Tag Archives: Biblical Greek

You Need a Good Shoe

01 Monday Aug 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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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

Hey! What Are You Wearing?

20 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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It’s a new week and I am continuing my study of Isaiah 45:7, specifically the phrase “I make peace.”  I am continuing to look at the Hebrew word asah translated “make” in this passage and, this week, am looking at the third letter comprising asah: the Hey (or Hei or Heh).

Robert Haralick defines Hey as “Power of Being”.  I had to take a moment to think on that because I was once more convinced the ministry of the Holy Spirit was being revealed to me.  I thought about Genesis where God asahs man.  The Ayin revealed the eyes of God focused on His making as well as His being the source of our life.  The Shin revealed the fire that God is inhabiting us and I also pictured that fire like the heat of a kiln, finishing and preparing us.  Now, in Hey, I see He is our Power of Being. The Living Word says, “the shape behind the Hey is of a mouth, breathing, breath”.  God breathed into the nostrils of the man He had made and that man became a living being.  Jesus breathed on His disciples and bade them receive the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit descended on those gathered on the Day of Pentecost as a rushing wind from heaven.  The Spirit is the wind from the heavenly realm, the very breath of Jesus within us: He is our Power of Being.

But, such are concepts I’ve already written about.  I was curious what more I could discover in studying the Hey.  The Shivimpanin video told me Hey represents a unification of giving and receiving as well as completeness for the three lines of Hey represent length, depth, and breadth.  Mr. Haralick shares a similar thought: “The shape of the letter Hey is composed of three lines, one separated from the other two.  The three lines are the three garments, the means of expression, of the soul.  The garments are thought, speech, and action.”  In his entry on the Hey, Mr. Haralick also writes; “The garments of our expression are thoughts, words, and actions.  That which is not manifest we bring into our awareness and our consciousness by our thoughts.  By words and actions we can bring what is in our thoughts to the awareness of others.”

I have been thinking a great deal on garments.  One of my Bible Teachers tells a story of attending a convention where one of the speakers, an Evangelist, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and covered his hand with it.  He likened Jesus to the handkerchief, the covering that hides us from the eyes of the Father and thus Jesus manages sneak us into the Kingdom.  I haven’t heard these exact words myself nor seen this image taught but, with them in mind, I have carefully listened to other believers as they speak.  I hear them speak of being saved but insist they are still flawed human beings and sinners or I hear something like: “God doesn’t see our sins because He sees us through His Son.”  Just this morning I was reading a devotional that said, “One day I’ll stand before a holy God and the grace of Jesus will clothe me.”  I listen to what others say or I read something like that and, while I cannot say I necessarily disagree, there is enough there to give me pause.  I cannot say I agree without more of an explanation of what they mean.

In all my listening, I have found there is very little believers are expecting from their Christian lives.  It seems it is enough to believe in Jesus and get to go to heaven when they die.  While they are waiting to die and go to heaven, they fill their lives with good works and try to be like Jesus and try to convince others to believe on Him so they too can escape hell.  After all, doesn’t Revelation 19 say the Bride of Christ is given fine linen to wear, clean and white, and that the fine linen is the righteousness of saints (verses 7-8)?  That’s the translation in the King James version.  Other translations say “the righteous acts of the saints”.  Doesn’t the Book of James say “faith without works is dead” so we thus prove we are the people of God with our works and, by performing righteous acts, ensure we won’t be found naked when He comes?

This is not the sum of my Christian life.  I expect I now live a life in and flowing out of the Holy Spirit and I do not have this expectation in vain.  I expect that God is faithful to His word and that what He has promised, He will do.  I expect He told the truth in Ezekiel 36 when He promised to give me a new heart and a new spirit and then promised He will put His spirit in me.  I expect the Apostle Peter told the truth when he declared Joel’s prophecy fulfilled and the Spirit of God poured out on all flesh.  I expect God’s word is true and that I know His Spirit is in me because His Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God.  I expect that because His Spirit is in me that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  I expect that His Spirit in me makes the great work of the blood of Jesus a reality in my life and that His blood has cleansed me from all sin. 

I expect the life I now live I live by the faith of Jesus Christ.  I expect that His blood cleanses my conscience of dead works.  I expect works to prove my faith is alive because it is His faith, His works, and He is in me working both to will and to do.  I expect that because His Spirit is in me, I will do good works which God has before ordained that I should walk in.  I expect His Spirit in me keeps me abiding in Him and Him in me so that my life cannot help but bear fruit.  I expect that it is Christ IN me that is my hope of glory, not Christ ON me.

I expect that all of this is happening right now because the Spirit is renewing my mind.  In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul beseeches us to “be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (12:2).  The Greek word translated “renewing” in this passage is anakainosis (G342) and means “renovation-renewing”.  Paul also beseeches us to “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23).  The Greek word translated “renewed” here is ananeoo (G365) and also has the meaning of “to renovate, reform, renew”.   

I expect the word of God to be true and I thank God that through Jesus Christ I am right this minute being delivered from my body of death!  Right now, because I am in Christ Jesus, I am a new creation.  Behold!  Old things have passed away and all things have become new.  The letter Hey is spelled Hey Aleph and means Lo!, or Behold!, or Here it is!  The letter Hey means Spirit, Revelation, and Receiving Understanding.  This changes how I pray Paul’s great prayer in Ephesians.  “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints…” (1:17-18). 

His Spirit, that Spirit that is wisdom and revelation and the Jesus Christ-life energy working in me to open my eyes, is in me right this moment.  Because that is true, I no longer worry so much about where I’m going when I die but what I am becoming right now.  Becoming isn’t even the correct word.  His Spirit renovates me, renews me, and restores me to His original plan revealed in Jesus.  God foreknew me before my parents ever came together and, because He foreknew me; He has predestined me to be conformed to the image of His Son.  This transformation and conformation happens first in my thoughts and I thank Him that in His gentleness, He doesn’t destroy me and then build me again.  I am transformed from glory to glory.  My death is swallowed up in His life. 

Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he”.  I look at the letter Hey and see this is true: my very thoughts are my garments.  The goodness of God leads me to metanoia and, as I exchange my mind for His and my thoughts for His, my garments become His righteousness.  I do not fear I will be found naked when He comes because my garments cannot be separated from me.  They are His very life.  “It doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Hey!  Lo!  Behold!  Here it is!  Hallelujah!

Note: For ease of reading, I did not reference every scripture I’ve quoted but everything I wrote about what I expect is found in scripture.  I encourage everyone to look these promises up for yourselves and EXPECT!

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

HEI- Secrets of the Hebrew Letters – YouTube

Secret of the Hebrew letter Heh – YouTube

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995, Pages 69-83

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

Going With the Flow

30 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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“I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.” 

This is Isaiah 45:7, my study passage.  I am moving on from darkness and have begun looking at “I make peace”.  The first thing I did was look up “make” in the Strong’s Concordance to see what the Hebrew word is.  It is asah (H6213) and I think it’s worth noting this is the same word used in Genesis 1:26 where God says, “Let us make man in Our image and after Our likeness.”  I was thinking of the difference between God creating the heavens and the earth but making man.  Creating took intent and thought but Making, to me, suggests personal attention, like an artist deliberately fashioning something to delight in.  Making sets mankind apart from the rest of Creation because God paid special attention to us.  I wondered if I’d find this idea contained in the meaning of the Hebrew letters.

I may.  I haven’t made it too far because my attention was arrested when I looked at the first letter of asah which is the Ayin. Mr. Haralick’s book defines Ayin as Insight and Consciousness and the word itself (spelled Ayin, Yod, Nun) means “eye, face, look, appearance, sight, aperture, bud, sparkle, or gleam”.  While looking at darkness, I had spent some time in Matthew 6 verses 22 &23 so I have had eyes on my mind-so to speak.  I am looking into “make” so did not want to get sidetracked but I couldn’t help it: I had to know what Ayin had to do with eyes and sight and whether or not I would find a repetition of the picture I’d seen of the eyes of our heart being enlightened by the Holy Spirit and thus our seeing being intertwined with His. 

Mr. Haralick defines Ayin and then says, “And when we know the eye we realize that the eye is more than the eye.  We become conscious of something deeper for ‘The eye is not satisfied with just seeing’ (Eccl. 1:8).  This is because it is by the light of the eye that we can see and follow the correct path.  Therefore, the eye is deep and protected.  ‘Guard me like the apple of Thine eye’ (Psalm 17:8)…When we turn our eyes to God, what do we see?…We see eye to eye.”

In many of his teachings, Malcolm Smith talks about the meaning of with God and God with us often using the term “eyeball to eyeball.”  Reading “we see eye to eye” made me remember Mr. Smith’s words which made me think of John 1:1; “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  Since I had determined to go with the flow, I decided to look at with. 

With, in the Greek, is sun (G4862) and the Strong’s defines it as, “union, with or together, companionship, process, resemblance, possession…completeness”.  Surely here I see a confirmation of being braided together with the Holy Spirit, One with Jesus Christ and The Father in union with the Holy Spirit.  Except sun isn’t the Greek word translated with in John 1:1.  The Strong’s doesn’t help me here except to not include John 1:1 in the list of occurrences of with.  I have to look at the Interlinear Greek New Testament in order to see that the Greek word translated with in John 1:1 is pros (G4314).

Pros is a directional word.  It means “forward to, toward, the side of, pertaining to…the place, time, occasion, or respect which is the destination of the relation…motion towards, accession to, or nearness at.”  The entire Greek phrase translated “with God” (in anglicized spelling) is pros too Theos.  The too (G5120) is a word I’ve written about before.  It is the same word many Bible translations have as “in” in Galatians 2:20: “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God” whereas that word in the Greek is too and means “of this person-his”.  I’m delighted whenever I come across this tiny word because, as I’ve mentioned before, one of my study resources declares it to be of no importance when conducting a study and I wholeheartedly disagree.  Both of my Interlinear Greek New Testaments appeared to agree with that study resource as neither bothered to translate it.  Too hangs out in the sentence with nothing but blank space underneath it while “with” is under pros and “God” is under Theos. 

I put myself in the place of the translators and think I understand the difficulty.  How to properly translate this phrase into English?  We’ve got The Word which is Logos and has a meaning difficult to express in one word.  It’s the communication, the Divine Expression, the very thought belonging to God in a special and specific way coming to us out from God and yet, at the same time, pointing back to God.  “With” cannot begin to express all that is contained in this tiny phrase yet it does the best it can: The Word was with God and He is the promised God with us.  Emmanuel.  That name begins with the Hebrew for with which is Im and begins with the letter Ayin.

I allowed my thoughts to flow without hindering them and I am brought full circle to where I started with the letter Ayin.  I read further into Mr. Haralick’s description and read the gematria of Ayin is 130.  What is Gematria?  How is it different from Numerology? It’s important to first define the term.  I’ll include some links at the bottom of this post so anyone interested can further look into this.  Put simply, Numerology is a way of using numbers in an attempt to foretell the future and Gematria is the method of assigning numbers to Hebrew letters and then looking for patterns between words that share the same numerical value.  I found some articles that spoke disparagingly on gematria and an equal number considering it a valuable tool.  

As for me, I love patterns and was curious what point Mr. Haralick was going to make.  He writes, “the gematria of Ayin is 130.  The word cullam has the gematria of 130 and means ‘ladder’.”  Here is a pattern indeed.  The word cullam (H5551) occurs in Genesis 28:10-19 which is the story of Jacob’s dream where he saw a ladder set upon the earth.  Its top reached to heaven and the angels of God were ascending and descending.  In John 1:51 Jesus is speaking to Nathaniel and says, “Most assuredly I say to you hereafter you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”  Here, I think, is a wonderful picture of the meaning of pros too Theos.  Jesus is the One in Whom Heaven and Earth meet.  He is the One in Whom life flows in two directions.  What do I mean by that?

“No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:20).  “God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son whom He has appointed heir of all things through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3).  These are two scriptures that show the flow from the heart of God to us.  Jesus is the Gift of God who comes to us out of the very heart of God.  This same God who is Infinite Love chose us in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world, predestined us to adoption according to the good pleasure of His will…which He purposed in Himself that in the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ-In Him (Ephesians 1:3-10).

Andrew Murray includes this quote by Tauler in his commentary on the Hebrews: “Did not Jesus say, “I am the door of the sheepfold’ (John 10:1)?  What to us in the sheepfold, dear children?  It is the heart of the Father, whereunto Christ is the gate that is called Beautiful.  O children, how sweetly and how gladly has He opened that door into the Father’s heart, into the treasure chamber of God!  And there within He unfolds to us the hidden riches, the nearness and the sweetness of companionship with Himself.”  That is what I mean by life flowing two ways.  He is the light which is our life come from the Father and, in Him, we are lifted up, seated in heavenly places, brought eye to eye with the Father.

“By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 John 4:13).  Ayin also means “spiritual insight” (Bentorah) and it is only when our eyes are enlightened by the Holy Spirit that we know that He is in us and we are in Him: One the same way He and the Father are One.  With our eyes enlightened, we see Jesus.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Bentorah, Chaim, Hebrew Word Study: Beyond the Lexicon, Trafford Publishing, 2014, Pages 130-134

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995, Pages 229-240

Marshall, Rev. Alfred., The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1958, 1970

Murray, Andrew, Holiest of All: A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Whitaker House, New Kensington, PA, 1996, 2004, Page 370

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

What Is Gematria? | My Jewish Learning

Numerology Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Gematria Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

What is the difference between gematria and numerology? | Bethsheba Ashe | The Blogs (timesofisrael.com)

Gematria: It’s Not Numerology — Daf Aleph

What Are You Looking At?

09 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies, Uncategorized

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Hello, Readers!  Welcome to another post on darkness.

Part of my word study process is reading every scripture where my study word appears.  I did so with both the Hebrew and Greek words translated “darkness” and did read some things that made me wonder: what does this passage mean?  Once such passage is in Luke’s Gospel: “Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness” (11:35).  I’ve been turning this verse over and over in my mind for weeks all the time wondering just what Jesus is saying here.

The verse occurs within a point Jesus is making about the eye.  He says, “The lamp of the body is the eye.  Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light.  But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness.  Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.  If your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light” (Luke 11:34-36)

This same speech is quoted a bit differently in Matthew: “The lamp of the body is the eye.  If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23)

Having already read these passages, they were foremost in my mind when I read through the “darkness” entry in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology and found this: (on skotos) “The words are given a clearly negative sense in those passages which contrast a sound eye (as the organ which guides) in a body full of light with an evil eye in a body full of darkness (Matt. 6:22 f, Lk. 11:34-36).  By looking in the wrong direction the body succumbs to the power of darkness.”

The idea expressed here made more sense to me when I looked at the same passages in the King James Version where “good” as in “if your eye be good” is translated “single”.  Having a single eye must mean an eye undivided, meaning not having our attention divided, meaning gazing always and forever into the face of Jesus and thus being full of light.  If we look away from Him and focus our attention on the things of this world, then our eye is no longer single and we are full of darkness.  It’s like the song says: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will go strangely dim…”

This idea of the body succumbing to the power of darkness because the eye looks in the wrong direction also made sense when I considered how the human eye works.  Our eye is complex and functions by bending and focusing light rays.  The light rays enter the eye via the cornea which is curved so the light is bent slightly.  Light then passes through the pupil, which is actually a hole surrounded by the muscular structure of the iris which contracts and relaxes to let in more or less light.  Behind the pupil is the lens where the fine focusing is done.  The lens is a clear disc held in place by suspensory ligaments and ciliary muscles which contract to bend the light more or relax to bend the light less.  All of these parts of the eye serve to focus light on the retina which responds to the light by sending electrical impulses to the brain via the optic nerve.  There are two types of light sensitive cells in the retina: rods and cones.  Rods are found mostly in the periphery of the retina, are used in peripheral vision, are more light sensitive than cones but cannot distinguish colors.  Cones are concentrated in a small, central area of the retina, provide color vision, and work best in bright light.  The eye, if deprived of light, does not properly function.

All of this reminded me of a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne titled The Great Stone Face.  This story is about a rock formation in the mountains overhanging a village.  The rock formation is shaped like a wise and noble face.  There’s a prophecy among the villagers that, one day, a man would come who would be the exact image of the Great Face.  There’s a young boy fascinated with the Face and the prophecy and spends as much time as he can gazing at the Face.  As he grows, there are some who come to the village who are proclaimed as the embodiment of The Face but that proves to be false.  The young boy grows to manhood and then old age, always waiting for the One prophesied to come, always gazing on the Great Face, not realizing the he himself was growing into the same image.  It’s a beautiful story and, again, the idea expressed does seem to make sense of the scripture passages.

Except…

The Greek word translated “single” in the KJV and “good” in the NKJV doesn’t mean undivided or focused.  The word is haplos (G573) and the definition in Strong’s is “folded together, single, clear.”  Haplos is a compound word comprised of alpha and pleko.  Pleko (G4120) is a primary word meaning “to twine or braid.”  When I read this, I was reminded of one of the Hebrew words translated “wait” in the OT.  The word is qavah (H6960) and one of its meanings is, “to bind together by twisting”.  This particular word is the one used in Isaiah 40:31: “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  This isn’t a twiddling the thumbs sort of waiting: it’s being intertwined with the very life of God.

I am not saying fixing our attention-our sight, if you will-on Jesus Christ is wrong.  There is a moment in our lives when the light of Jesus Christ shines into our darkness and we see what we never saw before.  And yet, there is so much more to the passages in Matthew and Luke.  Ephesians 1:18 says, “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.”  This passage is not speaking of our physical human eyes or our ability to fix our attention on Jesus but is referring to a kind of seeing possible only by the action of the Holy  Spirit.  I think the passages in Matthew and Luke are making the same reference.  They are not speaking about us gazing at a Jesus located outside of ourselves but rather being knit to Him so that we don’t see with our eyes only but our vision is intertwined with His. The best quote I’ve found that puts into words what I am seeing in this passage is one I copied from Malcolm Smith’s teaching series The Search for Self Worth.  He says, “In that moment of miracle (meaning the moment the light of the truth of Jesus Christ shone in my life) I have been taken out of the darkness.  Now, that process begins of taking out of me the ways of darkness.”

Skotos, the Greek word for darkness, carries the meaning of obscurity and the Greek word for “single” or “good” also means clear.  When I looked at the Hebrew letters comprising “darkness” in my original study passage of Isaiah 45:7, I saw the picture of God joining Himself to us and transforming us.  I see the same picture in the passages in Matthew and Luke: Jesus Christ Himself coming into our darkness and joining Himself to us.  His life is formed in us.  In Him we are a New Creation. This life that He is in us is ours through His Spirit in us. We are full of light when we abide in Him and His Spirit is the river of life within us. It is my firm conviction this light becomes darkness when His Spirit is quenched. Truly, how great is that darkness.

I meditate on all of this and no longer think the question I am asking myself is “what are you looking at?” but “how are you seeing?”

I see Jesus.           

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967-1971, Pages 420-425

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Great Stone Face, Greatest Short Stories, Volume I, P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, New York, New York, 1915, 1940, Pages 89-120

Pilcher, Dr. Helen, Mind Maps Biology: How to Navigate the Living World, Unipress Books Limited, China, 2020, Pages 74-75

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