Tag Archives: Seeing Clearly

Going With the Flow

30 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

What Is Gematria? | My Jewish Learning

Numerology Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Gematria Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

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

Gematria: It’s Not Numerology — Daf Aleph

What Are You Looking At?

09 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello, Readers!  Welcome to another post on darkness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except…

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

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

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

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

I see Jesus.           

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

References

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

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

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

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