WORD STUDY THE LORD S WRATH עברת יהוה

Transcription

1 WORD STUDY THE LORD S WRATH עברת יהוה Zephaniah 1:18: Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord s wrath. But the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy. There was a conference in France for a large number of international engineers. During a break one of the European engineers came into the room and announced: Have you heard the latest dumb stunt that the United States has done? They sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What do they intend to do, bomb them? A Boeing engineer stood up and calmly replied: Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people, they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven other such ships stationed throughout the world ready to offer similar humanitarian assistance. A reporter said the room got very quiet. Sure our military is trained for war and they are fighting a war in the Middle East, at least a small contingent of our

2 military. We hear about that all the time in the news. But we rarely hear of the many other wars that the bulk of our military is fighting which is a much bigger picture. There is the war against piracy, smuggling, drugs, and human trafficking. We have a number of hospitals ships that in one year treated over 1 million nonmilitary, non Americans throughout the world. They built schools, provided protection and security to the defenseless and we can go on and on. Humanitarian aid is a key component to the U.S. military. Never in the history of the world has a world class military force devoted so much time, effort and financial resources to humanitarian aid. Yet, few in the world and even in this country realize that when our young men and women join the military, more often than not if their lives are endangered it will be in serving a humanitarian role more than a war against other nations. The Old Testament suffers a similar lack of understanding. To most people the Old Testament is a book of God s wrath and anger. I have heard preachers condemn the Old Testament as just a Jewish book filled with provincialism, elitism, tribalism. Bad Old Testament contains every nasty ism except communism and of course we all know who father that. Yet, the love and mercy of God is mentioned many more times than the wrath of God. And just what is this wrath and jealousy of God anyways. Zephaniah 1:18 is a good example. Neither gold nor silver will deliver one from God s wrath. Wrath here is avar in the Hebrew. You can render avar as wrath if you wish, but our modern English word wrath has little to do with the Hebrew word. This word is the same word that is used for passing over or passing through. When used to express anger, it is really referring to the idea of allowing oneself to go beyond the limits. To go to the other

3 side, or beyond. In other words God s wrath is anytime He goes beyond His limits, and is forced to do something He does not want to do. You will notice that the word avar is spelled Ayin, Beth and Resh. My old friend Ayin shows that God s wrath is not an irrational impulse, a moment of rage or God losing it or running out of control. Ayin is telling us that this is a calm, calculating God who does not act out of an emotional outburst but only with discernment and when there is no alternative. The next letter is Beth which tells us that whatever is displayed with this move of God, it is ultimately meant to be a blessing. If you lose your job and consider the possibility that that job loss and the inability to find another is a demonstration of God s wrath against you for something you did wrong, then you cannot ignore the fact that the second letter in the word for wrath is a Beth which declares that it is really a blessing. The final letter for wrath is a Resh. Which reminds us that any demonstration of avar (wrath) is under the complete control of the Holy Spirit and that its primary goal is to bring us to repentance. So perhaps we need to search for another English word rather than wrath. I mean I keep hearing on the news that if the stock market drops, billions of dollars will be lost, thousands of jobs will disappear, 401K s will go belly up, businesses will go bankrupt and the economist calls that a correction in the

4 market. Then maybe if I lose my job, house, health etc., why should I use such a harsh word as wrath for avar. I think I will just say that, God is making a correction in my life. I am not under God s wrath, I am under His correction. If you want to call it something else, then go right ahead. If you want to call our Navy Seals, the most well trained, well equipped warriors in the history of the world rescuing children who are being sold into sexual slavery as an act of war, go right ahead. I prefer to call it a humanitarian effort. You see every word in Classical Hebrew has a wide range of meanings. You can say God is a wrathful God if you like or you can say He is a God who must perform certain acts He would prefer not to in order to correct our behavior. And how about this fire of jealousy business, yeah now that is real bad, right? The word in the Hebrew for jealousy is qana. The word means jealousy but is that always bad? Qana really carries the idea of burning with such passion for someone or something that you will not allow anyone to come close to your object of passion. I picture jealousy as someone grabbing hold of someone or something and saying; Mine, all mine, everyone get away, no one can have what is mine. What a nasty attitude, but you know if God wants to feel that way about me, then just between Him and me, I won t object. You can call it bad if you wish, but I won t. Think what you want, but I kind of like the idea of having a jealous God. You can cross your fingers and say Tisk Tisk, what a terrible God who is jealous and full of wrath. Mercy Maude, such a selfish God. But you know what? When you see an aircraft carrier what do you see? A warship capable of wrecking great destruction and loss of life or a humanitarian vessel? God can send his aircraft carrier my way anytime.

5 HEBREW WORD STUDY YOURS, MINE, OURS Psalms 24:1 The earth is the Lord s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Psalms: 115:16: The heaven, even the heavens are the Lords, but the earth He giveth to the sons of men. Motle: Rabbi, is there a blessing for a sewing machine? Rabbi: There is a blessing for everything. -Fiddler on the Roof- A caller to a radio talk show gave his pet Bible contradiction by pointing out that at one point David says the earth is the Lord s then later he says the Lord gave it to the sons of

6 men. Since he gave the earth to the sons of men, how can it still belong to the Lord? Listening to this I could not help but think that there must be better things to risk your eternal state on than this. A simple knowledge of Hebrew will show you that the word give is nathan which is a circular word. It is sort of like a loan, or giving permission. The word nathan does not necessarily imply the giving up of ownership. For instance when you give a tithe or offering in the Hebraic sense, you are not giving up ownership of that tithe or offering because it was never yours to begin with. It was and does belong to God. You are merely putting it back into His vault for safe keeping. If you should happen to need it later on, he will pull it out of the vault and give it to you to perform it s necessary task. When the Lord gives (nathan) to you, finances, job, family, health etc. He does not give up ownership, in a sense you accept the care custody and control of it. I remember my brother telling me that one of the first lessons he learned when he went to the Amanah village in New Guinea as a Wycliffe Bible Translator. He quickly learned that in the village everyone became joint owners of all he possessed. It was no long his computer, but our computer. In ancient Semitic culture where you depended upon you neighbor to survive it was not uncommon for someone to just walk into your home and borrow something of yours without even asking. It our culture it is very hard for us to understand this. Our culture is a culture of possession. What we have is ours and no one else s. Even in marriage the law says Yet, in God s eyes it is Every penny a man makes belongs just as much to his wife as it belongs to him. For the believer every penny a man makes belongs 100% to him, 100% to his wife and 100% to God, with God as the executive owner. When we drop

7 that dollar bill in the offering plate we are only depositing it in the Corporate Heavenly treasury. So too, this world belongs to God, but he has given (nathan) it to us in the sense that he has placed it in our care, custody and control. He has not given up ownership, but just hired us in as a managing partner. For over 3,500 years the Jews have understood this. The Talmud addresses these two verses and seem to have no problem with them. In Berakhot 35 of the Talmud we learn that Psalms 24:1, the earth is the Lords; applies before a blessing is given and Psalms 115:16 the earth is given to the sons of men, applies after a blessing is given. Ever wonder why rabbis are always blessing everything? It is not to offer good luck or seek God s special favor. It is merely to acknowledge God s ownership and our humble acceptance of these blessing to share in God s property or wealth. As Motle in Fiddler on Roof sought the rabbis blessing for his new sewing machine, he was not seeking God s favor for the sewing machine, but was seeking to acknowledge that this was God s sewing machine and he was being blessed to have it in his care, custody and control. Next time you land a job, a financial blessing or whatever, perhaps you should take a look at the teachings of the sages and I believe the Word of God and before you thank God for the gift and start shouting Mine, mine, all mine! you give a blessing acknowledging God s continued ownership of that gift and thank him that you have been made the custodian of that

8 gift and commit yourself to using it to the fullest benefit of the Executive Officer. Then of course thank Him for the gift Nathan. WORD STUDY LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION Matthew 6:13: And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. As I seek to understand a new dimension that God is leading me in my prayer life, I am finding myself using the Lord s prayer more often. In this use of the Lord s Prayer I am discovering that I haven t the foggiest idea of what I am saying. One passage I am particularly troubled with is praying that God does not lead me into temptation. Does not James teach in 1:3, Let no man say he is tempted of God.

9 Sounds like a contradiction. One basic rule we need to keep in mind is that Jesus gave us the Lord s prayer in Aramaic which was later translated into Greek. Something that seems to not be known among Christians is that until 1948 the Classical Hebrew had not been in the vernacular of the Jewish people for over 2,500 years. Classical Hebrew was a dead language only used for ceremonial reasons. No one knows how the Hebrew was pronounced in Biblical times as that has long been lost. We can guess but we can t be sure. So if anyone tells you that you can purchase a CD with the Psalms being spoken just as David spoke it, watch your pocket book. Unless the rocks can speak, we will never know what the original Hebrew sounded like nor will we know the correct way to pronounce God s name or the name of Jesus in Hebrew. By the first century the common language of the Jewish people was Aramaic. The Hebrew script we use today is actually the Aramaic Square Script which Ezra used to replace the Phoenician script which some have called the Ancient Hebrew. It is the Square Script that I play around with and not the so called Ancient Hebrew script. Greek was the vernacular of the West and the language of commerce for the West. Aramaic was the vernacular of the East and the language of commerce for the East. The people of Israel spoke the Aramaic. There were three main dialects of Aramaic during the time of Jesus, the Northern or Old Galilean dialect which Jesus and his disciples spoke, a Southern dialect which was spoken in Judea and a Western dialect which was spoken in the area of Babylon. Classical Hebrew did remain as the language used for scriptural and scholarly writings.

10 The synagogue readings and recitation of prayers were all in the Classical Hebrew during the 1 st Century. Although Jesus spoke Aramaic as the common language, as a rabbi He probably used many Hebrew terms in his teachings. Much of the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls were in Hebrew but there was also many documents written in Aramaic, Arabic, Greek and Latin. One such very recent discovery from the Psalms Scroll which shed some light on this very troubling passage in the Lord s Prayer, Lead us not into temptation. Why would God lead us into temptation? If it was His divine will to lead us into temptation, why would we pray for Him not to lead us into temptation. Was Jesus actually teaching us to pray and tell God to back off? As mentioned earlier, is this in contradiction to the teachings in James 1:3 which tells us that we are not tempted by God? An identical phrase was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls following a certain rhythmic pattern. Another thing to keep in mind about this culture is that they had no recording devices and most of what was taught by the rabbis was put to a sort of rhythm, meter or rhyme. Although not poetry, it did form a good device to aid in memorization. The rhythm and rhyme of the Lord s prayer was lost when it was translated into the Greek. However, when transposed into Aramaic and even Hebrew you recapture much of the meter. This is why you will find so many idiomatic expressions. It can be difficult at times to express you thoughts in a rhyme and sometimes the only way to make a thought rhyme is to create an idiomatic expression. This passage, Lead us not into temptation that has been found

11 in the Dead Sea Scrolls carries such a rhythm. When you transpose the phrase in the Lord s prayer and the passage in James to Aramaic or Hebrew you get the same meter or rhyme as found with the identical phrase in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This helps to establish this phrase, Lead us not into temptation as an idiomatic expression. The difficulty now lies in translation of the Aramaic word, the word most likely used by Jesus, for temptation which is nesiona into the Greek word peirasmon. Nesiona in the Dead Sea Scrolls is found in the Hiphal form signifying a causative sense. Hence using the Dead Sea Scrolls rendering as guide we would find a more proper rendering of this phrase: Lead us not into temptation to be: Do not allow us to enter wrongful thinking or testing. As the Lord s Prayer is given by Jesus we can assume it is an expression of God s heart. God wants us to pray that we do not enter into wrong thinking or wrong testing. I just wonder how many of my testings were brought on by myself by my own lack of submission to God s will or my own wrong thinking? I know many of us recite the Lord s Prayer on a daily basis. If you are Catholic you may recite it at every mass. If you find the rendering, Lead us not into temptation a bit troubling, you might want to take advantage of the discoveries found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and offer an alternative rendering of Don t allow me to enter into wrong thinking or testings.