WORD STUDY WICKED, ENEMY, איב צר עער FOE

Transcription

1 WORD STUDY WICKED, ENEMY, איב צר עער FOE Psalms 27:2: When the wicked, [even] mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. One thing about reading a passage of Scripture from my Hebrew Bible is that I suddenly become aware of little nuances that I never pick up in reading the English Bible. For example, how many reading this passage realize that there is a difference between wicked, enemies and foes. Maybe you do, but I never thought about it, I figured they were all one and the same and this was just a poetic express of the bad guys who pick on the good guys (me being one of the good guys). Let s face it, we are all the good guys, even the bad guys think they are the good guys. How many have ever had the supposedly good guys, a priest, pastor, charity worker, police officer, nurse, doctor, teacher or any of the others with the good guy title that really had it in for you and burned you royal. They sit back and say: Hey, what did I do, I just love, love, love, the problem is you my friend, it certain not me, why I am a

2 (fill in the blank) good guy. I live in Cicero, Illinois the town that is famous for Al Capone. I have driven some real old timers who actually remember Al Capone when they were a child. One old timer said that Capone s mother lived across the street from her and every Friday night she would see Al Capone s car in his mother s driveway with a big burly man in a suit guarding it with a machine guy while Al Capone had dinner with mother how sweet. This woman said that any man who would have dinner with his mother every Friday night could not be all that bad. Another guy told me when he was ten years old he worked at the bowling alley as a pin boy. He said Al Capone gave him a five dollar tip. He was convinced Al Capone was a great guy who got a bad rap. One old boy who remembers Al Capone opening up a soup kitchen and his mother going there to get food for him and his family. He remarked, Al Capone was a good man, he took care of his own. Alright so he bumped off a few people, they deserved it, you can t hold that against him. A number of years ago a former town president was sent to prison for embezzlement. Yet, everyone I talk to says she got a bad rap and that she was good person. Alright, maybe she had stolen a few bucks, like who hasn t, she was a good town president and I would vote for her again.? This from one loyal supporter. So who are the wicked, the enemies and the foes? As Pogo said: We have met the enemy and he is us. So before I even begin a word study on wicked, enemy and foe might I remind you that practically all of us might have someone who could point their finger at us and call us call wicked, an enemy or a foe

3 and someone may be praying right now that God causes the wicked, the enemy and their foe to stumble and fall and be glad that is all that they are praying for because that wicked person, that enemy that foe that they are praying for might just be you or me. If you don t want to stumble and fall you best repent and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you to anyone that may consider you wicked, an enemy or a foe so you can ask their forgiveness lest you be the one stumbling and falling. How bad is it to stumble and fall? I will go into that later but lest just say it something you don t want to experience. Of course we can all point to someone who is wicked, an enemy and a foe and we are claiming this promise that God will cause them to stumble and fall. Just who is the wicked person? Actually, it is not a wicked person as there is the preposition from in front of the word and is in a Hiphal form so it is from a person who is caused to do wicked things. The Hebrew has many different words that are rendered as wicked. All start with the letters Resh and Ayin, it is the third letter which is usually different and distinguishes one wickedness for another. The word wicked is ra a in Hebrew which is a wickedness from someone who is envious of you. It also means to break down into pieces. This comes wickedness comes from someone who is so jealous and envious of you that they will gossip, or even preach against you taking things you do or say out of context and making it seem like something bad, or like heresy just to be mean. They try to make themselves look good by making you look bad, This wicked, this gossip causes you to just break down in pieces so to speak. That is the wickedness of ra a. Do you know someone like that? Well, take heart, they are destined to stumble and fall. Just leave them alone God will handle them. I remember reading about Watchman Nee and how people started

4 to criticize him unjustly. They were making up stories about him that were not true and claiming he said things that he never said. Watchman Nee refused to defend himself and when someone chided him for not defending himself he explained that all criticism is based on some sort of truth and that he needed to listen to the criticism and find that source of truth and correct it, God would handle the untruths. In other words, they will stumble and fall. Then we are faced with our enemies. The word enemies here is tsar which is from an ancient Canaanite word for pebble. It reached the Hebrew language as an enemy because it is something so small like a little pebble that gets into your sandal and rubs against your foot until you become lame and cannot walk at all. This enemy is an annoyance. It is that steady drop of water on your head until you can t take it anymore. It is that boss s constant criticism, that spouses constant complaining, that child s constant demands that finally drive you to drink, it is those annoyances that cause you to stick your head out of the window and declare like Howard Beale in the movie Network: I m as mad as hell and I m not going to take this anymore. God will cause that little annoyance to stumble and fall. Finally we are faced with our foes. This word in the Hebrew for foes is ayeb which is a hating enemy. Not all enemies hate you, you just stand in their way or you are ordered like a soldier to consider someone your enemy even though you never met them. You may not even be in conflict with this person; they just may hate you for what you are. You meet someone from ISIS and declare you are a Christian; they will hate you, simply because of what you are. It is a hate that you have no real control over. Someone may hate you just because of the color of your skin. It s not your fault your skin is a

5 different color but they will hate you nonetheless. I remember a Jewish rabbi being asked when he first discovered he was Jewish and he said as a child and I found people hated me. When I asked my mother why they hated me she said it was because I was Jewish. Aveb is the most unfair attacks of them all because you really did nothing to deserve the hate and there is nothing you can do about, but God will make those who you hate like this to stumble and fall. Before they stumble and fall however, they will eat your flesh. You will have to wait until tomorrow for the next exciting episode of Psalms 27 to find out what that means.