WORD STUDY MERIBAH AND מסה מריבה MASSAH

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Ross Thomas
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WORD STUDY MERIBAH AND מסה מריבה MASSAH Psalms 95:8 Harden not your heart as in the day of provocation (Meribah), and as in the day of temptation (Massah) in the wilderness.

1 WORD STUDY MERIBAH AND מסה מריבה MASSAH Psalms 95:8 Harden not your heart as in the day of provocation (Meribah), and as in the day of temptation (Massah) in the wilderness. There is a very interesting poetic device used in this Psalm. The writer is using proper names from an actual place and using the meaning behind those proper name to describe and event that took place. In this case the writer refers to two places that are named Meribah and Massah. Meribah means provocation and Massah means temptation. The event that is being described here is the story in Exodus when Israel was encamped at Rephidim and Israel started to complain because they had no water. When you examine this story in the Hebrew you discover that the people were no yet thirsty. They were anticipating their thirst. They were encamped in a place where there was no water and their water supply was running out and they felt they should

2 be moving on to find water, yet the Lord commanded them to remain right where they were. As the days passed they began to murmur and complain that God had led them out to the wilderness to abandon them and let them die. Finally God told Moses to strike a rock and water would come out. Yet Rephidim was given the spiritual name of Meribah provocation and Massah temptation because of their murmurings. These two names were also given at Kadesh-Barnea where they faced similar circumstances. What is interesting is that the Septuagint and the Targum (Aramaic translation from the Hebrew) both use these two words as nouns rather than proper names in the story of Kadesh-Barnea. Lately I have been feeling like I am wandering in the wilderness in my journey to the heart of God. I have been strangely led to this passage in Psalms to this warning to not harden my heart in the day of temptation and provocation as I journey through this wilderness. Like Israel, I am not yet thirsty, but I can see my supply running out. I don t see anyway God can provide the water I am going to need and I feel as if He has led me out to this wilderness to die of thirst. I have found myself voicing my complaint to God, almost like Israel I have been murmuring. I find I am terrified as I look at the warning in this verse to not harden my heart in the day of temptation and provocation. I am terrified that if I do harden my heart, my journey to the heart of God will end. This six year journey to the heart of God has been painful, yet joyful, selfrevealing while at the same time very revealing of the nature of God s heart. This journey has brought rest and comfort as well as an anxiousness to move forward. If my journey to discover the heart of God ends I will end. I have spent countless hours of study in the Word of God as well as written

3 four books describing my journey to the heart of God. This journey is now my life s journey, a journey that must only end when I stand in the presence of God, I don t want this treasure hunt to end. Every day I find a new clue that shed new light on this mysterious treasure map that we call the Word of God or the Bible. So, yes, I am terrified that I may harden my heart and bring this journey to a screeching halt. So I pause in my journey right now. It is approaching midnight, but I cannot sleep, I must leave for work in a few hours, but I have to know and understand what this hardening of the heart is really all about. I have heard this phrase all my life but only now I find I must really consider and explore just what it means to harden one s heart. The word harden in Hebrew is kasa, which has the idea of stiffening. Yet when I trace this to its Semitic root I discover its origins lie in the a sense of heaviness or depression. There is another word we can attach to kasa and that is discouragement. Ah, there it is, discouragement. The people of Israel allowed the temptation and provocation at Rephidm and Kadesh Barnea to discouragement them. Note that his word is in a Hiphal form. Their hearts were caused to be discouraged. They allowed it to happen and they became discouraged. A discouraged heart is a hardened heart and a discouraged heart no longer has faith. It no longer believes that God has everything under control. A kasa heart is a heart has lost all hope and has given up. There is a sense of pathos in this verse as if God is saying, Please, don t allow your hearts to become depressed and discouraged. The natural result of a hardened or depressed and discouraged heart is disobedience for once discouraged you will no longer follow the lead and voice of God.

4 My father used to tell me a story. Satan decided to go out business one day and have a big garage sale where he would sell off all the tools of his trade. He laid out his tools and the demons came, examined them, looked at the price tags and began to purchase all of Satan s tools. At the end of the sale there was only one item left. The price tag on that item was just too great. Every demon longed to own it but the price was just too high and none could afford it. The devil looked at this item and realized that he could stay in business with just this one item. He decided to reclaim this one item, this one Meribah provocation and one Massah temptation and use it against the saints. He is still using it today, he is using on you and on me. That one tool is called discouragement. Nothing can harden your heart quicker than if you allow discouragement to enter your heart. The word meribah, provocation comes from a root word rayav which has the idea of causing contention, being adversial and judgmental. I drove a woman to a doctor s appointment today in my disability bus who had allowed meribah to enter her heart. She complained all the way to the appointment about the people in the community, the government, the taxes, the students leaving school. She would have some racist comment about every driver who pulled in front of me. By the time we reached our destination she had me convinced that every driver was stupid, every scholar leaving school was stupid, all the parents were stupid, the government was stupid, the whole world was stupid. The only one that wasn t stupid was the one that really was. I felt exhausted and absolutely miserable when I dropped her off to her appointment as she made her way to the doctor s office to make everyone in that office just as miserable as her.

5 The children of Israel did not murmur or complain because they had no water, they were complaining that God was not providing it for them in the way they wanted. It was all God s fault. He brought them into the wilderness to abandon them. Not only that they started to massad. Actually it was medivar massad which is the Wilderness of Massad. Medivar really means no understanding, massad means to flow down, dissolve or melt. Your understanding of God becomes distorted when you harden your hearts. That is how the enemy uses his tool of discouragement, he whispers in your ear, Yeah, God came through in the past, but don t kid yourself Bunkie, He just wanted to bring you to this point in the wilderness to abandon you. He is just toying with you. How do you know there even is a God. You scratch your head and say, You know you re right. Well it is your choice, you can listen to the enemy and let you heart become discouraged or hardened or you can point your finger at him and say, Devil you re a liar. I am going to trust in God even if I have no water and end up a like a dried up old prune. I will just pucker up and say Praise the Lord. I will not allow my heart to harden or become discouraged. I am choosing God and not a hardened heart even if I end up in Rephidim with no water in my cup. So, I will call it a night confident that I am continuing on my journey to the heart of God through this dry and thirsty land. As the old hymn goes, Jesus is the Rock in a weary land.

WORD STUDY LOOK TO THE ROCK הביטו צור

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