WORD STUDY YOUR GOD אלהיכמ (PLURAL)

Transcription

1 WORD STUDY YOUR GOD אלהיכמ (PLURAL) Exodus 23:25, And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. Yesterday I explained how the Hebrew pronoun you have both a singular and a plural form. In Exodus 20:2 the pronoun your in your God is singular expressing the idea of a personal God. However, Exodus 23:25 the pronoun your in the word for your God is elohykem with the plural second person pronoun em preceded by the word for you shall serve ebadethem which is grammatical correct to end with the second person plural pronoun em. But then you find this grammatical abnormality in the words your bread and your water etlachmeka v et meimeka and the words from within you where God will take the sickness away from within you mikirebeka. Grammatical these words should be plural but you will notice that they all end with the personal second person singular pronoun ka. So unlike Exodus 23:25 which speaks of your God in a singular form this verse speaks of your God in a plural form, but then oddly it tells us that God will bless our bread and water and will take out sickness as a reference to the singular. God will bless your own personal bread and water and take away your own personal sickness. Either you or someone else, but it is a reference to just one person that will get his bread and water bless and sickness removed.

2 Ok is this just a lot of grammatical mumble jumble that has no real meaning except for some eccentric old Hebrew professor who gets his big daily highs and thrills over discovering grammatical anomalies. Yeah, I know, I need to get a life. I probably need to put my Hebrew Bible aside for a while and find out who is pitching for the Black Hawks tonight. What difference does it make if the you or your is singular or plural? So what if it refers to just one person and not the collective? I woke up this morning still bugged by this plural and singular stuff and cried out to God, Lord is this really my life. Other people can spend hours discussing batting averages of each player with the Chicago Bulls and their chances of making it into the Super Bowl while I am spending these precious hours trying to figure out why the your in your God is plural and the your in your bread and your water and healing is singular. What s the diff? I laid awake all night pondering this and I got nothing. No commentary can help as no commentators even care if the you or your is singular or plural. That s it, I had it, I m gonna shut off my computer, close my Hebrew Bible and call a cable company and order ESPN so I don t sound like some fool at work tomorrow when someone asks me Well how about those Chicago Bulls. For once I am not going to make a fool of myself, I will be able to say something intelligent like: Guess who the goalie is for the Chicago Bulls in tomorrow s game? In frustration I grab the first piece of paper I find on my desk and crumbled it up. Just as I was about to toss it in the waste basket I noticed it was a picture of a 22 year old missionary that spoke in church yesterday. After the service I went online to send her a donation for her work and accidently sent her twice the amount I intended forcing me to

3 cut back on my own personal budget this month. That s another thing, God, why you make me do stupid stuff like that, I m supposed to have a PhD for crying out loud and I can t even get Pay Pal right. Now I have to spend the month with a reduced budg That is when it hit me. I uncrumbled the picture of this 22 year old missionary holding a disabled African child that she adopted. A child no one wanted, a child that her parents and the people in her village would have killed for being different if not rescued by this 22 year old Mother Theresa. This young missionary, just a kid herself went to Ghana, West Africa supported by no mission board, only with money she could raise herself and started a home for disabled children, children with such disabilities not even their parents wanted them and would have been put to death. Yet, God wanted them and this missionary wanted them. She even calls her organization The Treasured Ones These children who, because of their disabilities, look repulsive even to their own mothers are loved by God and a 22 year old missionary. I look at Exodus 23:25 and then at the picture of this little disabled African child being held by its newly adopted mother, a 22 year old single parent living in Ghana, West Africa thousands of miles away from her home. As I thought about how our church gathered together to pray for this young missionary yesterday I began to paraphrase Exodus 23:25 into modern English, And all of us shall serve the Lord our God. That word serve is avad in Hebrew it comes from a Phoenician word for slave and in the Old Persian has the idea of worship and obey. Hence in the Chaim Bentorah translation of Exodus 23:25 it reads: all of us shall worship and obey God and he will bless the bread and water of the one,(the little disabled African child).

4 Why do you worship avad God? So you can be blessed, so God can be blessed? Yes, but how about spending some time worshipping God so that someone who is too disabled, too removed from the opportunity to know God, too rejected by the world around them to hear or think of God, that they may also be blessed as well. WORD STUDY WHAT MAKES GOD BURP Exodus 14:14: The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace. If I see ten problems walking down the road toward me, I can be confident that nine will fall into a ditch before they reach me. President Calvin Coolidge

5 Yesterday I faced a problem that just sapped me of all my strength. I could not concentrate on anything else but that problem. I could not enjoy the day, I could not even sleep. Yet before long I discovered the problem was not even a problem at all. I wasted a perfectly good day fretting over a problem that didn t even exist. I don t know about you but I tend to spend a lot of time fretting over problems that God has chosen to fight for me. Looking at the literal understanding of Exodus 14:14, it clearly tells us to let God do the fighting and we should just hold our peace. God was fighting my problem yesterday but I was not holding my peace. The word peace used here is charesh not shalom. The word charesh is found in a Hiphal form in this verse. Now there are two possible ways to express this word in the Hiphal form. You could say: The Lord will fight for you and just keep your big mouth shut. Or you could say: The Lord will fight for you and you will just go about your business. Actually it means both and could be rendered both ways and we could read this passage as: The Lord will fight for you so just shut your mouth, quit belly aching and just go about your business. Do you ever wonder about this idea of God fighting for us? Does He really have to jump into the ring and duke it out with our problems? The word we render as fight is this passage is an odd one, it is the word yilachim. Some of my Hebrew students may notice that it is the word for bread, lachim used as a verb with a Yod putting it into an imperfect or future

6 tense. As a verb the word for bread would mean to feed or eat. Thus, God will eat it for us. Yes, the root word for fight is lechem Lamed, Chet, and Mem, which is the word for bread. In its Semitic root the word for war or fighting is MLHMH. In the Hebrew language it appears as milechemah. Remove the first letter Mem and the last letter Hei and you have the central word lechem. All wars were fought essentially because people were starving and needed land to raise their food. War was literally fought over the need for bread. Who or whatever controls the food source controls the world. Monsanto with its hybrid seeds literally has the power to control the world for with their GMO s they could force the world to come to them for seeds to grow food. Anyway, that s not my fight, you can talk to my study partner about that one. When lechem is used as a verb it means to feed, or devour. You could use yilachim to mean to fight, the problem I have with that rendering, however, is that this would suggest that God has to duke it out with an enemy. How many punches does He need to get in before the enemy topples. Only one English translation that I read uses something other than fight for the word yilachim and that is the BBE which says the Lord will make war for you. Now that fits the motif of the passage but it can be very misleading. That is why I prefer to read a verse in the Hebrew Bible before going to the English translations. I would have a tendency to just skip over a word when all the translations give basically the same rendering. Keep in mind that all words in the Hebrew originate as a verb and the noun evolves out of the verb. In its Semitic origins the verb lechem meant to eat or consume. The noun form would then be bread. That Yod at the beginning would suggest that this verb is in a Niphal imperfect form and thus it would mean

7 to devour and lick the plate. God does not square off with our problems and start punching it out while we sit back cheering him on: Give him the left, the left, oops, that must really smart, sorry about your black eye God, but you sure showed him, didn t you. What a pal, what a pal. God does not fight, he just walks up to our problem and eats it up Gulp! Burp! How often do we with hands in the pocket, head down, running our toe through the dirt say: Well, God is fighting for me, God is handling the problem, it will just take time, keep praying. Poor God, he must really be getting tired, must be that ninth round by now bloody and battered like old Rocky Balboa. Come on, the word is lechem to eat or devour, it doesn t have to mean to fight. Someone decided to use the word fight for lechem because it fits the motif and translators, like wooden soldiers, joined in locked step and rendered this word as fight giving us poor slobs no opportunity to discover that there is an alternative rendering. Let s face it, God does not need to duke it out with our problems. The bell sounds, he walks out and one punch to the jaw and the problem is down for the count. But that is not Lechem. Lechem is the bell ringing and God walks out, faces the problem and in one gulp the problem is history. If God does duke it out with a problem he is just tenderizing it so it is not so chewy when he devours it. Also, he may not be removing the problem right away as he wants it to fatten itself so it s got some meat on it when it comes time to eat. So when we face a problem, God does not get into the ring and duke it out and knock it to the mat while we are waiting for

8 the count and hoping it doesn t get up the next day for another round. Rather, I believe what God is teaching us in Exodus 14:14, is that we simply let God sit at the table as we serve Him up a heaping portion of our problems and like a hungry God we let Him devour it. So when God steps into the ring, our problems may be here today but the will be just a burp tomorrow. WORD STUDY KNOCK AND YOU WILL BREAKTHROUGH Luke 11:9-10: And I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone asking receives and the one seeking finds; and the one knocking, it will be opened.

9 That s all I can stands, cause I can t stands no more. Popeye the Sailorman. Luke 11:9-10 comes right on the heels of a story Jesus told about a man seeking three loaves of bread from a neighbor because he was having a friend spend the night. In oriental culture a man would face great dishonor if he did not show proper hospitality to a visitor and feeding him was an important aspect of this hospitality. The man went to his neighbor late at night and began pounding on the door asking his neighbor for three loaves of bread (note three loaves, three represents the Godhead). His neighbor and family were already in bed and did not want to be bothered and told the man to go away. But the man persisted until the neighbor finally got up and gave the man what he wanted to shut him up lest he wake up the whole neighborhood. Then Jesus said a curious thing: Knock and it will be opened. Was Jesus saying that we must be persistent in our petitions keep pounding on that door until we finally wear God down to the point where He says: Oy, angel, give the slob want he wants before he breaks the door down and get me that bottle of aspirin while you are at it. Christians have a hard time understanding this story. Yet, the Jews of Jesus day heard something far different that we do in our modern, Greek, Western culture. For one thing, they knew and understood a truth that we as Christians seem to not understand. This truth is illustrated in the Talmud and I have no doubt Jesus was drawing upon this truth using a humorous story to express it. The Talmud illustrates this truth by explaining that when a king enters the battlefield, he changes his

10 clothing to be unrecognizable. If the enemy recognizes him they will try to kill him. Yet, his servants nearby can recognize him by his gestures and those who are afar can still discern that the troops are guarding a certain place and the king is probably there. The Talmud further explains that this is also true of prayer. Our distracting thoughts and emotions are guarding the King so that we can not see Him. You must therefore be persistent and push yourselves even more, for the King is there; but our distractions and emotions are merely hiding Him from us. You see we automatically think that the sleepy neighbor was a representation of God but in fact the sleepy neighbor represents all of the distractions and emotions that keep us from bringing our petitions to God. God is the three loaves of bread. We must be persistent in battling our distractions and emotions for God is there and if we are persistent we will break through those barriers of distractions and emotions and find Him. If we seek Him we will find Him. Note Jesus says knock and it will open. Again we in our Western thought automatically think of a door. Yet in the Aramaic the word knock is neqash which literally means to play a harp. It comes from a Semitic root which has the idea of opening one s heart. Its root is often used with the word neqaph which means to have intercourse, an expression of opening your heart to another person, or neqar which means to dig or search as in reaching into the depths of your heart, or nega which is pouring your heart out. In following the common thread of the Semitic root of NQ Neqash would apply to the playing of a harp because that is an instrument like the violin that is so sensitive to one s touch that your expression of your heart will be expressed in its music. Thus, if we knock or neqash, express our heart to God, He will open the gateway to His presence.

11 I have a friend who was cheated out of a $100,000 life insurance policy and as a result lost her home and ended up homeless, living out of her car. Someone tried to comfort her by saying, God loves you. You know something she wasn t feeling God s love at that moment, nor could any amount of people saying, God loves you cover her anguish. She was not feeling God s presence and you cannot blame her, Jesus doesn t, that is why he says knock neqash and the door will be open. Just keep playing that harp, just keep pouring you heart out to God. If you are angry at Him, tell Him, He knows it already. He can take it. I remember the story of a woman who spent her life climbing to the top of her acting profession. She never gave one thought to God, never expressed her heart to God. Then one day a doctor told her that her daughter was going to die. Her fame and money could not save her daughter. She became so frustrated and angry she got into her car, drove out to the desert and there alone in the desert where no one was around she began to scream at the top of her lungs, she began to negash express her heart to God. She cursed God out with all the vulgar, obscene words she could think of, she cursed God, Jesus and if she knew there was a Holy Spirit she said she would have cursed Him too. Then after one half hour of negash expressing her heart to God, she fell back exhausted in the silence that comes after a lot of screaming. In that silence she heard a voice, an audible voice and it said, That is the first time you have spoken to me, I love you..you know you have to really admire Popeye. His heart was truly with Olive Oyle. Well, after all she was one hot number with two dashing young sailors fighting for her attentions. Poor Popeye, he was always the under dog. Yet in watching Popeye as a kid, I always knew he had that can of spinach in

12 the waiting. What I could not understand is why he waited until Brutus had him kicked, punched and almost out for the count before he pulled out that spinach, before he began to negash. I don t know about you, but sometimes I am like Popeye. I grow weary of being the good soldier, tired of the battle. The distractions and emotions are so numerous I can not see the King and I just want to give up. I wait until I am down for the count before I pull out my can of spinach, my negash, speak my heart to God. But that is what God wants, our hearts, even if it is filled with angry and bitterness toward Him. He will take that. Negash is not just rosy, King James English talk, I know thou are God and thou lovest me and all things worketh together with meith thouest. Negash, knocking is reaching into the depths of your heart and expressing it to God in true, clear honesty. Speak you heart and it will open. The word open in the Aramaic is pethach which comes from the Semitic root of PTH, which means breakthrough. WORD STUDY MON HU FROM HEAVEN

13 Exodus 16:15: And when the children of Israel saw [it], they said one to another, It [is] manna: for they wist not what it [was]. And Moses said unto them, This [is] the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat. It is curious how a word makes its way into our traditions and we never stop to question the origin of the word. Manna is one such word. Actually, in the original Hebrew the word manna is not to be found in this passage. We say the word manna means what is it, but actually it is two words m(o)n hu which translators say means what it is. Actually, the word m(o)n, that is Men Nun is a prefix in Hebrew for the preposition from. Hu is a masculine pronoun meaning he or it. So this could really be translated as from Him intending to say from God. Remember these people came out of Egypt and were just learning about God Jehovah so they probably could not really pinpoint the exactly which god this was coming from which is why they used the pronoun Him and Moses was quick to point out that it was from Jehovah. Or maybe they were so familiar with the works of Jehovah from the plagues and crossing of the Red Sea that they would just using a pronoun

14 rather than His name and Moses was just reinforcing the source of their food. Translators, however, tend to consider the fact that these people were strongly influenced by the Egyptians and Egyptian culture. Also, there were many Egyptians who choose to join the children of Israel in their journey. Therefore some translators assume that maybe they were using an Egyptian word or expression. The word mon in the Egyptian language means what. Hu in Egyptian, like the Hebrew also expresses a masculine pronoun and from that they get what is it. So where does the word manna come from? Well every word in Hebrew must come from a triliteral root, that is three letters so now we revert back to the Hebrew word m(o)n and assume that the root word simply has an extra Nun making the root word manna. So is it Egyptian or Hebrew? No one can say for sure, Rabbis have offered various opinions on this but nothing conclusive and as we do need a name for this special bread from heaven, well applying the Hebrew root word gives us a name that is just as good as any, manna. There is another little trick to the Hebrew language that is often overlooked. That is the Hebrews can utter one word and mean two different things at the same time. For instance in English we may say, Oh that child is on a swing. We could mean one of two things by this, that the child is playing on playground equipment known as a swing or that he is swinging on a swing. In the mind of the speaker who may be watching the child he is saying that the child is doing both. He is not only on the equipment known as a swing but he is also swinging on it. Double meanings are far more common in Hebrew than in English and in Hebrew the meanings are not often as closely related.

15 An example of this in the Hebrew is found in the passage in Genesis 2:7, And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. My study partner who pointed this out to me is doing a study on it herself, so I will not steal her thunder except to say that the word nostrils comes from the root word aneph which means strong emotions, but it also means the nose as well. The Hebrew could be speaking of both meanings at the same time indicating that God breathed into man s nostrils not only the breath of life, but His own emotions as well. So, too here, we could have the double meaning put into play. The original Hebrew does not give us the vowel for the word mn. The Masoretic text actually uses the chirik (i) which creates the preposition from. Translators treat the vowel as a kametz (a) creating the word what or a holem (o) creating the Egyptian word for what. Unless we have a time machine and can go back to that time, we cannot really know what the vowel would have been. However, it does not matter what the vowel is, we still need to assign a root word to this and linguistically, that root word would have a double Nun for manna. One meaning of manna is from far away. In other words what they found on the ground they recognized as something that was not indigenous to that area. I know some of you probably have been on a tour in Israel and your tour guide gave you some manna or some local shop made a few liras selling you a flaky type of substance which he called manna. However, I believe the context of the passage and the word itself clearly shows that this was something that was not natural or indigenous to that area. Another meaning of manna is portion. Thus in the words mon hu, you find both a question and the answer. What is it? It is from Him who sent us our portion from heaven. I love what one rabbi said who

16 suggested even another meaning for the word mon from the root manna. It carries the idea of status and importance. In other words what the people were really saying is, We do not know what it is but if it came from God and far away, we are absolutely sure it is something special. You know, God is sending us manna from heaven all the time. Your heart knows it, you sense something special in your heart when you hear a word or phrase, a number, a song, a little bird singing, a kitten snuggling up against you, even Sparky the Wonder Dog not barking at me when I pass by his fence to take out the garbage. We don t know what it means, but something in our heart tells us it means something and we know it is manna from God because it is not indigenous to our normal state of things. If we acknowledge that it is from God then we are absolutely sure it is something special and meant nourish us and help us to survive. WORD STUDY THE MOREKA IS COMING

17 Isaiah 30:20: And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be hidden any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: The word give (nathan) is in an imperfect form and should be translated: And even if the Lord will give you bread. The word for water is mayim. This could come from two possible root words mi for waters or yim for hot spring. Water has many symbolic meanings in Hebrew. One meaning is that water can be so powerful it can drill through rocks. Hence the waters of affliction. Thus the sages teach that God will give you an affliction that will drill through the rocky covering of your heart to penetrate your heart with the love of God. The bread of adversity. Bread also has many symbolic meanings. One aspect is how bread is made. This done by the taking of wheat, pounding it into a flower, rolling it and then baking it at a high temperature. It is a custom in baking bread for Rosh Hashanah to invite people who have hurt you during the year and as you roll your bread you forgive them. Hence the bread of adversity. The sages would teach that the adversity brought on by your sinful acts are pounded, rolled and baked to bring you to repentance and the forgiveness of God. I would also like to add another thought to this. That grain which is pounded, rolled and baked comes out as something new (bread) to bring nourishment to others. Many people have had to go through the pounding, rolling and baking trials by God to bring them to repentance and forgiveness in Jesus Christ so that Jesus can make them into something new, something of value to others, to bring nourishment to others.

18 Your teachers shall not be hidden from you. It is interesting that the word used here for teachers is yarah in Hebrew. The most common word for teacher, lamad, oddly enough this is not used in this passage. Yarah has the idea of throwing out, or an archer who is shooting an arrow. A teacher is throwing out knowledge, or shooting out knowledge which is aimed at a target. This teacher will not be hidden. The word hidden is kanaph. This is the word for wings, or a loose flowing skirt. These particular words give a picture of an archer shooting at a winged creature but because of its elusiveness, the arrow does not meet it s target. I remember as a child listening to a man names Tom Hanlon who started the Bible Rescue Mission. He told how, as a homeless alcoholic, he would go to the mission and hear the Gospel from a preacher (yarah). He went to the mission and he heard the Gospel from a teacher (yarah). He went to the mission and he heard the Gospel from business man (yarah). Then one day he went to the mission and he HEARD THE GOSPEL from a moreka. That is probably the best way to explain this. The last part of this verse really explains this explains what this means. And your eyes will see your teachers (moreka). The word see is ra ah which is a reference to spiritual seeing, spiritual insight. Your spiritual eyes will be opened and you will see the redemption offer by because of the moreka. Here we have a different word used for teachers. Teachers in this case is moreka. This particular form is a participial noun, 2 nd person singular. Note that it is singular not plural. It is a teaching teacher or a master teacher. I wonder who or what this master teacher is? Is it the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Is it the presence of Jesus Christ? Or is it the mi or yim waters or hot springs of affliction? Perhaps it is all of the above. There are many human teachers yarah(s) out there who give the Word of God but far too often it misses its target and has no effect.

19 Sometimes the only person or thing that someone will listen to is the moreka, the Master Teacher. I will leave it to you to decide who or what this moreka is. What is clear is that the prophet is saying that God is always speaking to us, to give us direction, to set us on the right path or way (see the following verse) but sometimes it just does not get through our thick head of ours, and God may have to bring the bread of adversity, (adversity that will bring us into repentance and the forgiveness of God) and the hot springs of affliction to drill through that hard shell of our heart and pierce it with the love of God through Jesus Christ. Next Sabbath you may wish to listen to the teachings of your local yarah (human teacher) and let his teachings hit the bulls eye of your heart, for if you are like that bird that just flies away from the arrow of God s Word, then the moreka may just come next. { My Soul Weeps } Continuing in Psalm 119 with the letter dalet ד which is shaped like a door or a man bent over in humility. Dalet is spelled דלת and has two possible root words. Some of its

20 meanings are: door, gate, doors to heaven such as a portal, and also to be delivered from prison. Other possible usages are: being reduced, brought down low, weakness and poverty. When looking at the 8 verses under Dalet in Psalm 119, it is a good idea to consider these meanings for insight into the scripture verses. Psalm 119: 28 My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word. The dalet word that begins this verse is dalaph דלף and is translated as melteth. This word actually has more of the idea of shedding tears, weeping, or of rain drops. In this verse dalaph is in a Qal verbal form which means it is just a normal verb, and not intensified. A picture of tears gently shed out of feelings of deep sorrow. Since it is the soul weeping, the tears do not necessarily have to be literal, but can be understood as expressed in the saying I m laughing on the outside by crying on the inside. The word heaviness, as in oppressiveness, is the Hebrew word Yagah יגה. Looking at how this word is used in other verses, the idea is that of heaviness related to feeling foolish, shameful or disappointed. It also means raindrops coming through the chinks of a roof. The constant dripping over time causes structural damage. This also reminds me of the water torture where simple drops of water fall in the same area of the forehead causing pain and mental anguish. David asks to be strengthened qum קום which is in a Piel verbal form (intensifies the word). Qum means: to arise, and can be explained as the type of strength needed when you re down for the count after a knock out. This strengthening is :דבר dabar according, or literally like or as God s words one of the meanings for the same root word spelled debir is: oracle, the place of speaking, inner sanctuary, an דבר alternative name of the Holy of Hollies in Solomon s temple. One way Dabar דבר can be summed up is: words spoken from the

21 heart (inner place) of God. What s interesting to me is the syntax: like or as God s words.(דבר) Renewing our minds daily in the Word, both the whole of the Word of God, and the specific promises spoken to us. Jesus, the Word, is the lifter of our heads. It s so important to view ourselves and our life situations with God s perspective. Earlier in v.25 a similar sentiment is expressed, My soul cleaves to the dust; Revive me according to Your word. Cleaving to the dust has the idea of being close to death ( Gen. 3:19), and David (whom I believe is the author) asks God to revive him according to His Word Dabar.דבר The root word for revive is chayah חיה also means to give life. God s word is life, Deut. 8:3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Another meaning from the same root word as Debar דבר is wilderness Midbar.דבר God fed the Israelites manna in the wilderness and in John 6:32b-33 Jesus says but it is my Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world. Lastly, the Hebrew word Dober with same root word,דבר is used a couple times in scripture to mean: a pasture, and feeding ground for sheep. The Word, Debar,דבר feeds us, lifts us up, revives us, sustains us and give us life. In John 7:9 Jesus says I am the door ;(ד) if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. He also stands at the the door of our hearts and invites us to sup with Him, the very Word of God and true bread of life. Laura

22 {Word Study} Bread To Eat WORD STUDY: BREAD TO EAT Genesis 28:20-21: And Jacob vowed a vowed and saying, If God will be with me and will keep in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so then I come to my father s house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God. Bread Hebrew: Lechem Bread, food, meat, to eat, to consume Eat Le ekol Food, to eat, to consume. Here is something a little strange. Both words, Lechem (Bread) and Le ekol (eat) mean the same thing, food or eat. The preposition before Le ekol tells us it is to be used as a verb eat or consum rather than a noun food. Yet, why does Jacob say: Bread to eat, I mean what else would you do with bread? This sounds a little redundant. The Sages teach that this redundancy in words is suggesting that Jacob was not only presenting to God his physical needs, but his spiritual needs as well. Lechem le ekol is translated Bread to eat. That is the most obvious translation and makes the most sense. However, here are two different words meaning pretty much the same thing. The Sages saw a spiritual value in the word le ekol (eat) which pictures a heart being consumed by God. Beged lelebosh (raiment to put on) is the same thing, and also redundant as both words mean garments or coverings. Again the preposition before lelebosh (put on, covering) suggest it is a verb. The sages teach that Lelebosh also has a spiritual value

23 meaning a covering for evil or treachery. This is a very typical play on words that we do not always see in our English translations. Jacob was asking God to supply his physical need for food but at the same time to supply his spiritual need for God s presence and consuming love. At the same time he asked for clothes he was asking that God cover the evil in his heart or possibly the evil intent that others may have toward him. What God is telling us in this play on words is that when we pray for our physical needs and well being, we must never lose sight of our spiritual needs as well. How many times we pray Oh Lord, I need a job, I need to pay this bill, etc. If we view this play on words in Genesis 28:20-21 as a remez as to how we should pray, then we would be praying: Lord I need a job that will give me greater opportunity to grow in you. Millions of people find jobs without seeking God s help, does seeking God s help give us an advantage? People find food to eat without seeking Gods help; does seeking Gods help give us an advantage? Perhaps, but more important is that every time we pray for our daily bread, we are also asking to know and experience God s consuming passion or presence. Every time we dress, we are asking God to cover the evils in our heart or the evil intent others have against us.