HEBREW WORD STUDY THE WATERS OF AFFLICTION

Transcription

1 HEBREW WORD STUDY THE WATERS OF AFFLICTION HEBREW WORD STUDY THE WATERS OF AFFLICTION MAYIM לחצ מימ LACHATS Isaiah 30:20: And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers be hidden no more, but thine eyes shall see they teachers: What does water have to do with affliction? The word water in Hebrew is mayim, This could come from the root word mi waters or yim hot springs. I don t believe this is where our English idiom being in hot water comes from, but it is a cool idea. Water has many symbolic meanings in Hebrew. One meaning is that water can be so powerful it can drill through rocks. Hence we would draw the idea of waters of affliction. I have read in Jewish literature that God will give you an affliction that will drill through the rocky covering of your heart to penetrate your heart with the love of God. Thus, their understanding of the water of affliction is an affliction to drill down to the core of your heart. God does not allow us to go through affliction randomly, He is seeking to penetrate your heart so your heart will be open to Him. We not only experience waters of affliction to drill through our rocky hearts, but we also may face the bread of adversity. Bread also has many symbolic meanings. One aspect is how bread is made. The taking of wheat, pounding it into a flower, rolling it and then baking it at a high temperature. The Jewish community recently celebrated Rosh Hashanah. It is a

2 custom in baking bread for Rosh Hashanah to invite people who have hurt you during the year to assist you in the preparation. As you roll your bread you forgive them. Hence the bread of adversity. Jewish literature teaches that the adversity brought on by your sinful acts are pounded, rolled and baked to bring you to repentance and the forgiveness of God. I would also like to add my thought to this. That grain which is pounded, rolled and baked comes out as something new (bread) to bring nourishment to others. Many people have to go through the waters of affliction for God to penetrate their hearts and then go through the pounding, rolling and baking trials by God to bring them to repentance and His forgiveness in Jesus Christ so that Jesus can make them into something new, something of value to others, to bring nourishment to others. Your teachers shall be hidden no more. Teachers in this passage is moreka. This particular form is a participial noun, 2 nd person singular. Note it is singular not plural. It is a teaching teacher or a master teacher. The word used her is yarah not lamad which is the common word for teach. As shown in an earlier chapter yarah has the idea of throwing out, or an archer who is shooting an arrow. A teacher is throwing out knowledge or shooting out knowledge which is aimed at a target. This Master Teacher will not be hidden. The word hidden is kanaph. This is the word for wings, or a loose flowing skirt. These particular words give a picture of an archer shooting at a winged creature but because of its illusiveness, the arrow shot by our Master Teacher does not meet its target. God is constantly speaking to us, but we just keep eluding His voice. The last part of this verse also explains it. And your eyes will see your teachers. The word see is ra ah which is a reference to spiritual seeing, spiritual insight. Your spiritual eyes will be opened and you will see the redemption offered by our Master Teacher.

3 What the prophet seems to be saying here is that God is always speaking to us, to give us direction, to set us on the right path or way (see following verse) but sometimes it just does not get through that thick skull of ours or that thick rocky heart of ours and God may have to bring the bread of adversity, (adversity that will bring us into repentance and the forgiveness of God) or the waters of affliction to break through that shell of our heart and pierce it with the love of God through Jesus Christ. HEBREW WORD STUDY BREAD OF AFFLICTION HEBREW WORD STUDY BREAD OF AFFLICTION LECHEM TSAR לחמ צר Isaiah 30:20: And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be hidden any more, but thine eyes shall see them, teachers: There are no tenses in Hebrew, however, we do have what is called perfect and imperfect forms. A perfect form means an action that is completed and we assume a past tense in English. The imperfect means an action that is not completed and so we assume a present or future tense. A participle, which ends in ing is assumed to be a present tense. However, we still

4 need to look at the context to determine a tense. So take Isaiah 30:20 where the word give nathan is in an imperfect form but you will find that the NASB puts the word in a past tense, the Lord gave you bread, yet the KJV uses a present tense the Lord gives you bread and the NET puts it in a future tense the Lord will give you bread. Three very different translations and each is nothing more than a paraphrase, the translator offering his opinion. Where this ambiguity is upsetting to a Western mindset the Semitic mindset, has no problem seeing this as the Lord gave, is giving and will continue to give bread. Hence speaking metaphorically we find that the Lord has given, is giving and will continue to give you the bread of adversity This ambiguity continues in Isaiah 30:20 with the Hebrew word for waters of affliction. The word for water is mayim. We cannot really sure just what the root word for water is here. It could be mi which is simply waters or it could be yim which is the word for hot springs or boiling water. From the context we could assume hot water as it is a reference to affliction. It could be just water as waters can smooth or drill through rocks. This would also indicate waters of affliction. The Jewish sages teach that God will give you an affliction that will drill through the rocky coverings of your heart to penetrate your heart with the love of God. What about this metaphor of bread of adversity. The Jewish sages teach that the adversity brought on by your sinful acts against another or God are pounded, rolled and baked to bring you to repentance and the forgiveness of God. Many people have had to go through the pounding, rolling and baking trials by God to bring them to repentance and forgiveness in Jesus Christ so that Jesus can make them into something new, something of value to others, to bring nourishment to others. Here is another little grammatical twist, the verse goes on to say: Your teachers shall not be hidden from you. The word

5 teachers in this passage is moreka. Note it is plural and not singular. Yet many modern translations as the popular ESV and NASB will make is singular. That does not mean the ESV and NASB are not accurate. In fact, singular and plural are different in Hebrew than is English. When we say plural in English we mean more than one where the singular is just one. However, that is not always the case in Hebrew. For instance, the word Elohim (god) in Hebrew is plural but that does not mean more than one God. It could also mean the ultimate God or the supreme God and still be singular. So this passage could say just one moreka Teacher and be Messianic referring to Jesus. Another thing to note about Hebrew is that it is continually drawing pictures. For example the word here for hidden. Our Master Teacher, Jesus will not be hidden, or kanaph in the Hebrew. The word kanaph comes from an Akkadian root for a winged creature. A winged creature is very elusive to an archer and hence it gets its Hebrew form of hidden. What the prophet seems to be saying here is that God is always speaking to you, to give you direction, to set you on the right path or way but sometimes it just does not get through that thick head of ours, and God may have to bring the bread of adversity, (adversity that will bring us to repentance and the forgiveness of God) and the hot water of affliction to drill through that hard shell of our heart and pierce it with the love of God through Jesus Christ our Master Teacher whom we will one day see face to face.

6 Word Study:Bread Of Affliction WORD STUDY BREAD OF AFFLICTION Isaiah 30:20: Although the Lord has given you bread of distress and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. The word to give is in an imperfect tense. So you would read this as a future tense, the Lord will give. Not that it is a wrong translation, if the context really calls for a past tense you can translate it that way as technically Hebrew has no tenses, just a perfect, completed action and an inperfect imcompleted action. Further we learn that He is going to give distress or tsar. Tsar is used to express grief, affliction and distress. The word is spelled Sade and Resh. This spelling would indicate that the purpose of this grief or affliction is to humble oneself to the Holy Spirit so he can move in divine power.

7 Indeed, by using the metaphor of bread, that would confirm this. Bread, lechem, is often associated with the source of life. Rabbi Samson Hirsch points out that it is closely associated with the word lachim which you may recognize as to life. Bread is a source. The source of the affliction is the living, loving life of Jesus Christ who gives this affliction to bring humility so we are able to move in the power of the Spirit of God. I read something in the Talmud this morning. It teaches two sources of humility. That which you try to accomplish through your own disciplines, which is rarely successful and that which is accomplished through affliction. In affliction you realize you are no different than anyone else. President Trump may be a billionaire he may be powerful, but he still says things that a politician would never say and it gets him in trouble. The common cold, flu and cancer can strike the most powerful and the least powerful. Affliction, when it comes from God, is a teacher that will teach you that you are nothing more than a vessel to be used at the pleasure of its creator. There is a little play on words here. The Lord will also bring upon you the waters of oppression. The word oppression is a play on the word for bread. Bread is lechem and oppression is leches. Lechem pictures a joining with God to enter into His hidden mysteries. Leches is a joining with God to enter into humility. Water represents the mysteries of God. It is spelled with an Open Mem, a Yod, and a Closed Mem. It is the mysteries of God both revealed and unrevealed. Literally the word oppression, leches, has the idea of squeezing, or pressing. I found the best illustration for leches in The Talmud. It is like man who had two wives. One was young and the other was old. The young wife kept pulling out the man s grey hairs leaving the darker hairs so he would look younger. The older wife kept pulling out the man s dark hairs to leave the grey hairs so he would look older. Before long the poor boy was pluck bald. Do you ever feel like that sometimes, like you just can t win for losing? I bet if you are a pastor you felt

8 that way many times. You seem to have things coming at you from all directions and you are being squeezed in the middle. It is when you look to the right and that leads to disaster and you look to the left and that leads to destruction that you are leches or oppressed. That is when you need the revealed or hidden knowledge of God to whisper, this is the way, walk in it. (verse 21). The syntax would suggest that the teacher is not so much God as it is the bread of affliction and the waters of oppression. Yet it is God who sends it. The promise is that while we are going through all that madness, it will seem meaningless to us. We will not understand it. But the promise is that our eyes will one day open and we will see that all that craziness was really a teacher from God sent to humble us to the Spirit and power of God so that we can walk in that Spirit and divine power. As a believer we have given you lives to God, to do with as He pleases. If the bread of affliction should come, rather than complain and belly ache, we should just recognize that it is God s life he is doing this to and that it is a teacher for us. WORD STUDY THE COLOR BLUE מימ MAYIM

9 Isaiah 30:20: And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, your teachers be hidden no more, but thine eyes shall see they teachers: Today my study partner and I were debating the color blue. She insisted that the color blue is found in the Bible. It is not. There is really only one way to know exactly what a color term represents and that is to have a sample of that color. Well we know blood is red so in II Kings 3:22 we have the phrase red like blood and thus we can make a fair assumption that adorn means red. Trees and plant life have always been green so we can assume that the word yarok is green. In ancient languages words tend to follow patterns so that the more basic colors enters the language before the more complex colors like auburn, maroon and purple. So we have the primary colors that we can be pretty certain of in Hebrew like red, green and yellow. Well, there is really no textual evidence that tsahov is yellow but it seems to have always meant yellow. But then gold is yellow so zahav might be used for yellow. Blue is a problem. Biblical Hebrew is a dead language and

10 died out during the captivity period. The oldest sample of anything blue is less than 2,000 years old so we have no sample of blue from Old Testament times to match a Hebrew word to. My study partner insisted they do have blue water and blue skies, but the Bible does not talk of the color of the skies and the color of water. Post Biblical literature and Aramaic does have the word kachol which means blue, but then that would give us four possible Biblical Hebrew root words that could be blue. The most likely would be t chelet. But as indicated earlier objects such as gold zahav could be used to indicate a known color. That would include the word mayim which is the word for water. So we have the phrase the water of affliction. The word for water is mayim. This could come from the root word mi waters or yim hot springs. I don t believe this is where our English idiom being in hot water comes from, but it is a cool idea. Water has many symbolic meanings in Hebrew. One meaning is that water can be so powerful it can drill through rocks. Hence we would draw the idea of waters of affliction. I have read in Jewish literature that God will give you an affliction that will drill through the rocky covering of your heart to penetrate your heart with the love of God. Thus, their understanding of the water of affliction is an affliction to drill down to the core of your heart. God does not allow us to go through affliction randomly, He is seeking to penetrate your heart so your heart will be open to Him. My study partner is teaching a class on dream interpretation using only the Bible as a source of interpretation and not some Eastern or New age thought of what symbols in your dream means. Colors in dreams are a tough one but I think it would be a good bet that objects that represent colors such as water hold the key to interpretation. So if you dream of wearing a

11 blue shirt, it might do well to examine the meaning behind objects that are blue such as sky or water and see if any satisfy what your spirit I trying to tell you. Maybe blue can represent going through waters of affliction or on a positive side water completely surrounds you so it might mean being surrounded by the presence of God. Ok enough on that, back to the text. We not only experience waters of affliction to drill through our rocky hearts, but we also may face the bread of adversity. Bread also has many symbolic meanings. One aspect is how bread is made. The taking of wheat, pounding it into a flower, rolling it and then baking it at a high temperature. Next month on October 2, the Jewish community will celebrate Rosh Hashanah. It is a custom in baking bread for Rosh Hashanah to invite people who have hurt you during the year and as you roll your bread you forgive them. Hence the bread of adversity. Jewish literature teaches that the adversity brought on by your sinful acts are pounded, rolled and baked to bring you to repentance and the forgiveness of God. I would also like to add my thought to this. That grain which is pounded, rolled and baked comes out as something new (bread) to bring nourishment to others. Many people have to go through the waters of affliction for God to penetrate their hearts and then go through the pounding, rolling and baking trials by God to bring them to repentance and His forgiveness in Jesus Christ so that Jesus can make them into something new, something of value to others, to bring nourishment to others. Your teachers shall be hidden no more. Teachers in this passage is moreka. This particular form is a participial noun, 2 nd person singular. Note it is singular not plural. It is a teaching teacher or a master teacher. The word used her is

12 yarah not lamad which is the common word for teach. Yarah has the idea of throwing out, or an archer who is shooting an arrow. A teacher is throwing out knowledge, or shooting out knowledge which is aimed at a target. This Master Teacher will not be hidden. The word hidden is kanaph. This is the word for wings, or a loose flowing skirt. These particular words give a picture of an archer shooting at a winged creature but because of its illusiveness, the arrow shot by our Master Teacher does not meet its target. God is constantly speaking to us, but we just keep eluding His voice. The last part of this verse also explains it. And your eyes will see your teachers. The word see is ra ah which is a reference to spiritual seeing, spiritual insight. Your spiritual eyes will be opened and you will see the redemption offered by our Master Teacher. What the prophet seems to be saying here is that God is always speaking to us, to give us direction, to set us on the right path or way (see following verse) but sometimes it just does not get through that thick skull of ours or that thick rocky heart of ours and God may have to bring the bread of adversity, (adversity that will bring us into repentance and the forgiveness of God) or the waters of affliction to break through that shell of our heart and pierce it with the love of God through Jesus Christ. p.s so like I was saying blue is in the Bible, Laura ; )