Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue looking at the Hebrew word sane (saw-nay) often translated by the English word “hate”. 

In last week’s post, I shared an article by Chaim Bentorah where he says a nineteenth Century Hebrew master and linguist named Samuel Hirsh applies the English word “rejection” to sane rather than hate.  A post on the Light of the World blog (linked below) says a closer translation of sane would be “turn aside”.  This post also points out the original Hebrew picture of the word sane shows us what Hate/Rejection/Turning Aside does, not how it feels as that picture is not one of an intense negative emotion.  This is a subject I’d like to explore in the upcoming weeks.  For the sake of this post, I want to share some thoughts I had as I considered the different ways to translate sane. 

I wasn’t sure “rejection” was thoroughly supported by the context of the passages in which sane appeared.  For example, Leah was “hated” but she was not “rejected” in the sense that Jacob had nothing to do with her.  On the contrary; Leah was obviously the recipient of Jacob’s attentions as she bore him children.  So, she was not “rejected” in the way I think of the word which is “to have nothing more to do with” but she did not have Jacob’s heart. 

I saw the same picture where scripture states God “hated” Esau.  I can see a bit more support for the idea of rejection in the story of Esau but there is a passage worth noting.  It is Deuteronomy 2:4-7 where God warns the Israelites to take care as they passed through the lands of the descendants of Esau saying He had given Mount Seir as their possession and not one bit of their land would be given away.  The Israelites were also admonished not to meddle with them in any way and to buy any food and drink that might prove necessary.  So, God “hated” Esau but did not utterly reject him in the sense that He had nothing more to do with him or his descendants.  However, Esau didn’t share in God’s heart the same way Jacob did. 

Since “rejection” didn’t sum up the meaning of sane for me, I looked it up on thesaurus.com hoping a list of synonyms might help fill in some of the gaps.  I was especially curious to see if “incompatible” was included in the list.  It was not but “cast aside” was.  This fascinated me and I was reminded of something I’d just read in Andrew Murray’s commentary on the Book of Hebrews.  He was speaking on Hebrews 12:1 which says, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”.  Andrew Murray quotes the latter part of that passage and writes:

“One of the first thoughts connected with a race is the laying aside of everything that can hinder.  In the food he eats and the clothing he wears, how resolutely the runner puts aside everything, the most lawful and pleasant, that is not absolutely necessary to his success.  Sacrifice, self-denial, giving up, and laying aside is the very first requisite on the course.  Alas, it is this that has made the Christian life of our days the very opposite of running a race.  The great study is, both in our religious teaching and practical life, to find out how to make the best of both worlds, how to enjoy as much as possible of the wealth and the pleasure and the honor that the world offers.  With many Christians, if their conversions ever were an entering through a straight gate, their lives since never were, in any sense, a laying aside of everything that might hinder their spiritual growth.  They never heeded the word, “Whosever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).  But this is what we are called to as indispensable: “lay(ing) aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily best us.”  Yes, laying aside every-sin-however little it seems, however much it be our special weakness; it may not be spared.  Sin must be laid aside if we are to run the race.  It is a race for holiness and perfection, for the will of God and His favor; how could we dream of running the race without laying aside the sin that so easily bests us?” (Murray, Page 493)

Andrew Murray had spoken on the idea of perfection in an earlier chapter where he was discussing Hebrews 11:39-40: “’That apart from us they should not be made perfect.’ He writes, “The better thing God has provided is perfection.  The word ‘perfect’, or forms of it, is used fourteen times in the epistle.  The law made nothing perfect.  Jesus Himself was, in His obedience and suffering, made perfect in His human nature, in His will and life and character, to us.  As the Son, perfected forevermore, He is our High Priest; having perfected us forever in His sacrifice, He now brings us, in the communication of that perfection, into real, inner, living contact with God.  And so, He is the Perfecter of our faith, and He makes us His perfect ones, who press on unto Perfection.  And our life on earth is meant to be the blessed experience that God perfects us in every good thing to do His will, working in us what is pleasing in His sight.  Apart from us, they might not be made perfect; to us, the blessing of some better thing, of being made perfect, has come.” (Murray, Page 489).

This idea, of running the race for holiness and perfection and that that perfection is ours in Jesus Christ, the Perfect One, is one that has stuck with me as I’ve sought to understand the meaning of sane.  The Hebrew letters comprising sane are the Shin (ש), the Nun (נ), and the Aleph (א).  The picture of the Shin is of teeth representing Sharp, to Eat, Devour, Destroy, Consume, like a fire, and is also representative of a process that repeats.  The Nun represents a seed, sperm, sprout, continuation, offspring, life, activity, and emergence.  The Aleph is a picture of an ox and represents strength, power, leader, master.  It is also the letter that represents God Himself and Unity with God. 

Thinking of sane as a devouring, consuming fire rooted in and springing from God, I am reminded of Hebrews 12:29: “our God is a consuming fire.”  I am also reminded of a passage in Romans 2 which, from The Message, is, “God is king, but he’s not soft.  In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.  You’re not getting by with anything.  Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire.  The day is coming when it’s going to blaze hot and high, God’s fiery and righteous judgment.  Make no mistake: In the end you get what’s coming to you-Real Life for those who work on God’s side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!” (Verses 4-8, MSG). 

I recently conducted a study on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares where I shared scriptures that spoke of each one of us being tried by the same fire.  The results of this testing were good or ill based on whether or not we were united to Christ.  I wonder if sane isn’t the same?  Again, the Light of the World blog pointed out the original Hebrew picture of sane shows us action rather than feeling.  Perhaps the same fire I welcome into every aspect of my life feels like rejection to someone who does not long to, or perhaps does not feel able to, know the heart of God.  Perhaps whether we experience the consuming fire of God as sane or ahab (love) is akin to the idea expressed by Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians: “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.  To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death and to the other the aroma of life leading to life” (2 Cor.: 15-16.) Perhaps the fire of God is life to us pressing ever deeper into Him but rejection to those who are not.

It is something I will meditate on in the coming days and I hope this has been food for thought for each of you as well.  I will continue looking at sane next week.  Until then, let us each one go on unto perfection, that perfection that is Christ in us, our hope of glory.

Amen.

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

Scripture notations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson.  Used by permission of NavPress.  All rights reserved.  Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

References

WORD STUDY – HATE – שׁנה | Chaim Bentorah

Hate (Sane), the Ancient Hebrew Meaning – Light of the World (wordpress.com)

Did God Really Hate Esau? – Israel Bible Weekly (israelbiblecenter.com)

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

Peterson, Eugene H., The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1993, 2002, 2018