, Expanded Edition, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, The Lockman Foundation, 1954,1987

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volume 2, Authors For Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1985

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

You Need a Good Shoe

01 Monday Aug 2022

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Hello!  Welcome to a new month and a new post on Renaissance Woman!

I am continuing in my study of Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord do all these things.”  I have made it to “peace” in my study which in the Hebrew is shalom and in the Greek eirene.  I had planned for my next study step to be an in-depth look at the Hebrew letters comprising shalom and did touch on the Shin last week.  However, I have come across something in my study of the Shin that must be looked at so, this week, I am going down one of those little side tracks I do usually try so hard to avoid.

In my previous studies of the Shin, I came across two teachers who described the shape of the letter as being comprised of other Hebrew letters.  The Shin is like a flame with the three flame parts being Vavs, the tops of the Vavs are Yods, and the base is a Yod.  Four Yods and three Vavs total seven parts to the Shin and seven is the number of Spiritual Perfection. 

This is not the description Mr. Bentorah gives in his book.  He writes, “The letter Shin is shaped with a base that has three arms extending upward.  Jewish tradition teaches that the right arm of the Shin ש is a Yod י which teaches that we receive wisdom from heaven, the left side is a Zayin ז which teaches that from the left side there flows a weapon of defense to bring peace and the center of the Shin is the Vav ו which connects us with heaven.  Thus the Shin brings the Zayin, Vav, and Yod into balance and harmony.  The Shin teaches us that the peace of the Zayin, the wisdom of God, and the connection with heaven will bring us into harmony with God.”1

Mr. Bentorah speaks specifically to the Hebrew word shalom: “The left arm of the Shin is the Zayin which is a weapon to bring peace.  The Shin is the first letter of shalom which means peace.  Shalom has a wide range of meanings, not just an absence of strife, but the presence of wholeness and prosperity.”2

This idea of a weapon that brings peace sounds like an oxymoron to me.  Never in any history I have read-of any age in any place-has a true peace resulted from warfare.  While reading The Middle Sea, I was struck at how a battle would be fought because of the anger and resentment built during a previous battle which would then lead to another battle because an entirely different group of people would be outraged and then another battle, and another…any “peace” was merely a cessation of the actual killing.  There was no peace in the sense of harmony or covenant friendship.  I can think of no instance where a weapon of any sort brought a genuine peace.

I couldn’t think the idea was a scriptural one either.  Doesn’t the Apostle Paul say, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds…?” (2 Corinthians 10:4)  The list of the Armor of God in Ephesians 6 does mention peace but not as a weapon.  Paul does say, “having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace” but the actual weapons are the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God (Ephesians 6: 13-17).  Peace isn’t a weapon here, defensive or otherwise.

The only scripture I could think of where peace might be thought a weapon of defense is Philippians 4:7: “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  The Greek word translated “guard” in this passage (“keep” in the KJV) is phroureo (G5432) and means, “to be a watcher in advance, to mount guard as a sentinel, to hem in, protect, keep with a garrison”.  I know of no culture where a Watch would be set without that Watch being armed: not to attack but to defend from attackers.  Here, I can see the idea of peace as a defensive weapon but, wondering what more I might learn, I took a look at the Zayin.

There isn’t anything that immediately stands out.  I look up the Zayin in both Mr. Bentorah’s and Mr. Haralick’s books and both tell me the Zayin is the seventh letter of the Hebrew Alphabet and has a numerical value of seven.  The word Zayin (spelled Zayin ז Yod י Nun ן) means “arms” or “weapons”.  Both books tell me the Zayin is even shaped like a sword with the top being the hilt and the vertical part being the blade. 

Mr. Bentorah distinguishes between weapons and arms by writing, “Weapons are used to bring peace from those who are opposing peace.  Arms are used to settle conflict over possessions, something like land, resources, or food.”  He then goes on to write, “the Zayin reminds us that God has provided all we need when He created this world, He will sustain us or protect us.  Thus the Zayin also means to protect and sustain.  As a sword the letter Zayin is a symbol of power.  It is the power of God that will protect us and sustain us.”3

Both books point out the Zayin’s numerical value is seven and the seventh day is the Sabbath or the Day of Rest.  Elaborating on this idea of rest, Mr. Haralick writes, “True rest occurs when the desire to receive for ourself alone is at rest.  For work can be viewed as the activity we do to fulfill and feed the desire to receive for ourself alone.  When the work activity ceases, that is, when the desire to receive for ourself alone is put to rest, a stress-free state emerges.  In this stress-free state we are able to take a cosmic view, seeing ourselves as part of and connected to and identified with Godliness rather than separated and fragmented from Godliness.”4

My Mother commented on last week’s post that she saw the peace of God as rest.  In the Zayin, I definitely see the connection between peace and rest.  Yet the letter Zayin also stands for movement so this letter appears to be a letter of opposites.  It’s an active rest and it’s a peaceful warfare.  Such opposites are only reconciled inside the person of Jesus Christ and by understanding life lived in the Holy Spirit.  Jesus Christ is our rest and His rest is made real to us by the Holy Spirit living in us.  Yet the Holy Spirit is described as wind and living water in the scripture: always moving, increasing, and bringing refreshment and revitalization.  This rest is a dynamic rest.  Then, there is no denying our Christian lives are filled with warfare.  And yet, we do not make war as the world does.  We have no need to fight for resources:  God Himself is sufficient and “my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). 

I think it’s interesting that Ephesians speaks of having our feet shod by the preparation of the gospel of peace.  Assuming the Apostle Paul has a Roman Legionary in mind when he is describing the armor of God, these warriors of Rome did a great deal of marching and carried heavy packs while they were at it.  Good footwear was important and Roman Legionaries wore heavy soled hobnailed sandal-boots called caligae.  The hobnails gave the wearer good traction on most surfaces.  Reliable footwear was probably one of the most important parts of a Legionary’s military kit and it makes me look at the passage in Ephesians in an entirely new light.

The peace with which our feet are shod is the peace of God: union, harmony, completeness, wholeness, well-being, tranquility, and abundance.  With this peace as our foundation, we stand on the solid ground that is Christ Jesus and we cannot be moved.  We are protected and sustained with Jesus Christ Himself as our defense.  When we do move, it is not in a state of warfare to claim more ground and resources or because we seek to put an enemy down.  When we move, it is because we are pressing toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Our steps are sure because Jesus is also the way and our feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of His peace.

  1. Bentorah, Chaim, Hebrew Word Study Beyond the Lexicon, Trafford Publishing, USA, 2014 Page 149
  2. Ibid., Page 150
  3. Ibid., Page 90
  4. Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995, Page 106

All Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

Other References

Matyszak, Philip, Legionary: the Roman Soldier’s Unofficial Manual, Thames & Hudson, Ltd., London, UK, 2009, Page 52-54

Norwich, John Julius, The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean, Vintage Books, Random House, New York, New York, 2006

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Getting a Grasp on Peace

04 Monday Jul 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Image by Avelino Calvar Martinez from Pixabay

Hello and welcome to Renaissance Woman as I continue in my study of Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.”  I am moving on from my study of the word “make”.  The Hebrew word translated make, asah, is one I do want to look at further but, for now, I am content with what I have already discovered.  God is an artist, The Artist, and He pours His very self into everything He makes.  In Isaiah 45:7, the thing He is making is peace.  What does that mean?  What is peace?

I looked at peace a bit when I was conducting my study on the Fruit of the Spirit.  In that study, I saw peace as something that belongs to Jesus and can only be given by Him.  It is given to each individual believer as we come to see ourselves in Him and Him in us through the Holy Spirit.  It is not something that can be imposed on us from without rather peace becomes our way of being as His life is formed in us.  The peace of Jesus Christ is not something we can impose on others but flows out from us as the springs of His life in us overflow.  Such were my conclusions during that study and, while I still wholeheartedly believe what I wrote, I did not define what peace is. 

As I try to answer that question, some of my favorite scriptures on peace come to mind.  There is John 14:27: ““Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”  There is Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You.”  I especially like the Isaiah verse as it states “whose mind is stayed on You” and I have been meditating a great deal on the importance of my thoughts.  Since peace is an aspect of the Fruit of the Spirit, I define it as something internal, something that comes from the life of Jesus Christ within me.  The verse in John does quote Him as saying, “not as the world gives do I give to you,” which tells me His peace is different than the peace I find in the world.  Is the difference between Jesus’ peace and the peace of the world that His is part of the flow of His life and, to the world, peace is something external?

I looked up peace in my New World Dictionary and find the answer to that is yes and no.  The first entries under “peace” are, 1., freedom from or a stopping of war, 2., a treaty or agreement to end war or the threat of war, and 3., freedom from public disturbance or disorder; public security; law and order.  This series of definitions can be summed up as “peace is the absence of conflict” which I admit is how I used to think of peace.  This idea of peace is fragile.  An argument escalates, or a law is opposed and this peace is broken.  This kind of peace is imposed on people from without and such imposition often breeds resentment.

Of course, the peace defined in the dictionary is not always imposed.  The fourth entry under peace says, “freedom from disagreement or quarrels; harmony; concord” and then under “make peace” I read, “to effect a reconciliation with, to end hostilities, settle arguments.”  Two individuals or disparate groups of people can choose to make peace with other, to cease from hostilities, and to settle conflicts.  And yet, there is no need of a heart change for this kind of peace.  It is not imposed from without but neither does it infer those parties ceasing from hostilities are now of one accord or that any restoration of relationship will follow.  This too is an absence of conflict but, just because they may not be acted on, does not mean resentment and bad feeling ceases to exist.

In entries five and six in the dictionary, I finally find peace defined as, “an undisturbed state of mind; absence of mental conflict, serenity, calm, quiet, tranquility”.  These definitions are certainly closer to what I think the peace of Jesus is and yet this peace too can be found in the world without Jesus being mentioned anywhere.  There are religions where the practices are meant to lead to serenity and a tranquil state of mind.  I have met some of the practitioners of these religions and they do seem more calm and confident-more peaceful-than I have ever dreamed of being.  I once watched a documentary where different religious leaders were interviewed and all of them spoke of life being good, peaceful, and blissful.  I listened carefully and Jesus as the source and giver of peace wasn’t mentioned once, even among those leaders who professed to be Christians.  If this is so, if this kind of internal peace can be achieved without Jesus, is He even necessary in our day to day lives?  Is the only bonus to a Christian life that belief in Jesus means you get to escape hell?  What is this peace He promised to leave with us and just how does it differ than that given by the world?

I looked up the Greek word for peace used in the John passage in the Strong’s concordance.  It is eirene (G1515) and means, “peace, prosperity, one, quietness, rest, set at one again.”  The entry in Strong’s Concordance suggests eirene comes from the primary verb eiro which means “to join.”  This same Greek word is used in the Septuagint in place of the Hebrew word translated peace in Isaiah 45:7 which is shalom.  The Strong’s gives a similar definition for shalom (H7965): well, happy, health, prosperity, rest.   

I see these definitions in Ephesians 2:14 where, speaking of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul says; “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation”.  Here, peace is unity; being set at one again with no divisions or separations.  I feel this passage sums up most of the definitions of peace I’ve come across but it all happens within the peace that Jesus Christ Himself is.  What is this peace?  I’ve looked up definitions, compared and contrasted, and still don’t feel I have a grasp on it.

In Isaiah 45:7, God declares He is the One who makes peace  and then in Matthew, Jesus declares, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Mt. 5:9).  I feel there is more to this peace than a lack of war, conflict resolution, or a tranquil mind.  Just what more there is, I do not know.  I need to know because I cannot make peace if I do not know just what it is.  My prayer is that in the upcoming weeks the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation will open my eyes to see what this peace is that God makes, this peace that is Jesus Himself.

Until next time…

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible Old and New Testaments, The Authorized King James Version, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Printed in Colombia, 2003

References

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1974, 1976

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990