{Word Study} Bind,
“Asar” “Hitir”
Loose
WORD STUDY: BIND, LOOSE
Matthew 16:19: “And I will give to you the keys to the kingdom
of heaven and whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in
heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven.”
In Matthew 16:19 Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom to Peter
and told him that whatever he binds on earth will be bound in
heaven and whatever he loosens on earth will be loosed in
heaven.
The words binding in Greek is dein and loose in
luein.
The Syriac version (Aramaic in which the Book of
Matthew was originally written) uses the words “asar” and
“hitir” which are legal terms found throughout the Mishnah and
represents forbidding and permitting. The council of sages
and rabbis of the Sanhedrin were granted the authority (by
man) to asar (bind) and hitir (loosen) Jews to aspects of the
law. It was believed that whatever the rabbis bound on earth
was bound in heaven and whatever they loosened on earth was
loosened in heaven.
The word “heaven” was just another term
used to represent God and used so one would not speak the
sacred name of God.
Thus, it was believed that what the
Sanhedrin ruled whether to bind or loosen, was automatically
ratified by God.
It would seem that Jesus used this same
popular expression to grant similar authority to Peter to
resolve future disputes in the establishment of the church.
We find one such example of this binding and loosening to take
place in Acts 15 where the apostles and elders convened in a
sort of “Church Sanhedrin” in Jerusalem to address the issue
as to whether Gentiles were bound to the law. In Acts 15:10
we find Peter exercising his “rabbinic” authority of binding
and loosening to declare that the commandments were too heavy
for the Gentiles and that they should be loosened from the
obligations of the law. In verse 20 James chimed in and said
that he agreed but that the Gentiles should still be bound by
laws that the Jews considered universal prohibitions such as
murder, adultery and idolatry etc. In verse 22 it appears
everyone gave a hearty “amen” and then sent Paul and Barnabas
out to spread the Word.
From this I believe the issue of the law and our obligation to
the law was resolved and later confirmed by the Apostle Paul
in the first century and under the authority of binding and
loosening granted to Peter by Jesus. We as, Gentiles, are not
bound to the Judaic laws that are indigenous to Judaism such
as the dietary laws, laws of festivals, etc. But we are bound
to those laws that are considered universal laws such as
murder, adultery, idolatry, etc. It helps to look through
Jewish literature to find out what the universal laws are, but
the Holy Spirit does a better job at that within our own
hearts.
If you look at Matthew 16:19 from a Jewish historical and
cultural context it would help us understand the significance
of Acts 15 and maybe cause us to rethink our interpretation of
Matthew 16:19. Also, it may help us gain some insight into
our obligation of the law. Many a rabbi have told me that as
a Gentile I am not asar (bound) to the 513 commandments and
hitil (loosened) from all but the 10 commandments. Some have
even said I am only bound to 3 of the 10 commandments. But I
prefer to take my cues direct from the Spirit of God.
{Word Study} Strong Donkey
“Chamor Garem”
WORD STUDY – STRONG DONKEY
Genesis 49:14: “Issachar is a strong donkey, crouched down
between two burdens.”
Strong Donkey – Chamor Garem – Idiomatic expression for a
bitter medicine that cures through cleansing the body.
There is a sort of play on words here. Issachar comes from the
root word “shacar” which means reward, gift, or intoxication.
Let’s focus on the words gift and intoxication. The word for
donkey is “chamor” which is also the word used for fermenting
and foaming.
There are a number of words in the Hebrew
which can be rendered as strong, but the word used her is
“garam” which means to gnaw at a bone and lick it clean. It
carries the idea of cleansing through affliction. In fact the
word garam has a numerical value of 243 which is the same
numerical value for the word “to cleanse.” The words “strong
donkey” is really a play on words expressing the idea of
drinking a medicine that is very bitter to the taste yet will
cleanse the body of whatever is causing it to be afflicted.
In our modern terms we would say it would cure whatever ails
you or the cure is almost worse than the affliction.
An
operation, chemo therapy, even an injection would be an
example of a chamor garem or a strong donkey.
Issachar
basically means a gift or reward.
The reward or gift of
drinking wine can be intoxication.
I have never been
intoxicated but those who have say it is a good warm feeling.
We often use the word intoxication with being in love, or just
an expression of joy.
The picture here is that Issachar may represent a “strong
donkey” or a bitter healing agent, yet it is really a gift in
disguise to bring great joy.
The expression “crouched
between two burdens is the encouragement given while drinking
this bitter agent.
The word for two burdens here is
“hamishepethaim.”
This is an enclosure for cattle or an
animal stall. This stall is used to keep the cattle from
wandering away and to protect them from predators who seek to
harm them. It is sort of like a hospital where you are
surrounded by nurses, doctors and security personnel dedicated
to protecting you while you recover.
So what is your Issachar today? What is the strong donkey
that God is using to cleanse you today? Is it that co-worker
that drives you nuts, your demanding and never satisfied
boss? Is it that crazy driver that cuts you off in rush hour
traffic, is it that unpaid bill, car problems, relationship
problems etc.?
It all may just be a “strong donkey” a
cleansing agent of God and in reality is an Issachar or a
gift. While receiving this gift of cleansing, God will have
you between two burdens or a “hamishepethaim” a protective
stall or hospital where you have nothing to do but just get
yourself healed or cleansed as He will watch over you and
protect you like a hospital staff while you go through your
period of cleansing.
{Word Study} Faint “Da’avah”
Jeremiah 31:25: “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the
faint.”
Faint – Hebrew: da’avah – To flow away with anxiety and/or
distress
Jeremiah is speaking of the future restoration of Judah after
going through captivity.
The word “refresh” in the Hebrew is
“ravah” which is very hard to define.
You really need to
experience “ravah” to understand the word.
The English word
“refresh” is probably the best we can do but “ravah” means
much more than that. The word “weary” is “aphah” which could
mean weary or could mean thirsty.
Considering the picture
that is being drawn and the fact that the word “aphah” is a
direct object of the word “ravah” I would be incline to render
this as “thirsty.” The picture being drawn is that of one who
has wandered in a desert without water and is taking his first
sip of water.
. The next words are curious. He will “satisfy the faint.”
What satisfaction does a fainting person need?
The word
“satisfy” in the Hebrew if “mala” which is commonly used to
express the idea of filling.
The word “faint” is “da’avah”
which means to flow away. It is also used to express anxiety
or distress. However, to stay with the picture of wandering
in a desert, we would best render this as faint.
The picture
is one who has wandered in the desert until he has reached the
point of collapse. He has fallen to the ground overcome with
thirst and weariness to the point of fainting. God then rides
up on His camel loaded with bags of water where the weary
travel can drink his fill and God puts him on the camel to
carry him to his journey’s end.
What I find a little curious is the use of the word “da’avah”
as the direct object of “mala.” How do you fill someone that
is faint? A person becomes faint because they lack something,
either water or air. Hence, God is not just reviving someone
who is faint, He is filling them with whatever is lacking that
is causing them to faint or be weary.
There is one word that is in the Hebrew and not found in the
translation used above. It is the word “nephesh” or “soul.”
God will satisfy the weary “soul” and fill the soul that is
fainting.
Here it makes sense to use the word “mala” for
fill. The word itself tells us what God will fill our souls
with.
The word is spelled “mem – water of life, lamed –
learning, and aleph – God.”
God fills our weary souls with
the water of life that comes from learning about Him and/or
knowing Him.
{Word Study} Hold “Chazak”
WORD STUDY – HOLD
Isaiah 41:13: “For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right
hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”
Hold – Hebrew: chazak – Strengthen, confirm, restore.
Various translations will say that God “upholds” your right
hand, some will say he “takes” your right hand and some will
say “strengthen” your right hand. The word “hold” is “chazak”
in Hebrew which means to strengthen, confirm or restore.
I
like the word restore.
God will restore our strength and
power. Still, that does not fully explain chazak. Chazak is
to have your strength restored or renewed by the addition of
His strength. Like chopping wood, he grabs the ax with you
and the combination of your strength and His makes the job
seem effortless.
Yet, the passage says the “Lord your God.”
The word “lord”
is Jehovah.
You have God addressed as “Jehovah” and
“Elohim.” Both the feminine and masculine traits are present
when he restores our strength. Jehovah is in the feminine and
is used when speaking of God’s feminine nature, his
gentleness, nurturing, and caring. Elohim is masculine and
represents God’s masculine nature, protection, provision and
sheltering. Plus, the word for “hold” or “strengthen” is a
hiphal participle.
So it is not that He will, but he is at
this moment bringing about events that will strengthen and
encourage us. At this moment his hand is also on the ax that
you are swinging. We are receiving a continual infusion of
strength and power from God but in a gentle Jehovah motherly
way and in the “on your feet be a man” Elohim fatherly way.
God knows just what it is we need and when we need it.
Sometimes we get so beaten down that He needs to come to us in
a tender way, wiping our tears away and speaking gently to us
to restore our strength. Other times we just get to feeling
sorry for ourselves and start rolling around in our self-pity
such that God has to slap us across the face in a “thanks I
needed that” sort of way.
Either way, we need not fear for he does promise to “help” us.
Help is the word “azar,” which is more than just help, it is
someone partnering with you in a project and working with you
each step of the way from start to finish.
Azar is in a
perfect tense; actually it is in a form which is past, present
and future. He has been, He is and He will be helping us.
No matter what we are going through, sickness, financial
difficulties, relationship problems, he has promised in Isaiah
41:13 to join with us, partner with us in that struggle and to
give us a continual infusion of His strength and power. If we
really believe this, and meditate on it, we need never be
afraid.
Word Study: Wise Heart
WORD STUDY – WISE HEART
Exodus 35:10: “And all the wise hearted among you shall come
and make all that the Lord hath commanded.”
Wise – Hebrew: Hacam – teachable, skillful, knowing.
Heart – Levav – Heart in the physical sense, life, reasoning,
understanding, will, judgment, design, affection, love,
hatred, courage, fear, joy, sorrow.
Wise Hearted: Hebrew idiom for knowing God’s heart.
Who are the wise hearted? Looking up the word wise and heart
in the back of your Strong Concordance or your lexicon will
reveal that wisdom means one who is teachable, skillful and
knowing. Only those with a teachable, skillful and knowing
heart would be allowed to work on the tabernacle. That makes
sense, you sure don’t want people with their own idea of how
the tabernacle should look building the thing, it needs to be
done according to God’s own specifications.
The word heart
has a broad range of meaning, but can be summarized as your
deep seated passions.
The word “wisdom” is spelled “Chet – 8, Kap – 20, Mem – 40.
It has a numerical value of 68. The Hebrew word for “a united
heart” also has a numerical value of 68. The “Chet and Kap
represent a joining of your heart with God. The final “Mem”
represents the hidden knowledge of God.
Wisdom is the
joining of your heart in unity with God to discern his hidden
knowledge. That would explain why God only wanted the “wise
hearted” or those who knew His heart, to build His tabernacle,
only those who could discern His hidden knowledge.
The
Hebrew word “heart” is “Lamed – 30, Beth – 2 with a total
numerical value of 32. The Hebrew words for “clean,” “pure”
and “light” also have a numerical value of 32. The lamed beth
represents reaching up heaven for divine knowledge as your
place of beginning.
So what is a “wise heart?”
A wise hearted person is someone
who has a pure heart that is in unity with God so as to
discern the hidden knowledge of God. Only such a person can
know the heart of God.
You add the numerical value of “a wise heart among you” and
you get a numerical value of 164. This is the same numerical
value for “in the congregation of the Lord.”
This is the
kicker.
Not everyone in the congregation of the Lord was
chosen to help build the tabernacle, only those with a wise
heart. Only those who knew the heart of God really knew what
God wanted for his tabernacle could build every piece to God’s
specification because they would want it to say to God, “I
love you.” Not everyone in the congregation of God had a wise
heart or knew the heart of God. There may have been many
skilled craftsmen and talented artist who could have built the
tabernacle, but without a wise heart, without knowing the
heart of God, they would have built the tabernacle as a symbol
of their talent and to bring honor to themselves.
There are many talented Christians out there or non-Christians
who use Christianity as a vehicle to display their talents.
They may have beautiful voices to sing and lead worship
services, they may be able to skillfully play a musical
instrument, even preach a moving sermon or even give a
beautiful testimony, yet they do not have a “wise heart.”
They perform from their own heart and not the heart of God.
They are indeed called of God to perform, but only the “wise
hearted” those who know God’s heart are chosen to declare the
heart of God. Jesus taught in Matthew 22:14 that many are
called, but only those who respond dressed in the appropriate
wedding garments are chosen.
There are many who have a “wise heart” that are dressed in the
appropriate wedding garment and are put in the back row of a
church and told to keep quiet because they do appear to have a
gift or talent to perform or speak before the congregation.
We honor only the gifted and talented, but rarely do we allow
the “wise hearted” the ones appropriately dressed, the chosen,
to share. As a result the heart of God is rarely shared in
many of our churches.
Word Study: Tittle “Keras”
WORD STUDY: TITTLE
Luke 16:17; “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass,
than one tittle to the law to fall.”
Greek: Keras – Tittle, stroke
Most of our modern translations translate the word “tittle” as
either “stroke of the pen,”
“a comma” “a pronunciation mark
(which it is not),”
“the smallest letter (which it is
not),””or the “smallest detail.”
It is generally accept by orthodox rabbis that the “tittle” is
the letter “vav.” This is not the smallest letter as that
would be the “yod.”
It is neither an insignificant letter as
it has more use than all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
It is definitely not a pronunciation mark (American King James
Version) as that did not come about until a couple hundred
years after Jesus spoke these words.
The “vav” is found in most of your Semitic languages including
Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Phoenician, and Arabic.
It is
derived from the Hieroglyph depicting a hook. In Classical
Hebrew it is drawn as a straight line with a little notch at
the top, sort of like a tent peg.
In fact the Hebrew Text
uses the word “vav” for the tent pegs or hooks used on the
tabernacle. The vav is used to for the letter “v” or “w” and
also represents the number “6.”
In the Torah Scroll the vav in Leviticus 11:42 is enlarged to
show that this is the very center of the Torah.
In Numbers
25:12 you have “broken vav” where there is a separation in the
middle of the vav in the word “shalom.” It depicts that zeal
of Phinias the grandson of Aaron, who killed a man who had
sexual relations with a Moabite woman and thus allowing God to
stop a plague and the destruction of Israel. Both can have a
very strong Messianic message.
The above two accounts, however, violate the soferut (laws
concerning the scribal art). Yet, the ancient rabbis made an
exception here. There is another violation where an exception
is made and that appears curious.
In Genesis 2:4 we learn
that God created the “generations” of the heavens and the
earth.
The word for generation is “toldot.” However, after
the fall of man the “vav” is deleted from the word “toldot.”
The sages refer to this as the “lost vav.”
The word that is
translated as “law” in Luke 16:17 is the word “torah.”
Hence
is it easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one “vav” to
the Torah.
Could Jesus have been referring to the “lost vav”
in the Book of Genesis? What would that mean?
The ancients believed the “vav” represented a connection
between earth and heaven. At the fall of man that connection
was broken.
As a rabbi who may speak many things while
speaking just one thing, could Jesus have been referring to
the fact that His fulfillment of the law or Torah would be
reestablishing a connection between heaven and earth that can
never again be broken.
Heaven and earth may pass but the
connection Jesus will make between heaven and earth will not
pass.
Where the original vav was lost through Adam and Eve, Jesus is
declaring in Luke 16:17 that he will restore the vav.
Drilling down a little further we find that grammatically when
you put a “vav” in front of a verb it changes the tense from
past to future or from future to past.
Maybe Jesus was also
saying that within the connection that he is re-establishing
between earth and heaven, he is inverting time, connecting
and transmuting the past and future so that we will actually
return to the time and state prior to the fall of man. Or
maybe He is saying that heaven and earth have a beginning and
an end, but the connection that I am establishing is infinite,
it is as if the fall never happened, there is no beginning or
end.
I wonder if Jesus was sending a message to the disciples,
Pharisees and us: “Hey guys, I’m the missing vav. What was
lost in the Garden of Eden, I have come to re-establish and
restore.
Word Study: Turn Captivity
Captive “v’shavti veyish’vu”
HEBREW WORD STUDY: I WILL BRING BACK MY EXILED PEOPLE
Amos 9:14: “I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they
will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will
plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens
and eat their fruit.” NIV
Ephesians 4:8: “Wherefore he said, when he ascended up on
high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.”
I will bring back my exiled people:
Hebrew – v’shavti
veyish’vu: Turn captive captive
Every English translation avoids the literal translation for
good reason. A literal translation often does not make
sense.
The phrase “I will bring back my exiled people” is in
Hebrew “v’shavti veyish’vu.”
Look at that phrase closely;
you don’t to be a Hebrew scholar to see there is a similarity
in that expression that is not expressed in our English
text.
This phrase literally means “turn captivity
captive.” Paul used the same expression in Ephesians 4:8 and
most of our English translations from the Greek will render
this literally as “He led captivity captive”.
What does that mean?
It means about as much to us as if we
said to an English man, “Let’s bury the hatchet.” He will
probably respond: “I say old boy, where do you want it
buried.”
Although our English friends speak the King’s
English, they are not as well versed in our free and easy spin
on English words creating what we call idioms.
“Turn captivity captive” is an old ancient Hebrew idiom. In
English we have our own idiom which is identical in its
intended meaning. Hence, I believe the best way to translate
this idiom from the Hebrew is to insert our own idiom.
“I
will turn the tables on my people in Israel.”
Now that
means a little more than simply, “I will bring them back.”
It is implying God will turn the captors into the captive and
the captive into the captors.
Are you being oppressed by someone?
Are they holding you
captive emotionally, financially, socially or in any other
way?
God has promised to not only deliver you from this
oppression but He will turn the tables on the ones oppressing
you and will not only free you but cause those who are
oppressing you to be under the same oppression that you were
under.
As another good old English idiom expresses it,
perhaps a little better, God will “give them a taste of their
own medicine.” He is after all, a just God, and He is not
above another idiom, poetic justice.