Tag Archives: Hebrew Words

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

No Matter What May Come

07 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Good morning!  Welcome to another week and another post on Renaissance Woman.  This post will be my last on bara, the Old Testament Hebrew word most often translated by the English word “create”.  For the sake of this study anyway as there is still a great deal to learn.  As I looked up scriptures containing the word bara, I found many that stirred up questions and opened up avenues for more study.  I am staying focused on Isaiah 45:7 though and thus plan to move on to taking a look at the meaning of “evil” in upcoming weeks.

Regarding bara: I am finally ready to settle on a definition.  I have previously shared how there are some who say bara ought to be translated “to fatten” or “to fill” and have also shared how I find those definitions unsatisfactory for two reasons: 1) because there are other perfectly good Hebrew words used to express those concepts and 2) neither definition encompasses what the word intends to convey in the passages where it is used in scripture.

I don’t believe there is any language where a word means one thing in one place and something entirely different in another place.  I have also previously shared where I plugged the different definitions for bara I’d come across into every passage where the word occurred to see if the definition worked.  An excellent example is in Jeremiah 31:22 where I find: “…For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth–A woman shall encompass a man.”  The definitions “to fatten” or “to fill” simply do not work in this passage.  Neither does defining bara as “to do a new thing”.  I was curious so I looked up the Hebrew words in this passage and it isn’t bara repeated twice.  There is a different Hebrew word translated as “a new thing”: chadash (H2319) and it means “new, fresh.” 

After all these weeks of study and compiling information from different sources, here is what I think is the closest and fullest definition of bara: to cause something new to come into being and grow to accomplish an intended purpose.  It is long and complicated but it is a definition I find fits every occurrence of bara in the Old Testament.  I find it even works in 1 Samuel 2:29 where bara is translated “to make yourselves fat” and in Joshua 17: 15 & 18 where bara is translated “to cut down”.  In both instances those involved had a purpose and caused something new to come into being in order to bring that purpose about.  In the 1Samuel passage that something new was a malformation of something God had ordained and the purpose was the satisfaction of selfish appetites.  It was born out of greed.  In Joshua, the purpose was to make a home and the new thing necessitated the removal of existing trees.  In both of these cases, the purpose did originate in the minds of mankind but the bringing about the new thing was accomplished using processes and material already in existence.  The same is true in the Jeremiah 31:22 passage where God is causing a new thing to come into being in order to satisfy His purpose but, while this new thing is originating in the mind of God and is something only God can do, man and woman already exist.

My point is, I don’t need to think “something out of nothing” every time I read the word “create” in scripture.  This is a point I think is important when I apply my definition of bara to Isaiah 45:7: “I create evil.”  What is God saying here?  Is bara intending to convey the idea that God is the source of evil i.e. He caused it to come into being or does bara mean evil is the thing already in existence God will use to cause something new to come into being and grow according to His purpose?  The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon lists Isaiah 45:7 under the definition “to shape or fashion new conditions and circumstances” so some scholars, at least, do not think the passage is saying God is the cause of evil.   

 The context of Isaiah 45:7 establishes both the Lordship and uniqueness of God.  God says to the future ruler Cyrus that, no matter how great he thinks he is, God alone is God.  God goes before him and has held his right hand (verses 1-3).  The rest of the chapter continues to establish the absolute truth that God alone is God and I find this an important truth to have established when it comes to evil.  There is a prevalent idea among believers, never outright declared but there nonetheless, that God is the God of good and Satan is the god of evil.  God might have had His original intent but Satan got in there with his lie and ruined everything.  God did what He could in Jesus but Satan is still ruining God’s plans.

I simply cannot go into how much the Bible refutes that so will simply use what is said in this chapter: “I am the Lord and there is no other…Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!  They shall be ashamed and also disgraced, all of them; they shall go into confusion together, who are makers of idols…For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God…Look to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth!  For I am God and there is no other.” Satan is not a god neither does he wield power equal to God.  Evil exists but, drawing on my study of bara, God comes down into it, makes His home in the midst of it, and destroys it forever by causing something new to come into being and grow and accomplish His purpose.  

One of the best examples of this is found in the story of Joseph related in Chapters 37-50 of Genesis.  Just in case someone is reading this who is unfamiliar with the story it is, briefly: Joseph is the only son of Jacob’s most-loved wife.  He is also younger than his brothers, by a great many years in some cases, which makes the special attention paid to him by Jacob something difficult for the brothers to handle.  Worse is the favoritism and elevation of Joseph over the other brothers, including the first-born son, which was something NOT DONE in that culture.  This special treatment does appear to make Joseph act a bit like a brat.  The story records him bringing a bad report of the brothers born to the maidservants to their father and then comes the sharing of his dreams.  You can just imagine how this teenage kid telling his father and brothers one day they’d all bow down to him went over.  I am not surprised that, when his brothers see him coming across the fields to check up on them in his fancy coat, they decide to kill him.

Two of his brothers intervene.  Reuben convinces the others not to kill him but rather to drop him into a pit (or cistern).  Reuben appears to have vague plans to rescue Joseph but apparently he thinks of some pressing task because he isn’t around when a caravan of slave traders comes along and Judah convinces the other brothers that, rather than killing Joseph, a better idea was to sell him to the slave traders.  Joseph is taken down to Egypt and sold as a slave.  I won’t relate all the ups and downs of his circumstances there but worth nothing is how Chapter 39 of Genesis stresses that “the Lord was with Joseph” and noticeably so (verses 2-3, 21, 23).

Joseph is eventually made ruler over Egypt second only to the Pharaoh and the day comes when his dreams are realized: his brothers come to Egypt and-not recognizing him-bow down to him.  When Joseph finally reveals his identity to his brothers he says an interesting thing: “But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5).  After the death of their father, still fearing Joseph might take vengeance on them, the brothers come once more before him and Joseph has this to say: “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50: 19-20).

This is a fascinating story.  Joseph sees God with him and at work in his circumstances so that he says, “God sent me before you”.  But, Joseph does not ignore the fact that the intent of his brothers was evil.  God no doubt could have got Joseph to Egypt a myriad of ways.  Perhaps Joseph’s suffering-and the Bible makes it clear he did suffer (See Psalm 105)-would not have happened.  It did happen and he did suffer because his brothers thought evil thoughts and acted on them.  And yet, while those evil thoughts and actions brought about circumstances I’m sure Joseph would have avoided if the choice had been his; those very same circumstances were the ones God worked in to elevate Joseph to a position where not only the lives of his people were saved but the lives of the people of Egypt as well. 

There is a passage of scripture which states, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purposes” (Romans 8:28).  This passage states what I’ve seen so far in my study of “I create evil” (Isaiah 45:7).  No matter who may come against me with plans of evil, God is with me.  If a circumstance arises which brings evil instead of good, God is with me.  Not just with me-He lives inside of me by His Spirit.  That same Spirit that energized the creating Word is in me still energizing but also transforming and renewing.  In Jesus Christ I live and move and have my being and He not only creates evil but makes peace.

Until next time, let us each one hold fast to the truth that we are the very temples of the Holy Spirit and, as we hold fast, may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Hallelujah! 

Amen.

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

Note: for a comprehensive look at the story of Joseph, I recommend Joseph: A Story of Love, Hate, Slavery, Power, and Forgiveness by Dr. John C. Lennox.

References

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody Massachusetts, 2018, Page 135

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volume 3, Authors For Christ Inc., Lafayette, IN, 1985

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

The God Who Bends

24 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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It’s not an ox but it is certainly an impressive set of horns

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman! 

This week I am back to 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”.  Some translations have “evil” in place of the word “calamity” in this passage and the idea that the Lord creates evil is one difficult to swallow.  This week, I continue looking at the Hebrew word bara which is most often translated “create” to see just what it really means.

In an earlier post, I mentioned a video I watched where the teacher said bara means to fatten or to fill.  The teacher relates bara to the following words:

Beriy = fat

Barar = clean (the teacher points out soap comes from fat)

Barah = choice meat

Beriyt = covenant (the making of a covenant included the cutting or dividing of meat)

Biyr = fat place-bountiful

Biyrah = palace

He points out the fattening or filling that took place during the six days of creation: the first three days are days of separation but then days 4, 5, & 6 are the heavens, earth, and seas all being filled with plants and animals then the culmination of creation by God creating Mankind.  I found another video on bara where the two letter root bar meaning “son of” was related to bara and this picture of mankind filling the earth with offspring confirms the meaning “to fatten” or “to fill”. (Other sources tell me bar is the Aramaic for “some of” rather than the Hebrew, which is ben, and bar in the Hebrew has a host of other meanings. Just an aside…)

I’ve already mentioned how I took that meaning and plugged it in to the various scriptures where bara is used to see if it works.  It can, I suppose, so I do not entirely disagree but I do not find “to fatten” or “to fill” entirely satisfactory.  When I try it in my study passage, I find “I fatten evil” doesn’t make sense to me at all.  “I fill evil”…okay.  If the idea is God filling evil in order to destroy it, I could come around to that definition.  My reason for not wholeheartedly committing to these definitions is this: there are other Hebrew words used for fattened (or fatted in the King James English) and fill.  There is the Hebrew word mashman (H4824) which means fatness but in terms of a rich dish or fertile field or robust man.  There is also deshen (H1880) which means fatness or abundance and specifically the fatty ashes of sacrifice. These two words are not all: I count seven different entries in the Strong’s concordance when I look up fatness, fatted, fatter, and fattest.  Why use bara?  What is the difference in its intent that the Hebrew people would use it rather than one of these other words?

Then there’s male (H4390) which means “to fill or to be full of” and is used numerous times in the Old Testament.  Again, with a perfectly good word meaning “to fill” why use bara if “to fill” is the intended meaning? What is the difference and why do I keep harping on it?  Because, it is so important to understand what the writers of scripture intended to convey.  Do the English words chosen fit the intent?  How has our understanding of the definitions of these words changed over time?  For instance, if we all truly believe “create” means “to make something out of nothing” then I have a problem.  The idea that when God says “I create darkness” and “I create evil” in Isaiah 45:7 He means neither of those things existed until He brought them into being, I run into a contradiction.  Evil is not mentioned once in creation story in Genesis 1 where God looks at everything He made and saw it was very good and then rested.  Evil does show up in Genesis 2 after God plants the garden for the man He made and we see the tree of the knowledge of good and evil growing there but I plan to look more at that during my study of evil.  There is nothing here to back up evil existing because God created it and, since I don’t believe the Bible does contradict itself, I will continue to seek out what create means.  I will say it is crucial that none of us build our theology on one fragment of scripture but equally crucial is an understanding of what this word meant to the people who used it.

It’s important to remember the Hebrew language is pictorial.  Every word is comprised of letters which are words in their own right and every letter has its basis in a picture.  What is the picture that forms when we look at bara?  Bara is spelled Bet (ב ) Resh (ר ) Aleph (א ).  The Bet is a picture of a tent and the word Bet means “house”.  I’ve already written about how we are ultimately the house of the Lord so won’t repeat what I’ve said here.  Resh means poverty or head/principal.  The letter is shaped like an upside down and backwards L and the picture behind it is either that of a poor person bent over from his burden or that of a bent head.  The bent head is a picture of humility and submission to one who is the head but it is also a bending of the intellect in order to be understood.  Think of how a teacher teaches a child.  The teacher knows far more than the child but no good teacher overwhelms a child by using terms that child cannot possibly understand.  No, a good teacher bends over his or her intellect and speaks to that child in a way that causes that child to learn and to grow.

How wonderful that we have a God who bends!  There are many instances of His bending towards people in the Old Testament but we see this ultimate bending in Jesus.  I cannot fathom what it meant for the Creator to empty Himself and become a member of His creation.  If that wasn’t enough, Jesus wasn’t born in a palace or to a rich family.  He wasn’t pampered from the moment of His birth and received no honors among men.  And still, knowing who and what He was, that all things were given into His hands, He bent further and washed the filth of the roads from the feet of His disciples.  This is our God.  He is nothing like anything that has been worshipped as a god at any point in history.  He is all powerful and the source of all things yet He is the God who bends. 

So we have “house” and we have “poverty and head or principal” which are two concepts that ought not harmonize with each other and yet, in the paradox of the character of God, they do.  Lastly, we have the Aleph.  It looks like a somewhat sideways squiggly X but, in the earliest script, the Aleph was an ox head with horns which symbolizes power and leadership.  So now we have house, poverty and head or principal, and power and leadership.  I can see where those who define bara as “to fill” are coming from because this is the picture I see forming:

We are God’s dwelling places so our circumstances are also His.  Thus, the circumstances of our lives will become the vehicle where He is seen and where we come to intimately know Him as He fills our lives with Himself.  Any power evil appears to possess shrivels up and blows away in the presence of our God.  Perhaps His being with us isn’t always easy to see but I am confident that, whatever evil besets us, we will be able to say like Joseph: “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.”

I am still not satisfied with “to fill” as a definition for bara and so will be continuing to take a look at this word next week.  Until then, may the Holy Spirit open our eyes to see that no matter what evil might come against us, we will not fear: Our God is with us!  The Lord of hosts is with us!  The God of Jacob is our refuge. (Psalm 46)

Hallelujah!  Amen.

Note: Strong’s Concordance “Fatness, Fatted, etc.” entries in the Hebrew Dictionary:  4924, 1880, 2459, 8081, 75, 4770, 1277

References

Bara

Jeff A. Benner

Bet Yahudah

Bet

Shivimpanim

The Living Word

Resh

Shivinpanim

The Living Word

Aleph

Shivimpanim

The Living Word

De Novo

26 Monday Sep 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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I am fascinated by energy.  The studies on energy being conducted within the science discipline of Physics, and especially Quantum Physics, are riveting.  I read different articles and, as I’ve come expect in the science world, for every postulation there is an equal and opposite refutation.  I don’t mind as I find there’s something to learn from both sides of the argument.  I take what I read and go to the scriptures, wondering what they might say on the subject.

As I said last week, I do not completely agree with the belief that all things that exist were created out of nothing.  I don’t completely disagree either: I do believe that there was a time when nothing we know existed and there was only God.  Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”  I think this passage clearly states God did not create from matter already existing but the idea that he created from nothing is not an accurate portrayal of His creating.  In the beginning, there was the Intention of the Father, described in Ephesians 1 and also peppered and salted throughout both the Old and New Testaments.  This Intention was expressed by The Word and everything spoken by The Word was energized by the Spirit thus forming the heavens and the earth and then filling them both. There is a beautiful passage in Proverbs: “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens; By His knowledge the depths were broken up, And clouds drop down the dew” (Verses 19-20). 

Isaiah 11:2 gives this description of the Holy Spirit: “…the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.”  This description of the Spirit paralleled as it is in the verses of Proverbs is so very exciting.  Psalm 104:3, in speaking of the things God has made says; “You send forth Your Spirit and they are created; and You renew the face of the earth.”  The Holy Spirit is an integral part of creation and I haven’t heard many teachings on this subject.  It’s something I want to spend more time on but, for now, I want to keep my focus on the meaning of the word “create”.  Whatever its intended meaning in Genesis 1:1, the word is used again in Genesis 1:27 and 5:2 where the scriptures speak of God creating man.  It is clear man was formed from the dust of the ground so man did not come from nothing. 

And so, this week, I continue my search for a satisfactory definition for create.  “Create” is bara in the Hebrew and I shared the confusing entry from Strong’s concordance in last week’s post.  Many other scholars have said-and I agree-that the meaning of a word does not drastically change no matter its context.  I don’t see why bara should be any different: there ought to be a consistent meaning that fits with every instance of its usage.  One Hebrew teacher I listen to likes the “make fat” or “fattening” meaning found in the 1 Samuel 2:29 passage.  He plugs that meaning into Genesis 1 and says that the creation story doesn’t suggest at all that God created from nothing but rather he “fattened” or filled the heavens and the earth.  I can see his point but there are many passages where that meaning doesn’t exactly fit.  Case in point is Joshua 17: 15 & 18 where my NKJV translates bara as “clear a place” in verse 15 and “cut it down” in verse 18.  I have to stretch the idea of “make fat” almost to the breaking point while trying to make it make sense here.  Clearing a place or cutting down doesn’t work in other scriptures: I don’t think anyone would accept God cutting down the heavens and the earth as an appropriate translation of Genesis 1.

I did amuse myself by plugging the different definitions found in the Strong’s into different scriptures.  I liked the idea of God “dispatching” the heavens and the earth as that gave me the strong sense of creation having a purpose. I was reminded of Isaiah 45:18: “For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord and there is no other.”  The forest Joshua commanded be “cut down” in the afore mentioned passages could also have been dispatched but, ultimately, I didn’t find this definition to be satisfactory so kept looking.

The Davis Dictionary of the Bible defines creation as, “The act or operation of God whereby he calls into existence what did not before exist.  The verb always has God for its subject and the result is an entirely new thing.” I found a similar idea in the New World Dictionary where “create” is defined as: “to grow, to cause to come into existence, bring into being; make; originate…to bring about, give rise…”  The definition “to bring about a new thing” isn’t expressly used but I do think it can be applied.  Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies gave me the most thorough definition of create: “to bring into being; to produce, put in form, or renew; to put in a new or happier condition.  It is a word having a special reference to God and his operations by an infinite power.  The leading import of bara is two-fold: (1) The production or effectuation of something new, rare, and wonderful; the bringing something to pass in a striking and marvelous manner. (2) The act of renovating, remodeling, or reconstituting, something already in existence.”

As I look at this definition, I do see Isaiah 45:7 could be translated “I create evil/calamity” and it could mean God brings evil into being.  I think a careful read of the first few chapters of Genesis shows this isn’t true: evil is not a part of the creation God calls “good”.  However, He did cause every tree to grow in the garden and, in the midst of the garden were both the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  All fairness to our God, He did warn our ancestors not to eat of that tree.  I do think there’s enough to consider Isaiah 45:7 is not saying God brought evil into existence but rather He will reconstitute evil and calamity: He will put in a new and happier condition.  He sends His spirit forth and renews the face of the earth.

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

De Novo = From the beginning, anew

 Some Interesting Reading:

 Collapse: Has quantum theory’s greatest mystery been solved? | New Scientist

Fragments of Energy – Not Waves or Particles – May Be the Fundamental Building Blocks of the Universe (scitechdaily.com)

References

Davis, John D., Illustrated Davis Dictionary of the Bible, Revised Edition, Royal Publishers, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1973, Page 157

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

Wilson, William, Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, Page 101

Formed a Vessel-Tzadi

24 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in Hebrew Words, Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Stock Photo From Pixabay

I am continuing to look at the Hebrew letters that make up the word yatsar, translated ‘form’ in my study passage of Isaiah 45:7.  Last week I looked at the first letter, Yod-Spirituality, and this week I am looking at the second: Tzadi-Righteousness & Humility.   

 צ Tzadi = Righteousness & Humility

The New World dictionary defines righteous as “acting in an upright manner; doing what is right; virtuous.”  However, before it ever gets into the definition of righteous, the dictionary states that righteous comes from the Old English ‘rightwise’.  I looked up ‘rightwise’ online and found the same meaning as given in the New World dictionary but also this definition: “by a rightward path, rightwards, rightwardly, clockwise”.

I remembered how many times I find the mention of ‘paths’ in the Psalms: “smooth paths”, “teach me your path”, “all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth” and so many more.  It’s in Psalm 23 that I find ‘paths’ linked with ‘righteousness’: “He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”  I love this idea of God’s righteousness being walked out in our daily lives.  It is His attribute and He longs to teach it to us.  I hear this longing in Isaiah 48:17-18: “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go.  Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.’”

The beauty of being alive in this day of the Lord is that this teaching is no longer something that comes from outside of us.  The voice that was heard in the OT behind us saying, “this is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21) is now the voice speaking inside of us.  Righteousness is no longer something to be learned from the law but is now become our identity.  2 Corinthians 5:21 states, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  We are taught of Him, certainly, but He does not give us rules and regulations to follow but rather lives His righteousness in us.  Paul states this so clearly in Galatians: “…the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (2:20).  This righteousness that is ours in Christ Jesus is not only our identity but becomes our very garments.  This is something I want to come back to in a later study but, for now, I will share Revelation 19:7-8:  “‘Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.’ And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”

I was fascinated to see righteousness and humility together in the same Hebrew letter.  It seems fitting because it really is impossible to have one without the other.  Our Self with all of its righteousness is crucified with Christ and we now live not only His righteousness but His humility.  What is His humility?

In my studies, I have come across a truly horrendous idea of humility.  I am told that, if I am constantly reminding God of my sins-or worse, expecting Him to remind me of them-, if I come crawling before Him with words of my unworthiness on my lips, and remind Him I am acceptable because of the death of His Son; then I am being humble.  How grateful I am for the Holy Spirit as my teacher!  How grateful I am He is with me when I read scripture!  Jesus has come!  As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12)!  The curse to crawl on the belly was to the serpent, not humankind!  We come boldly before the throne of grace, not ashamed, sure in our acceptance because the love of the Father has been shed abroad in our hearts by His Spirit (See Hebrews 4:16 and Romans 5:5).  This is our identity in the Lord Jesus Christ and, because we are in Him and walk by His Spirit, there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1).

I am aware of scriptures like 1 John 1:8-9.  As I study the passage, I find the word confess here is the Greek word homologeo (G3670) and it means “to assent, i.e. covenant, acknowledge.”  Acknowledge what?  Jesus.  The finished work of the Cross.  I don’t see here the necessity of raking my sins over the coals nor does it mean to air my dirty laundry.  I assent, I say with the covenant God that He sent His son, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, and His blood doesn’t just cover my sin but washes me clean.  He establishes me and presents me to Himself holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:27).  This is who I am!  It doesn’t sound very humble though, does it?

I read the best definition of humility I’ve ever found in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible.  The entry for humility begins with: “Trench defines ‘humility’ as the esteeming of ourselves small, inasmuch as we are so; the thinking truly, and because truly, therefore lowlily, of ourselves.  Alford, Ellicott, Salmond, Vincent, and many others agree.  It is an inadequate and faulty definition.  A man may be small and may realize his smallness, and yet be far from being humble.  His spirit may be full of envy instead of humility.  He may be depressed in spirit because he sees his own meanness and general worthlessness, and yet he may be as rebellious against his lot or his constitutional proclivities as he is clearly cognizant of them.  Low-mindedness is not lowly-mindedness.  The exhortation of Ph 2:3 does not mean that every man ought to think that everybody else is better than himself in moral character, or in outward conduct, or in natural or inherited powers.  That would be impossible in some cases and untruthful in many others.  It is not an exhortation to either an impossibility or an untruthfulness.  A better definition of the Christian grace of humility is found in the union of highest self-respect with uttermost abandon of sacrifice in service.”

James Hastings then points to John 13:3-5, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, as the classic NT example of humility.  Mr. Hastings says, “The consciousness of His own transcendent worth was in no respect inconsistent with His humility.  Genuine humility leads the strong to serve the weak.  It never underestimates its own worth, but in utter unselfishness it is ready to sacrifice its own claims at any moment for the general good.  Genuine humility loses all its self-conceit but never loses its self-respect.  It is consistent with the highest dignity of character and life.  Hence we may rightly call the Incarnation the Humiliation of Christ.  He stood at the head of the heavenly hierarchies.  He was equal with God.  There was no dignity in the universe like unto His.  Yet He humbled Himself to become a man.  He made Himself of no reputation.  He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.  He was the servant of all.  There was no humility in the universe like unto His.  He never forgot His dignity.  When Pilate asked Him if He were a king, He answered that He was.  He stood in kingly majesty before the mob, in kingly serenity before the magistrates; He hung as King upon the cross.  Yet He never forgot His humility.  Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  St. Paul exhorts, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus (Ph 2:5-11).  God giveth grace to all who are this humble (Ja 4:6).”

I have no need to creep and crawl before my Creator.  My identity is Jesus Christ.  I am His Beloved and, because I am in Him, everything He has is mine.  In utter humility, I acknowledge that all of this is true because He has made it so and not because of any merit of mine.  I speak the same words as my Lord and Saviour: “I can of myself do nothing” (John 5:30) and “not what I will but what You will” (Mark 14:36) and I know that “He who calls me is faithful and who also will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24)  I look at my talents and offer them up knowing that “every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).  I know that as He is, so am I in this world (1 John 4:17) which means that the one who has bestowed upon me His own transcendent worth will make me into the same sort of servant; humble and meek.

In joyful humility, I cast myself utterly on Jesus and know that He will cause me to walk paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Rightwise Meaning | Best 6 Definitions of Rightwise (yourdictionary.com)

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

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

Hastings, James, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. 2001, Humility, Page 372

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