Tag Archives: Evil

It’s A Heart Thing-Part One

09 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7

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Hello and welcome to Renaissance Woman!  I am returning to my study of Isaiah 45:7 and, this week, am continuing to look at the words of the Lord where He says He makes peace “and creates evil.”

Simply reading those words causes a host of questions to raise in my mind.  How can a God who creates evil still be called good?  If He creates evil, how come there are passages like Psalm 34:16 which states “the face of the Lord is against those who do evil”?  Or Psalm 5:4: “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You”?  If He creates evil, why did Jesus teach us to pray “deliver us from evil?” 

These questions were based on my understanding that “create” meant “to make from nothing” and thus, whenever I read this passage, I understood it to be saying evil did not exist until God created it.  I have proven to my own satisfaction that “create” does not hold that meaning.  This study has led me to a more accurate definition of “to cause and purpose something new to come into being and grow to fulfill that purpose.”  Unwieldy, I know but that definition is the only one that fits every occurrence of the Hebrew word bara (translated by the English “create”) in the Old Testament.  As I looked up these occurrences, I saw that bara was oftentimes used in situations where the act of creating was done with material already in existence and so, there was no reason to think of God as the source of evil based on the word choice of bara/create.

I also looked up each occurrence of the Hebrew word ra translated as “evil” in my study passage.  The preponderance of the scriptures were very clear that God was not the source of evil but rather evil was rooted in the heart of mankind and flowed into the world via their doings.  And yet, every once in a while I would come across a verse like Amos 3:6: “If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid?  If there is calamity (ra-evil) in a city, will not the Lord have done it?”  There was no denying God did evil as well as man.

And yet, there is a clear difference in the evil of mankind and the evil of God.  Before I point it out, it’s important to take a moment and get the meaning of “evil” clear in our minds.  What we think when we hear the word “evil” is not necessarily what the scripture intended to convey.  The Hastings dictionary defines “evil” as: “…an older form of the word “ill”…the word almost invariably connotes what is either morally corrupt (see Sin) or injurious to life and happiness.”  The Strong’s Concordance has “bad” as the first meaning of ra and continues to define ra with a list of words ranging from “adversity” to “wretchedness”.  I see the same range of meaning in the New World Dictionary where “evil” is defined as “morally bad or wrong” to “causing pain or trouble” to “offensive or disgusting”.  As I looked up the scriptures containing ra, I found reading around the specific passage and sometimes entire chapters necessary to understand which meaning ought to be applied.

The actions I-and I think most people-have in mind when they think of “evil” are the harmful and oftentimes horrendous actions human beings commit against each other: like murder.  The Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:19-21 says, “the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like…”.  If we keep this list in mind and take a long and honest look at the world around us, the “why” of the existence of the majority of evil in the word is clear.

What then is the evil done by God?  As I looked up the various passages I found “injurious to life and happiness” to be the best definition.  I also saw the truth of Amos 3:7 where the prophet declares, “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”  There was never an instance where God had an intention to take an action that would prove definitely injurious to life and/or happiness where He didn’t first declare it.  He also held off performing the action for a long period of time giving His people a chance to turn from their evil ways and also promising, if they did so, He would turn from the evil He had determined to do.

I found the book of Jeremiah offered up the most complete picture of what I am relating.  There are so many scriptures within this book that describe both the hearts and doings of the people of God as evil.  God declared through His prophet, “Hear, O earth!  Behold, I will certainly bring calamity (ra-evil) on this people-The fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words” (Jeremiah 6:19).  There is a fascinating passage in Jeremiah 18:7-12:

“The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, to pull down and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.  And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.  Now, therefore speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, “Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you.  Return now everyone from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good!” ‘“And they said, “That is hopeless!  So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.”

I would have thought that would be enough for God to throw up His hands but He continues to entreat His people through His prophet saying to Jeremiah: “Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them.  Do not diminish a word.  Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may relent concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings” (Jeremiah 26:2-3).

This same chapter describes another man named Urijah who prophesied in the name of the Lord and issued the same warnings as Jeremiah.  King Jehoiakim sought to put him to death and did so.  Urijah fled to Egypt but was pursued, drug back to Jerusalem, killed with the sword, and his body was thrown into the graves of the common people.  Jeremiah would have been killed as well but for the fact that he had the protection of man named Ahikam.  The people of the Lord did not only want to walk according to their own plans, they were set on killing anyone who sought to persuade them otherwise.

Well, the record in scripture is clear.  Despite His promises to relent, the word of the Lord was not heeded and God did bring destruction on Jerusalem and His people.  And yet, He still issued promises and words of comfort to His people.  Jeremiah writes a letter to the people carried away into captivity in Babylon and that letter contains one of the most quoted scriptures of all time: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).  The next chapters contain the promises that the captives would return and both Judah and Jerusalem would be restored.

The book of Jeremiah also records that beautiful promise of God: “They shall be my people and I will be their God, then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear (revere) Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them.  And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good, but will put My fear (reverence) in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.  Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul” (Jeremiah 32:38-41).

I don’t see that the people were incapable of turning their hearts to God.  Rather, I see that they would not.  The book of Jeremiah also includes a story of the men of Judah who had fled to Egypt (despite their being warned not to do so!  See Chapter 42).  Even after they had seen the destruction of the city of God and heard God still promising to care for them in the land, their answer to the prophet was; “we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and put out drink offerings to her as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble.  But since we have stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and famine” (Jeremiah 44: 17:18).

Could the people of God then have been so blind that they did not know evil had come upon them as a direct result of the evil of their own hearts and doings, their turning away from God, and their outright disobedience? Even so, God promises to give them one heart and one way.  That prophecy is repeated and intensified through another prophet of the Lord, Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

We will continue to look at this next week…

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

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, 1972, 1974

Hastings, James, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, Fifth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, 2001, Page 247

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

Where’s Your Head At?

26 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Image by Christine Schmidt from Pixabay

Hello!  Welcome to the start of another week and another post on Renaissance Woman.

I am continuing my study of Isiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.”  I have quoted this passage out of the New King James but there are many translations that have the word “evil” in place of “calamity”.  The Hebrew word in this passage is ra and, this week, am taking a second look both at ra (רע)-evil- and ra’ah (ראה)-to see.

Ra has an entire list of meanings in the Strong’s Concordance: bad, evil, adversity, affliction, calamity, displeasure, mischief, and the list goes on.  Looking at the Hebrew letters which comprise the word ra, the meaning is revealed as “allowing the eyes to rule”.  The letter Resh (ר) meaning both “head or principal” and “poverty” is shown bending to the letter Ayin (ע) which means “eye, face, look, appearance, sight”. 

The Resh is a fascinating letter (but then all the Hebrew letters are!).  According to Mr. Haralick’s book, Resh has the energy intelligence of The Cosmic Container.  With this in mind, I look at the word ra and I see the Ayin as both ruling and filling the Resh.  The Resh is the letter depicting the head bowed or a poor person bent under a heavy load.  The Resh bows to, looks for relief to, and looks to be filled by the next letter in the word.  In the word ra that letter is the Ayin.  Thus, evil is allowing oneself be ruled by the sight of the eyes, to build an identity by what is seen, and to look to be filled by what can be experienced through the senses of the body. 

“Evil” is a strong word.  Perhaps you are like me and define “evil” as deeds like assaults and murders.  When I look at ra as I see it defined, evil deeds aren’t necessarily those awful acts and atrocities one human being commits against another.  Rather, evil deeds are anything done because it first looked good and then it was affirmed by the heart and mind.  Evil deeds are those things done out of the flesh.

I do think it’s important to take a moment and acknowledge eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil didn’t result in human beings only being capable of evil.  The word translated “good” is tobe (H2896) and not only means “good” but also “beautiful, bountiful, kindness, prosperity, wealth.”  Just as we can look at the world around us and see evil, so also do we see good.  Humanity is capable of both and there are so many who choose good.  Again, this is so important to acknowledge.  At the same time, it is important to acknowledge partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil resulted in death.  While humanity is capable of great good, I think it’s obvious that good-no matter how great-has no power to impart life.  That same choice set before our Parents in the Garden of Eden is placed before us today and it isn’t to choosing between good and evil: it’s choosing between death and life.

I found this idea echoed in Andrew Murray’s Commentary on the Book of Hebrews.  Commenting on Hebrews 11:24-26 he writes, “We all live by faith.  What we love and live in, we believe in.  He who trusts and yields himself to the visible and the temporal lives an earthly, fleshly, life.  He who looks to the unseen and the eternal, and joins himself to it, lives a divine and heavenly life.  Between these two, faith ever has to make its choice.  The clearer and more deliberate and more conscious the decision is for the unseen, the more will faith in God be strengthened and rewarded.  The great difficulty in making the right choice lies in the fact that, by the victory that earthly things gained over us in Paradise, our eyes have been blinded; and the things of time, even where we acknowledge them to be of less value, have acquired, in virtue of their continual presence and their pressing claims, superior power.  The great work faith has to do, and the best school for its growth and strength, is the choice of the unseen.” (Pages 471-472)

Choosing the unseen, knowing what it holds for us and why we should choose it at all, is not possible without the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is lavishly poured out on us and He also takes up residence in us.  He abides with us forever.  He is the Spirit of truth who dwells with us and in us.  He testifies of Jesus.  He guides us into all truth.  He glorifies Jesus, takes what is His, and declares it to us.  He is the one who opens our eyes.  (See John Chapters 13-17 and Ephesians 1).  Because He lives in us, we are united to Jesus who declares “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore” (Revelation 1:18). 

Which brings me to my second word: ra’ah (H7200).  This is the Hebrew word which means “to see” but it also means “advise, approve, behold, consider, discern, perceive, respect.”  The word does mean “to see” and is used for the act of seeing out of one’s eyes but the word is spelled Resh Aleph Hey (ראה).  In this word, the Resh is bent to the Aleph rather than the Ayin and it is the Aleph that both rules and fills the Resh.  The Aleph is the letter that represents God and union with God.  It is as we look to, allow ourselves to be ruled by, and are filled by God Himself-the God revealed in Jesus-that we are able to choose life.

Just as “evil” is a difficult word, so is “rule”.  It is a word that contains within it the idea of dominion and oppression and there is, I think, a resistance to the idea of being ruled by anyone or anything, including God.  There are those who would tell us we should surrender to Jesus because it is His right to rule not only as Creator but Redeemer.  They are not wrong but I would call your attention to two passages.  In the first and second chapters of Ezekiel, the Prophet describes the heavens being opened.  He sees the likeness of a throne with the appearance of a man above it.  When Ezekiel sees this and the likeness of the glory of the Lord, he falls on his face.  He immediately hears the voice of One speaking and the first thing this One says is, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you.”  Ezekiel then describes the Spirit entering him and standing him on his feet.  The second passage I wish to call your attention to is found in the first Chapter of Revelation.  John hears a voice and when he turns to see the Voice, he sees the glorified Jesus and falls at His feet as one dead.  Jesus bends and places His right hand on him before speaking to him.  If you picture it, you see God incarnate bringing Himself to John’s level so He can speak to him face to face.

Just as “we love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19) so do we bend to Him because He first bends to us.  Romans 8: 8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  I do not bend my head to the Lord Jesus Christ because I’m afraid He’ll grind me into the dirt if I don’t properly honor Him.  I want to bend my head to Him because I know Him.  I know He loves me and I know He is far more capable of bringing peace and joy to the circumstances in my life than I would be if I started doing what was right in my own eyes.  I bend my head trusting and resting in Him because He is both my glory and the lifter of my head (Psalm 3:3).

Imagine yourself represented by the Resh.  Where is your head at?  Who or what are you allowing to rule over you?  There is only One worth bending to and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.  Go to Him, rest in Him.  He takes our burdens and yokes us to Himself promising His yoke is easy and his burden light.  Yoked to Him, we walk step by step with Him.  We learn from Him and find He is not dominating or oppressive but meek and humble of heart (Matthew 11:28-30).

Our clocks and calendars are about to register the start of another year.  During this time, let us resolve not to be like the citizens in the parable of Jesus who said, “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14).  Let us also resolve not to submit ourselves to someone else and their description of Jesus.  Let us resolve to know Him for ourselves.  Let us invite the Holy Spirit to complete His work in us and guide us into the Truth who is Jesus.  Let us “come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ” (Ephesians 4:13-15).

Amen

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

References

(1) REISH – Secrets of the Hebrew Letters – YouTube

Bentorah, Chaim, Hebrew Word Study: Beyond the Lexicon, Trafford Publishing, USA, 2014

Blech, Benjamin, The Secrets of Hebrew Words, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1991

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

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

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

Not Ruled By Sight

19 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome to another post on Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7 and specifically my study on the meaning of “evil”.

I recently read a teacher of biblical languages describe Greek as a very precise language and Hebrew as ambiguous.  I thought about this as I looked at both Greek words the Septuagint has in place of the Hebrew words translated “evil”.  The Greek word translated “evil” in my study passage of Isaiah 45:7 is kaka (from kakos) while the Greek word translated “evil” in Genesis 2:9 is poneros.  I’ve already shared how these two words have different meanings so won’t repeat that here but I do find it interesting that the Hebrew makes no such distinction.  The Hebrew word translated “evil” in both of these passages, as well as in many passages throughout the OT, is ra. 

Ra is a fascinating word.  For one thing it’s only two letters and the majority of Hebrew root words are three.  But then, ra is not the root.  Ra’a is the root word and ra is the masculine form of the noun, the feminine being ra’ah.  While this is interesting, I can’t say I’ve gleaned any deep insight.  Perhaps with further study.  The definition for ra found in the Strong’s is also of interest.  The Strong’s number is 7451 and ra is defined as “bad, evil, adversity, calamity, grievous harm, mischief, misery, wretchedness” etc.  Again, this is interesting and I find I can’t disagree with the translators who have rendered the latter part of Isaiah 45:7 as “I create calamity” but this is not what fascinates me.

What fascinates me about ra is that it is spelled Resh Ayin (רע).  Both of these letters are ones I’ve already looked at in previous studies and, as those studies were so very positive both in the meanings of the letters themselves and the word pictures painted, I did wonder how these same Hebrew letters could end up meaning something as negative as “evil”.  I didn’t find anything negative in the meaning of the letters themselves but the word picture was eye-opening.  The word Resh is identical to the word Rosh which means “head, leader, principal, commander, ruler, or prince.”  Resh also means “poor one” and the shape of the Resh is one bent under a burden or one bent over at the head.  The word Ayin means “eye, sight, sparkle, and gleam.”  It also means “spring” or “fountain”.  The shape of the Ayin is like two eyes on a stalk.  In the word ra we see the head bent toward the eyes.

As I began this study, I went down the list of scriptures in the Strong’s containing the word “evil” and read each one of them.  I was struck with how often the scriptures describe evil springing forth out of the hearts of mankind.  Genesis 8:21 records the Lord Himself saying “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” and the book of Jeremiah contains several references to mankind having an evil heart.  The book of Jeremiah also contains that oft quoted verse: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (17:9) 

King Solomon writes an admonition: “Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23) and Jesus, in speaking to the Pharisees, said: “How can you, being evil, speak good things?  For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things” (Matthew 12:34-35).  I understand the importance of guarding our hearts in a way I didn’t before because, if every imagination of our hearts are evil, how can we expect the world to be any other way than it is?  How do we make sure the treasure of our hearts is good rather than evil?

The answer to why the imagination of our hearts is evil is found in the word ra itself.  Back in the garden so many eons ago, when the mother of us all “saw the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.  She also gave to her husband with her and he ate” (Genesis 3:6).  Our parents partook of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and scripture states “the eyes of both of them were opened” (verse 7).  To what?  Scripture doesn’t say they were both flooded with wisdom and knowledge but rather they knew they were naked.  Directly on the heels of their eyes being opened came the fear of the One who had made them and walked in the garden with them.  Not only was the relationship with their Creator destroyed but so was their relationship to each other. Their eyes were opened to a new way of seeing but they were now limited to the confines of the flesh. Their judgments were based on external appearances and they became darkened in their understanding.

This judging by the sight of the eyes is described in scripture. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Proverbs 16:2 says that “all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits”. 1 John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.”

As Benjamin Blech says, “The eyes ought not to be our rulers…I possess a head, a mind, and an intellect that must control the desires stemming from sight” (Blech, page 77).  It is important to remember the Tree imparted the knowledge of both good and evil and I do not deny there are those who have little or no knowledge of the God and Father of Jesus Christ who still do great good in the world.  They have their own moral code or laws that they live by.  I have heard people claim to be Christians who have little use for Jesus but find Christianity to be a wondrous set of moral values to pattern one’s life by.  Scripture itself says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).  Does that mean that’s all we have?  Try hard to keep the rules, be a good person, do what we believe is good to our fellow humans, and hope that good ends up being enough to triumph over evil?

I say a resounding no!  The life we have in Jesus, the Christian life, is so much more than rules and moral codes.  We do not have to allow our eyes to be our rulers but neither do we have any longer to fight so they will not rule over us.  “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).  Our eyes, the lamp of our bodies, can be so full of light that our bodies are also full of light. (See Matthew 6:22-23)  This is possible because we see Jesus.  He is the fulfillment of that glorious prophecy in Isaiah: “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.  The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.  His delight is in the fear of the Lord, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears” (11:1-3). 

 I mentioned earlier in this post that the feminine form of ra is ra’ah.  There is another Hebrew word pronounced ra’ah.  But, whereas ra’ah meaning evil is spelled Resh Ayin Hey (רעה), the other ra’ah means “to see” and is spelled Resh Aleph Hey (ראה). In evil, the head is bent to the eyes and the sight rules.  And yet, in the word for “to see”, the Resh is bent to the Aleph.  The Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and thus is not only a reference to God but stands for unity with God. 

This is the truth that rules in our hearts and guides our seeing. Because of everything Jesus did by his existence as the Incarnate God in the first place, to living here on earth as one of us, to dying on the cross and all that His death accomplished, to rising from the dead and finally ascending to the right hand of the father, we are utterly free.  Because Jesus did return to the Father, that same Spirit Isaiah prophesied would rest upon Jesus is poured out in our hearts.  We are the temple of this Spirit, living stones fitted together, One with Jesus and the Father. This Spirit opens the eyes of our understanding-eyes that have been closed for so very long-that we might know what is the hope of our calling by the Father of glory (see Ephesians 1).  Because the Spirit of the living God lives in us, the very peace of Jesus Christ rules in our hearts.  Because this is so, there is no place for any other rule.  The imagination of our hearts can no longer be evil but is rather righteousness, peace, and love in the Holy Spirit.

Who the Son sets free is free indeed!  That’s us!  May our eyes be fixed on Him!

Hallelujah!

Amen  

Note: The Hebrew is read from right to left! Hence the Resh is seen bending to the Ayin in one word and the Aleph in the other.

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

References

Bentorah, Chaim, Hebrew Word Study: Beyond the Lexicon, Trafford Publishing, USA, 2014

Blech, Benjamin, The Secrets of Hebrew Words, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1991

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

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

My Missing Piece

12 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am returning to my Isaiah 45:7 study.  I am still in the beginning stages of studying “evil” with the intent of understanding just what God meant when He said, “I create evil.”

I must say, it does appear to be a hopeless undertaking.  I looked up “evil” in the Davis Dictionary of the Bible and found this as the first sentence: “The origin of evil is a problem which has perplexed speculative minds in all ages and countries”.1  The Hastings Dictionary doesn’t appear to hold out much hope either because, at the end of the entry for “evil”, I found: “The speculative question of the origin of evil is not resolved in Holy Scripture, being one of those things of which we are not competent judges”.2

These two statements did almost obliterate an enthusiasm already dampened by the sheer vastness of the subject of evil.  If such august personages as Aquinas, Calvin, Plato, and Plotinus have turned their minds to the subject of evil and failed to find a definitive answer as to its nature and source, what hope did I have?

Well, firstly, I do not seek to provide a definitive answer.  Even if I were to do so, the odds against anyone else agreeing I had done so are astronomical.  And yet, my enthusiasm was restored during the retreat I attended earlier this month as I sat in the airport terminal reading a book while waiting for my flight.  The book was “Authors and Their Public in Ancient Times” by George Haven Putnam.  I both laughed and somewhat sadly acknowledged the truth of what he wrote in his introduction.  Mr. Putnam spoke about his reasons for writing what he called an “essay” stating it was to “trace, as far as might be practicable, from the scattered references in the literature of the period, an outline record of the continuity of literary activity, the methods of the production and distribution of literature, and the nature of the relations between the authors and their readers”.3  He then when on to write:

“The majority of my reviewers were ready to understand the actual purpose of my book and to recognise that my part in the undertaking was limited to certain general inferences or conclusions as to literary methods or conditions.  In one or two cases, however, the critics, ignoring the specified purpose and the necessary limitations of the essay, saw fit to treat it as a treatise on classical literature and devoted their reviews almost exclusively to textual criticisms and corrections.”4

This made me chuckle but it restored my enthusiasm because, no matter what I discover or what conclusions I draw at the end of this study, someone will argue.  Knowing and accepting that is liberating.  Some arguments are useful but there are those who argue for the sake of arguing.  I cannot tell you how many times someone has argued against something I have said but has done so by picking up a phrase or even a single word, constructing their argument on that, and ultimately ignoring the material point I took some pains to make.  This is irritating and yet these critics are also useful because I have learned-and am continuing to learn-how not to fall into the trap of arguing back and forth about something that really had no bearing on the main point in the first place.  I include “am learning” because there are still times when my mind gets caught up in refuting this or that and it takes a moment to mentally step back and realize, “wait a moment: we’re not even talking about the same thing!”

And so, expecting arguments and not expecting a definitive answer on the origin and nature of evil, just why am I conducting this study?  1 Peter 3:15 instructs us to “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you”.  That is what I am seeking to get out of this study.  I want to understand as much as I can so I at least have both a scripture and study based answer for any question I am asked.  The question specific to this study is; “why did God say He creates evil?”  Since I am trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth, I am looking at the scriptures that pop into my mind as I am conducting the study and the first scripture is Psalm 8:5.  For the sake of context, I’ll begin quoting in verse 3: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him?  For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.”

The bit of scripture that popped into my mind was “you have made him a little lower than the angels”.  You might be wondering what that could possibly have to do with evil so allow me to tell you how and why I got here.  This translation: “a little lower than the angels”, is not accurate.  The Modern Young’s Literal has it, “and cause him to lack a little of Godhead.”  The Amplified renders it, “but little lower than God” but adds [or heavenly beings] as a disclaimer while the NIV says, “little lower than the heavenly beings” but adds the footnote “or than God”.

The Bible fascinates me and one thing that keeps me wondering is why the translators have chosen to translate certain passages the way they have.  The only answer I have is that their theology couldn’t hold up to what the original language is actually saying and they thus translated passages to say what they thought they ought to say.  This particular passage is one such case in point.  If you have a Strong’s concordance, I encourage you to open it to the “Angels” entry and look at the list of numbers.  You’ll see 4397, 4397, 4397, 4397…and then you’ll see 430.  4397 relates to malak in the Hebrew and it means “to dispatch, as a deputy or messenger”.  This is the word usually translated as “angel” or “angels”.  430 is the word Elohim which is not translated as “angel” or “angels” anywhere except Psalm 8:5.  It is, however, very often translated as “God”.  For example, in Genesis 1:1 “God” = Elohim. 

The word translated “lower” is the Hebrew chacer (H2637) and it does mean “to lack.”  I looked it up in the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon and over and over again the word is used to mean “lack”.  It is only by stretching both the intent of the words and the imagination that one can came up with “lower than the angels” as a correct interpretation of Psalm 8:5.  The Hebrew says, “made to lack from God” though I quote it to myself as “lack from Elohim”: I prefer the Hebrew word.

It is because “lack from Elohim” is how I have long thought of Psalm 8:5 that it popped into my mind as I was looking up “evil” in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  I read through a brief comparison of the different theories on evil and then read, “Whichever cause is regarded as the basis of evil, even when it is seen as hamartia (Sin), it must not be regarded as personal guilt, for it is not the result of a free and responsible personal decision but of a lack.  It may be the lack of knowing the divine providence (Socrates), or of the working of a cosmic power.”5

I read that, Psalm 8:5 popped into my mind, and I took a moment to consider the evil in the world as the result of a lack.  A lack of what?  With Psalm 8:5 in mind, I must first consider it as a lack from all that God is.  This lack is the will of God for he made man to lack and, more than that, called man good.

I turned my mind to consider man placed in the garden with the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Man at this moment had the very breath of God in them and were not yet subject to death but had to look elsewhere for the source of their life.  They could eat freely from the Tree of Life but Life was something both exterior to them as well as interior.  That Life was provided by God in the form of the tree (exterior) but it was as they ate of its fruit that they would know Life (interior).  Man did lack from Elohim because Man did not have their own source of life to draw on.  In choosing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man really did believe a terrible lie.  Already without a source of life in themselves, they decided to make themselves their source anyway and decided it was right to know good and evil for themselves.  Of course the result was death.

I take a look at my own life and breathe a massive sigh of relief.  I do not have any life in myself!  I have no resources to meet my own needs much less the needs of others around me.  I can pretend with all my might and I might even fool a few people along the way but I am NOT enough.  The relief comes in knowing I was not designed to be.  I was made to lack from Elohim.  I was made to know Him alone as the source of my life.  And, what a blessed gift to be alive now.  I am not holding onto a promise of one to come who would one day crush the head of the serpent and restore to me what was lost.  The One has come!  Everything that was to be done, He did! 

Jesus Christ IS now, this very moment, my life.  He is my missing piece, the One who perfectly fits me because I was designed to live in union with Him (See Ephesians 1).  I no longer attempt to fit myself to anything else because I am complete in Him (Colossians 2:10).  What a blessed rest!

I have been meditating on Deuteronomy 30:19-20.  Moses declares he has set before the people of Israel life and death.  He begs them to choose life so that they may “love the Lord your God that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days”.  I pray to utterly know this truth for myself and I pray it also for each of you.  May we know Jesus for in Him is life and that life is the light of men.

Amen

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

  1. Davis, John D., Davis Dictionary of the Bible, Royal Publishers, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1973, Page 234
  2. Hastings, James, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, Fifth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2001, Page 247
  3. Putnam, George Haven, Authors and their Public in Ancient Times, Third Edition, Cooper Square Publishers Inc., New York, New York, 1967, Page iv
  4. Ibid., Page v
  5. Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967,1971, Page 562

Other References

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

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, 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

Young, Robert, Modern Young’s Literal Translation: New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs, Greater Truth Publishers, Lafayette, Indiana, 2005

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