HEBREW WORD STUDY Deceitful אנשׁ עכב and Wicked

Transcription

1 HEBREW WORD STUDY Deceitful אנשׁ עכב and Wicked Jeremiah 17:9, The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? The word used here for deceitful is very curious. It is the aqov. It comes from the same root where we get the word Jacob which means to grab by the heel. It is from this story of Jacob that we have come to believe that the word aqov means to be deceitful as Jacob was deceitful to his brother and deceit seems to fit the context. The problem is that our understanding of aqov is really guesswork. It is rooted in an old Semitic word meaning simply a heel. Every modern translation, with few exceptions will render aqov as deceitful. Yet the Septuagint uses the Greek word bathuno which has the idea of deep hidden things. It is used for something that is above man s scrutiny particularly in reference to divine counsel. Bathuno is often used to express the deep sea. People in ancient times did not have modern diving equipment and what lay under the vast seas was always a mystery left to speculation.

2 How did the seven translators of the Septuagint arrive at the Greek word bathuno for aqov without consulting each other? Something was very obvious to them in ancient times that is not so easily apparent to us in modern times. What is the relationship between the heel and things so deep that we cannot understand it. I suppose in a way you could say bathuno carries the idea of deceit as deceit involves hiding the truth from someone and therefore would mean things not understood, but I think that is stretching it to put the word deceit to bathuno. Deceit shows intent to hold back knowledge. Bathuno shows no intent, it is just knowledge that we cannot comprehend. I would be willing to argue and debate that aqov should not be rendered as deceit but that we should find a modern English word that would more appropriately express the idea of knowledge that is hidden. So what does that have in relationship to the heel. The heel is the first part of your foot that touches the ground when you are walking. Oriental culture believed that with every step you take a part of your spirit or knowledge is left in the ground that you step on. This belief was so strong that disciples or student would literally fall down on the ground and roll in the foot prints of their master hoping to sop up every trace of knowledge from his master. They felt that knowledge that their master had and could or would not express would be left in his footprints and hence they would gather up that knowledge that passed through his heel as the heel being the first part of his foot to touch the ground and thus it would release the deepest knowledge. Based on this, I would render this passage to read not that the heart is deceitful, but that the heart contains knowledge that is so deep that we cannot comprehend it. That would fit the context where the verse ends with who could know it?

3 The word desperately wicked, in my opinion, is a rather unfortunate rendering. The word in Hebrew has really nothing to do with the idea of wickedness. It is not one of the many ra words used to express evil or wickedness. The word is anesh. In my first book, A Hebrew Teacher s Search for the Heart of God I asked the publisher to create a cover for the book which had a picture of some Hebrew script or a portion from the Hebrew Bible. I then asked to have a graphic artist draw a heart in the center of this Hebrew passage with the words I love you in the center of the heart and then shaped at the bottom of the heart would be an arrow pointing to some word in that Hebrew Script. I did not specify any particular word as I just wanted to express that the Word of God was an expression of God s love for us. The graphic artist, whom I understood did not study Hebrew, picked out a picture of a random portion of the Bible in Hebrew and pointed the arrow randomly to some word. When I got the proofs, I couldn t believe the word that the graphic artist picked. Either he was sensitive to the Spirit of God or there was an amazing coincidence but the word the arrow was pointing to was ha aneshim, which is simply the word anesh with an article and a plural ending meaning weak and helpless mankind. Somehow it didn t surprise me that the book became a best seller as I could not help but think that God was giving His input into the Book. Back to the word anesh which means mankind in a state of weakness and helplessness. I suppose you could get wicked out of that, but a better and more accurate English word would be vulnerable. Thus, I do not read this passage as the heart being deceitful and wicked, but the heart has a depth of knowledge that makes it vulnerable and who can know it. But soft, look at that word to know, it is yada, which is an intimate knowing and, oh my gosh, it is a participle. What

4 this is saying is that we go about our everyday business unware of the deep secrets of one s heart. This is referring to not only our heart but that of others. A husband will say something to his wife or do something and she suddenly becomes upset with him. The poor slob stands there with his mouth open clueless as to what he said or did that was so wrong. He is clueless because he does not understand her heart. I remember when I was a pastor my church celebrated the 60 th wedding anniversary of a couple in our church. I asked the husband what was the most challenging thing in his marriage for him and he said, Trying to understand my wife, and I am still trying. The most challenging and exciting aspect of a marriage is trying to understand each other s heart, it is a lifelong process. Making it more difficult is that we don t understand our hearts in the first place. Yet, our hearts our desperately anesh or vulnerable. Our hearts are easily broken by those who do not understand it or take the time to try to understand it. In my disability bus yesterday I drove an elderly woman home that was almost in tears as she said, I don t understand how people can be so cruel and unkind. That is when I thought of Jeremiah 17:9 and my answer was from the words of Jeremiah, our hearts are so desperately vulnerable and no one can understand it and thus they will do things that break our hearts. Yet, there is one person who knows our hearts and that person is God and in knowing our hearts better than we can know it, we are guaranteed that he will not do or say anything that will break our hearts. If we feel God has broken our heart, it is only because we do not understand our own heart and its vulnerabilities. God hasn t broken our hearts, we have broken our own hearts due to our lack of understanding the aqov or

5 depths or our hearts. INTO THE CATSKILLS A SICK HEART Jeremiah 17:9, The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? Boy, Jeremiah loved that word deceitful. Here it is again. Only unlike Jeremiah 20:7 where he uses the word patah which is rendered as deceived in many translations but has more of the idea of being seduced or persuaded, this time the word which is rendered in English as deceit is aqob in Hebrew and not patah. Maybe it is not so much Jeremiah who likes that word deceit so much as it is the translators. Nonetheless here I am once again looking at this word deceit. When I started my journey into silence in the Catskills I asked the Lord for a word to describe this special time of silence and what word do I get? Deceit. God and I went off on another journey into the Catskill mountains this morning. As I have done each morning, I asked

6 the Lord, Where to? This morning I feel prompted to travel below the mountains and to look up. This is when I realized I came to the Catskills at the perfect time of year. The leaves are just beginning to change color. I look up at the tree covered mountains which is like looking at a lush tapestry of multiple colors. It is as if every tree on the mountain is flush with multicolored leaves, so full and lush it is almost like a bouquet of flowers. I commented to God how His mountain is so full of beauty, so rich as if every tree is covered in a glorious blanket of leaves. The entire foliage was luxuriant and perfect. There is a side road leading up into the mountain and I sense that still small voice guiding me to follow this road. As I drive into the mountain I become aware of the fact that I am driving right through this rich and perfect garden that I saw from the base of the mountain. It took me a while to realize this because things did not seem as perfect up close. I was surrounded by dead trees, trees which were only half filled with leaves while the other half appeared dead and lifeless. The ground was covered with decaying and rotting vegetation. The foliage here did not seem as luxuriant as it did from a distance. It was not as beautiful and perfect looking up close as it was from a distance. I sensed God whispering to me, That is your heart. I had to pull to the side of the road because I began to weep. I understood why God took me out this morning to the base of the mountain and then into its interior. I realize that people look at me from the distance like I looked at the Catskills. They read my blog or my books and think I am some sort of guru who has all his spiritual ducks in a row and walks around singing hymns 24/7. They see my heart from a distance and they remark, My, my and what a spiritual giant you are. Oy,

7 you have such a heart for God. Come, Come everyone, let us sit under the teachings of this great man of God. Yet, God is not looking at my heart from a distance, He is traveling through the interior of my heart and it does not look so beautiful inside. It is not this symbol of purity that my blog and books portray. When God sees my heart He sees a lot of dead wood, scatter ruins, decay and rot which are masked to the outside world as the tops of the trees with its colorful leaves mask the dead ugly waste inside this mountain. As I weep I feel so ashamed of myself. How dare I demand that God give me some special revelation, a miracle or a sign. How dare I ask anything of God when my heart is filled with such deceit and pride. When I just lap up all the positive reviews on my books like a thirsty dog lapping up water from a stream. How dare I ask God for something special when I practice little deceits and cover-ups. When I pretend to be such an intelligent and knowledgeable person so people will stand in awe of me. Yet, fearing that one day Toto will pull back the curtain and reveal that this great Hebrew teaching wizard is nothing more than a friendly little guy holding his kingdom together with a lot of bluff and bluster. How dare I come to the Catskills and tell God, Well, here I am spending all my time with you, worshipping you, giving you my full attention and even sacrificing areas of my life for you. Surely, you will say, Oy, and such good things you have done for me Bunkie, surely you have earned yourself a miracle or two. I weep before God confessing that I am just a fraud, a phony who has no more of the Holy Spirit than that uneducated country preacher who just preaches from his heart.

8 I look at that word aqob and I find it comes from a Semitic root meaning a hill, a slippery hill. I recall walking down a little hill yesterday to get to a stream at the base of the mountain and suddenly I realized that it was slippery. It wasn t until I was sliding down the hill that I it dawned on me that it was steeper and slippery than I had anticipated. So too, like my heart. I look at it and see a little cliff, a little sin, a little lie, a little deceit and think nothing of it, it s ok, no one is getting hurt, in fact it may even be helpful to others, but then it is nothing more than a slippery slope and I find myself falling into a deeper sin. The heart is slippery, sly, and insidious, it can easily fool you. I will tell you one thing about New York, it has a lot of hills. As I am traveling up a hill, I cannot see what is over the top and on the other side. This is so like my heart, so hilly and no one can really see what is on the other side, the side I have hidden except God and I can tell that He is not too happy about it. How does the KJV say it, the heart is desperately wicked? The word wicked in the Hebrew here is anash. This is not one of your ra words which is the usual Hebrew word to express wickedness. Anash means to be sickly, weak and frail. In this verse it is used as a passive participle meaning woefully sick. As I looked around at all the dead and dying trees and rotting, decaying leaves in this forest that were all covered up by a top layer of the luxuriant foliage of the other trees, I realized that all the compliments and praise I received from my books and writings only provided a luxuriant foliage to cover up a sick heart.

9 I considered last night how I sense God was asking me to pray for a healing but I keep heroically telling Him, Nay, I shan t seek this time for self-edification. I am not here to bribe God into healing my infirmities there were more important things than my health at stake here. I can live with my infirmities. Yet, now I realize that God was asking me to pray for a healing for my sick heart. I can live with physical infirmities but I cannot live with a sick heart, I need a healing from God for my sick heart and so I parked my car, walked into the woods and laid down in all that rotting and decaying vegetation and let God overhaul my engine. After a refreshing time of confession and spiritual healing, I sense God telling to get up and drive out of the Catskills and go to a nearby town about fifteen miles outside the Catskills mountains. Apparently there is something else He wanted to show me.