HEBREW WORD STUDY MEDITATE

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Gwenda Reed
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HEBREW WORD STUDY MEDITATE הגד HAGAD HEBREW WORD STUDY MEDITATE Psalms 1:2: But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

1 HEBREW WORD STUDY MEDITATE הגד HAGAD HEBREW WORD STUDY MEDITATE Psalms 1:2: But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. The vast majority of Christian Modern English translations of the Bible will render the word Torah as law. Yet, many Jewish rabbis choose to render Torah as instructions or teachings. In our modern 21 st Century understanding of the English language the English word teaching or instruction is really more accurate than law. Law conjures up the idea of courts, police officers with billy clubs enforcing the law. Teaching and instruction creates the picture of classrooms where one learns about life and the way the world functions. Failure to follow the law ends up with punishment. Failure to follow instructions and teachings ends up in well just failure. The Psalmist tells us that a man of God delights in the instructions or teachings of the Lord and why not? Who is better at teaching us to navigate the storms of life better than the one who created life and the storms to begin with. I delight or chapats in the instructions of God so much that I spend a minimum of three to four hours a day meditating on the teachings and instructions of God. I was reading something very interesting in Jewish literature this morning. Chapats which we understand from our Christian lexicons and Bible dictionaries means to delight or find pleasure in has a much broader meaning. Jewish linguist see

2 chapats as related to the word chapash which means to seek. Chapats is a much stronger form of chapash and denotes the goal and the striving for it. Only in the teachings of God can man find his goal and strive for it. In other words God sets out the goals each person He creates. He has created you with the gifts and talents to obtain a certain goal. Only in the study of His instructions and teachings can you learn this goal and only through His instructions and teachings can you strive for this goal. That is why the Torah is so important to the Jewish life and thought. So it is on this instruction that we mediate day and night. The word meditation is very interesting in Hebrew, it is the word hagad which means to moan, growl or make a noise. Isaiah 38:14 uses the expression ehagad kiyonah, to moan like a dove. Rabbi Samson Hirsch the linguist and Hebrew master explains that hagad is that active thinking which demands expression. When I hear my pet doves Jonah and Shekinah coo it is as if they are in thoughtful study and are expressing these thoughts verbally. When I study the word of God I tend to give quite, yet verbal, thoughtful expressions like Yes, Wow! and other suchlike exclamations when I happen upon some deeper understanding of God s instructions for me. When we hagad or study meditate on the word of God to such a degree that it creates a wow factor from us, then we are indeed delighting in the instructions of God and desire to hagad meditate on it day and night.

3 WORD STUDY MEDITATE DAY AND יהגה יוממ ולילה NIGHT Psalms 1:2: But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Last evening I spent some time talking with a friend who practices something I call meditative prayer. There is a lot of tears while she is meditating and praying. This morning I met with a group of men from church for a morning prayer time. We spent most of our time just sharing our experience with God. Again there was much weeping. You know the word in Hebrew for I weep is baki. This word is spelled Beth which has a numerical value of 2, Kap whose value is 20 and Yod with a value of 10. This equals 32. The word for heart is lav which is spelled Lamed which has a value of 20 and Beth with a value of 2, this also equals 32. The ancient sages taught that when two words in Hebrew have the same numerical value you are to look for a relationship between these two words. I believe the relationship is that weeping is an expression of the heart. There is something so cleansing when you have a

4 time of weeping before the Lord. I have noticed that, for myself, that when I meditate on the Word of God, I often end up weeping, just weeping out of pure joy. I really understand why David meditated on the law day and night because there is something cleansing and joyful in meditation and when it ends in tears you know you have tapped into your heart and God s heart as well. The word in Hebrew for meditate is hagah which has many usages. It is sometimes rendered as to moan, growl, utter, muse devise, plot roar and imagine. I can see imagine and muse as meditation but what is this moaning or roaring business? I attended a prayer meeting recently where a woman was really getting into prayer and it sounded as if she were moaning or growling. It was that she was just so intense in her prayer that she actually started moaning. As my friend suggested. When you go to the gym to work out you hear a lot of grunting and groaning because the exercise room is filled with people who are putting their whole heart and soul into their workout. They are focusing all their concentration on lifting those weights, every part of their body and all their thoughts are focused on lifting that weight. When you get that intense you let out a groan or moan. So have you ever get so intense in your meditation that you actually started moaning and groaning. I recall hearing an Art History professor tell how he met an elderly curator at a Paris museum. The curator shared how he met Monet, that great impressionist painter, when he was just a small child. It was like 20 degrees below zero and the Rhine River was frozen over. His father took him for a walk along the Rhine River and he said; I bet you we will meet Monet today. Sure enough

5 they came upon an elderly man sitting on a stool before an easel in the middle of the frozen Rhine River intensely focused on his work. I am not sure if it was the color or shapes he was concentrating on in the scene. I will be going to the Art Institute in Chicago in a couple weeks with an art historian and I hope to get some clarification on this. But whatever it was that Monet was studying, he was very intense in that study. As they came upon Monet, he stood up and removed his hat. This curator said that even as a young child he was impressed with the fact that in sub zero weather when Monet removed his hat steam rose from his head. He was sweating in twenty below weather. He was so intense in his concentration that he was working up a sweat. Meditation is more than just musing over something, it is intense concentration, focusing all you attention on the Word of God, concentrating and thinking as if you were preparing for a final exam. I used to teach a class in college on speed reading. When you speed read through a book you have to focus all your attention, you must have no distractions. One distraction and you will overlook some important word that ties everything together. I found the biggest reason a student could not pick up speed reading was because of his inability to focus. This is not natural for most people and is something you must train you mind to do. Meditation involves focus, it involves intense concentration. My friend mentioned that when she meditates it is like eating or ingesting the Word of God. Rabbi Samson Hirsch relates the word hagah meditate to the word aqah for encircle or surround. That is the same idea as eating. You encircle the Word of God, surround it and ingest it and once ingested, liking eating food, it begins to nourish you and give you energy.

6 This is what David did with the Word of God, he ingested it, encircled it and let it become a part of him to nourish him and give him energy. When something becomes that much a part of you you just cannot wait to sit down with the Word of God and dive into it. It is like looking forward to a three course dinner of your favorite foods. Here it is, it does not happen naturally, at least to most people, it is something that takes discipline and time, but soon you acquire taste for the Word of God and then before long like hunger, you develop a craving and like starvation you cannot concentration on anything until you have eaten, so too with the Word of God, you cannot concentration on anything until you have the chance to feed on the Word of God. חפצ PLEASURE WORD STUDY

7 Psalms 1:2: But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. My father used to tell a story about a time when he was a boy living on a farm way back in the hills of Missouri. A stranger walked through carrying a Y- shaped branch with a silver dollar attached to the end. I guess they call it dowsing with a diving rod. Anyways, the rod would dip, incline or twitch. The stranger even let my father try it and my dad said he could actually feel the pull of the rod, it almost jerked out of his hand at one point. Anyways the rod led them to a tree where it started to bob up and down. My Dad remembers seeing the image of a canoe paddle carved into the tree and the stranger said there was silver buried by the tree. When the stranger left, my dad, uncle and grandfather started to dig. Before long my grandfather gave up saying there was nothing buried there. My dad and uncle kept digging until they hit a rock and then they gave up. My father always said; If only we would have removed that rock. He was convinced the treasure was under that rock. Since then it has been a family tradition to make a pilgrimage to the old homestead to search for the treasure. Sometimes they even went with a metal detector, but they could never find that tree with the Canoe paddle carved into it. Many times when I approach my study time I will tell myself: I shant study this evening, I am tired and surely I deserve a break. Yet, like a divining rod, I feel the Holy Spirit drawing me to a particular verse. Then when I look at the verse I see something like that old canoe paddle carved into the tree, a hint that there is something buried in that verse. So I start to dig and dig and then I hit a rock. I am

8 tempted to give up but then I think, Will I find that old canoe paddle again if I return to this passage, so I call my study partner and bug her to death with my obsession and together we continue to dig until we uncover that rock and find that buried treasure. We are told in Deuteronomy 4:29: But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find [him], if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. You can learn all the Hebrew and Biblical languages you want, you can purchase all my books, but you will never find those hidden treasures until you search for them with all your heart and soul. If you are lucky enough to find a study partner you have to find one that you can share your heart and soul with. Thus, you best study partner is your spouse for you would naturally share your heart and soul with your spouse. I would warn against a study partner married to someone else because you are sharing something that is so intimate and personal that you have no business sharing with someone s else s mate. Yet, it is that kind of intimacy that you need to discover these treasures. The first word I wish to deal with is delight. I shall deal with the word meditation in tomorrow s study after I have had a chance to discuss it with a friend. But I am intrigued by this word delight. I mean who takes delight in the law? In driving my disability bus, as any bus driver knows, when you reach a set of train tracks you must stop the bus, put on your flashers, open the doors to the bus (even in subzero weather) listen for a train, look both ways and then slowly proceed over the tracks. Often the red lights of the train signal will flash a few second before the gate goes done. When driving a bus if those red lights flash, you stop even if the gates are up. When you are in a hurry because you are late getting your client to their appointment, I tell you that law seem very ridiculous and I do not delight in that law particular when I am driving my car I do not need to jump through those hoops.

9 Yet, David is saying he delights in the law. The word law here is torah which in this context is a reference to the first five books of the Bible. That was all the Scripture that David had at his time, he need a prophet to fill in the gaps. The rest of the Bible was in the making so to speak. David s delight was to study it and meditate upon it day and night. Can you imagine delighting in the book of Numbers? Or getting your thrills reading through the begats? What would motivate David to study the law day and night if it were not the anticipation of discovering some new treasure, some new knowledge of the God that he loved. The word delight is chapas which represents one s will but also that which brings pleasure. If I am studying a verse with my study partner and I do not feel the pleasure of God while studying that verse, I will abandon any attempt to write up that study because I only want to share what brings the pleasure of God. If we go off on some bunny trail often I sense that pleasure of God disappearing. I think I understand why David took such delight in studying the law, he felt God s pleasure when he did. The first thing I do when I get home from work is begin studying the Word of God. I look forward to meeting with my study partner delighting (chapas) in the chance to just share the pleasure of God with someone else who gets excited about sharing the pleasure of God. One of the most heart rendering things I run across are these little pamphlets called Read Through the Bible in One Year. A friend showed me a Bible sent to her and the Bible was titled Read Through the Bible in One Year Bible. It is almost like an achievement to read through the Bible in one year. Yet, these same Christians who will struggle and

10 discipline themselves to read through the Bible in one year and feel very spiritual and very proud that they managed to read the whole Bible in one year will sit down with the latest bestselling novel, sometimes twice as long as the Bible and read through that in a few days. And the title says it all, read through the Bible. Not study it or meditate on it just read it. David did more than just read, he meditated on it because he felt the pleasure the chapas of God when he did. I will talk more about this meditation tomorrow. Now I am not suggesting that if you are one of those Christians who can t even read through the Bible in one year that there is something wrong with you. I am one of those who for years lived near a forest preserve. We would drive by and I would see it, it looked beautiful. But on Sunday morning I would get up early with my father and he would put the dog in the car and we would go out to the forest preserve and walk through it. We would say nothing because I knew my father was praying and I could feel God walking with us. I could hear the birds singing a special song, I would see little animals stop in the tracks as if to savor the presence of God. My father would also stop to say: Look a rabbit. Big deal? In God s presence anything He created is a big deal. So I am telling you a secret, don t spread it around lest you get trampled. But there s a treasure in The Book. Don t just drive by or read the forest preserve of the Bible but take a walk through the inner beauty of the Word of God and feel God s chapas pleasure. Point out to you study partner: Look a rabbit. Just be careful he doesn t lead you too far down the bunny trail.

WORD STUDY MEDITATE DAY AND יהגה יוממ ולילה NIGHT

WORD STUDY MEDITATE DAY AND יהגה יוממ ולילה NIGHT Psalms 1:2: But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Last evening I spent some time talking with a friend