WORD STUDY KNOW MY HEART יבבל עד Psalms 139:23: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: In the joy of this new relationship I said to Jesus Christ. Lord, I want this heart of mine to be yours. I want to have you settle down here and be perfectly at home. Everything that I have belongs to you. Let me show you around. Robert Munger My Heart Christ s Home. This evening a friend shared with me something that I had not realized I had done a few weeks ago that quenched the Spirit of God. I was shocked. I mean she was right. The moment she revealed this to me I knew she was right. I felt so ashamed of myself. I wished over and over I could go back to that night and keep my mouth shut. After I hung up the phone I prayed: Lord if just a friend sees my heart better than I do, then how much more do you see my heart? God then led me to Psalms
139:23: I had a commitment tonight which I am unable to keep due to car problems so I find myself alone in my apartment with nothing to do but face God over my sin of quenching His Spirit. I know, rather than say ten Our Father s God is asking me to take a close look at His Word, specifically Psalms 139:23. I feel I must confess my sin publically so I shall do it by posting it on my blog and inviting you to join me as I search out this verse that God gave in the midst of my repentance. David gives this request that God search his heart in Psalms 139:23 right after telling the Lord he hates those who hate God. That is a pretty pious statement, is it not? I wonder what prompted David to ask God to search his heart out after He made such a pious statement. Did he sense he was being a little too holy? Did he sense that his hatred for those who hated God was not the real reason or only reason for the hatred he felt? How many times have we piously declared that God is the only reason we desire something. Lord give me a candy apple red Porsche so I can pick up little children and take them to Sunday School on Sunday. David, like me, probably did not trust his heart and had to ask God to search it out because he could not be sure of his motives. I have always been mystified by this idea of God searching out one s heart. Doesn t he already know our hearts, why must He search out our hearts? Doesn t He know our thoughts, why must David ask God to know His thoughts? The word search in the Hebrew is chaqar which does mean to investigation examine or to search out. However, this is in a Qal imperative form. As a Qal rather than a Piel which David loves to use, I would find this to be more of an invitation
rather than a command. The letters and position of the letters in this word Cheth, Qop, Resh would suggest this invitation would be an invitation to merge one s heart with God. David is inviting God into his heart to clear out any rubbish which might be hidden so that his heart is sanctified and pure so that it may be joined with the heart of God. Robert Munger wrote a little allegory called My Heart Christ s Home, which you can find on the internet. In this story he pictures his heart as a house in which he has invited Jesus to live. He first shows Jesus around this house (chaqar). He takes Jesus into his study. Suddenly the man feels embarrassed over some magazines that are in the study and ashamed of some pictures on the walls. This is what is being expressed in Psalms 139:23. This particular verbal form of the word chaqar would not so much express the idea of asking God to search out his heart as it would be to invite Jesus to take a tour of his heart. Say you invite Jesus to take a tour of your heart and begin to show Him around. He really doesn t have to say anything. In his presence you are suddenly aware of things that will embarrass you in front of him and make you ashamed in front of Him. That is what my friend did with me this evening, she was only making me aware of the fact that I had invited Jesus to take a tour of my heart and there was something He was embarrassed about. Would you dare to invite Jesus to take a tour of your house? This is what David did. He even invited Jesus to try him. Here the word try could have two possible root words. Traditionally we use the root word bakan which means to try or test. However, Rabbi Samson Hirsch the nineteenth century Hebrew master and linguist traces this to the Semitic root word banak. This word expresses the idea which I believe that fits the context much better. Here David is inviting God to search
out his heart so that He can find it a proper abiding place and then he asked that God to instruct him in whatever way is necessary to make sure that God is comfortable in His heart and that he never again repeats this sin. Boy do I relate to that. Then David ask God to know his thoughts. The word to know is yadah which is an intimate knowing. David is well aware of the fact that God knows what he is thinking. What David is asking is that God will become intimate with His thoughts. He is asking that he only think thoughts that are compatible with God. He wants to think only thoughts that will make God comfortable. This morning as I awoke I found I did not have to get up for another half hour. I laid back down trying to go to sleep but resisting further sleep as I feared oversleeping. My thoughts were wandering to all my earthly concerns and fears. These thoughts were so disturbing I knew I had to get out of bed and do something to get my mind off my concerns. Suddenly I found myself praying, God, give me only your thoughts. I don t remember what thoughts came to my mind, but in the next few minutes I felt so restful and peaceful I didn t want to get up and leave my thoughts behind. I believe that is why God led me to this verse this evening. He wanted to confirm that as I walk through the fires, He is trying to be comfortable in my house or heart, He is only doing what I have asked, and that is to search (chaqar) this home that I have invited him into and to burn away the things that make Him uncomfortable. As he does He is instructing me as to what makes him comfortable in my home or heart and if I find this process of making my heart comfortable for Him too uncomfortable for me as I painfully discovered this evening, I can ask Him to be intimate with my thoughts and He will share His thoughts with mine and make me comfortable in His heart.
HEBRAIC STUDY THE PECKING ORDER Leviticus 19:3: Each of you must respect your mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 26:42: Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. Exodus 6:26: These [are] that Aaron and Moses, to whom the LORD said, Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies. Read these three passages of Scripture and try to tell me if you don t see something a little odd. I was reading a passage
in the Jewish Midrash and these rabbis pointed out something that they saw a bit strange. I was told by a rabbi many years ago that we Christians were just too one dimensional. This is particularly true with Western Christianity. We are a scientific culture. When we teach Hebrew in Bible colleges and Seminaries, at least when I taught Hebrew in Bible College I taught like a good Western educated Christian would teach it. I taught the science of Hebrew. I looked for precision. No, No, No, that qammets under the Hei tells you that there is an article and that the word that begins with the Hei is a noun. Now come on students, let s get our act together, we need to be precise here, this is the Bible for crying out loud, study with precision. And we end up studying the Spirit of God right out the Bible. The biggest difference I found when I studied Hebrew in a Christian setting verses a Jewish setting is that as Western Christians we tend to study Hebrew with our minds and the Jewish rabbis studied it with their heart. If you study Hebrew with your mind, from a scientific Western mindset and not with your heart, you will not see something a bit strange about these three passages. If my title has not given it away, look closely at these three passages, does something seem out of whack to you? Ok, maybe you see it, does it mean anything, is it just some linguistical anomaly? Was it just a whim of the writer? Or was there a divine intent. If a divine intent, what was God trying to show us? Now for those of you who still do not know what I am talking
about, look at the order of individuals in each verse. Everywhere in Scripture where it speaks of a mother and father it is always father and mother with father coming first. We always read about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, yet only in Leviticus 26:42 do we find Jacob coming first in that order. Finally, everywhere in scripture where it speaks of Aaron and Moses it is always Moses first and then Aaron. I know what some of you are thinking, There he goes again, better watch out for that Chaim Bentorah fellow, he s trying to find hidden meanings in Scripture that are not really there. Well, like excuse me if I happen to believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that God had intent behind every grammatical and syntactical anomaly. Beside rabbis who were much more wiser and intelligent that I find these anomalies to be very interesting and to contain, not a hidden message, but a deeper message. If you study the Word of God and search for Him like He instructs you in Jeremiah 29:13, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart you see that? Heart? That is Bible talking. You may just look beyond the intellect and find a message from God s heart. What the Midrash is saying is that God knew that by giving a specific order when listing persons we Western mindset one dimensional people would automatically assume God to be listing in order of importance rather than just simply listing in a logical order. Hence God messed up the order just to remind us that no one person is more important than the other. Sure Abraham was the first and most important in creating the Jewish race, but that does not mean God loved Abraham more that Jacob and to prove it, in Leviticus 26:42 God puts Jacob at the top of the pecking order.
Oh, and of course God loved Moses more than Aaron, after all he spoke to Moses face to face and Aaron commissioned the building of a golden calf, He s lucky God even kept him on the payroll. Yet, here in Exodus 6:26, God puts Aaron at the head of the list of the two who were to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. You know, I always kind of looked down on old Aaron as a sort of black sheep of the family after some of the stunts he pulled, yet, here he is right at the top of the food chain coming just before old Moses. God did not love Moses best, God is a good parent and loves all His children equally. Speaking of parents. Women tend to get a bad rap culturally and seemingly Biblically as well. It seems that men always are mentioned before women. Well, if you read Scripture carefully, you will find that God is telling us that just because men are mentioned first does not make them better or more superior for if that were the case then we learn in Leviticus 19:3 that mothers are to receive more respect that the fathers. God has no pecking order, He loves everyone equally and no one gets special privileges. There are no teacher s pets in God s kingdom.
WORD STUDY SEARCH Psalms 139:23: Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: In the joy of this new relationship I said to Jesus Christ. Lord, I want this heart of mine to be yours. I want to have you settle down here and be perfectly at home. Everything that I have belongs to you. Let me show you around. Robert Munger My Heart Christ s Home. David gives this statement in Psalms 139:23 right after telling the Lord he hates those who hate God. I wonder what prompted David to ask God to search his heart out after He made such a pious statement. Did he sense he was being a little too holy? Did he sense that his hatred for those who hated God was not the only reason for the hatred he felt? How many times have we piously declared that God is the only reason we desire something. Lord give me a candy apple red Porsche so I can pick up little children and take them to Sunday School on Sunday. David probably did not trust his heart and had to ask God to search it out because he could not be sure of his motives. I have always been mystified by this idea of God searching out one s heart. Doesn t he already know our hearts, why must He search out our hearts? Doesn t He know our thoughts, why must David ask God to know His thoughts? The word search in the Hebrew is chakar which does mean to investigation examine or to search out. However, this is a qal imperative form so it is a sort of invitation. The letters and position of the letters in this word Chet, Qof, Resh would suggest this invitation would be an invitation to
merge one s heart with God. Inviting Him into his heart to clear out any rubbish which might be hidden so that his heart is sanctified and pure so that it may be joined with the heart of God. Robert Munger wrote a little allegory called My Heart Christ s Home, which you can find on the internet. In this story he pictures his heart as a house in which he has invited Jesus to live. He first shows Jesus around this house (chakar). He then takes Jesus into his study. Suddenly the man feels embarrassed over some magazines that are in the study and ashamed of some pictures on the walls. This is what is being expressed in Psalms 139:23. The particular verbal form of the word chakar would not so much express the idea of asking God to search out one s heart as it would be to invite Jesus to take a tour of one s heart. As you begin to show Him around your heart, He does not have to say anything. In his presence you are suddenly aware of things that will embarrass you in front of him and make you ashamed in front of Him. Would you dare to invite Jesus to take a tour of your house? This is what David did. He even invited Jesus to try him. Here the wordtry could have two possible root words. Traditionally we use the root word bakan which means to try or test. However, the root word could also be banak. This word expresses the idea of instruction or to train. I like that better. Here David is inviting God to search out his heart so that He can find it a proper abiding place and then he asked that God instruct him in whatever way is necessary to make sure that God is comfortable in His heart. Then David ask God to know his thoughts. The word to know is yadah which is an intimate knowing. David is well aware of the fact that God knows what he is thinking. What David is asking is that God will become intimate with His thoughts. He is asking that he only think thoughts that are compatible with God. He wants to think only thoughts that will make God comfortable. This morning as I awoke I found I did not have to get up for another half hour. I laid back down trying to go to sleep but resisting further sleep as I feared oversleeping. My thoughts were wondering to all my earthly concerns and fears. These thoughts were so disturbing I knew I had to get out of bed and do something to get my mind off my
concerns. Suddenly I found myself praying, God, give me only your thoughts. I don t remember what thoughts came to my mind, but in the next few minutes I felt so restful and peaceful I didn t want to get up and leave my thoughts behind. I believe that is why God led me to this verse this morning. He wanted to confirm that as I walk through the fires, He is trying to be comfortable in my house or heart, He is only doing what I have asked, and that is to search (chakar) this home or heart that I have invited him into and to burn away the things that make Him uncomfortable. As he does He is instructing me as to what makes him comfortable in my home or heart and if I find this process of making my heart comfortable for Him too uncomfortable for me, I can ask Him to be intimate with my thoughts and He will share His thoughts with mine and make me comfortable in His heart. Devotional: Psalm 16:8 Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim: John 3:3: Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. As a small child in Christian Service Brigade I memorized this passage of Scripture to earn my merit badge and ever since that time I never understood this passage. I have read this passage in the Greek and could not reach any conclusion. I have discussed this with Jewish rabbis and gained insight, but still I felt there was nothing conclusive to hang my hat upon. I always suspected there was something much deeper going on in this exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus. Now fifty years later I decided to give this passage one more crack and read it in the Aramaic Bible and see if I could get any deeper insight. As I read this in the Peshitta (Standard Aramaic Bible), I
became fixated on the word Mitheelad which is rendered as born and comes from the root word Yalad and the word dresh which is the word for again in Aramaic. There has been a ton of research on the Old Galilean dialect of Western Aramaic done by Catholic and British scholars in the last 15 years and new light has been shed on this ancient language which was spoken by Jesus. For one thing we know now that the dialect spoken by Nicodemus would have been the Chaldean Aramaic spoken by the Jews of Judea. There is a subtle difference that scholars point out. In this case when Jesus said mitheelad min dresh (born again) Nicodemus would have taken the expression literally but Jesus using the Old Galilean would have not been speaking of a physical birth but a spiritual birth. Hence Nicodemus response in asking how one can be born when he is old. What I find troubling about this, is why would Jesus make such an error. I can understand my liberal friends saying: Oh, poor Jesus he forgot about the difference in dialect and pulled an embarrassing error in front of the great Pharisaical leader. I, however, believe Jesus was divine and such an error was fully intentional on His part. For my part I cannot help but point out the similarities between the Aramaic word yalad (born) and the Hebrew word yalda (child) both which have identical consonants. Not only that both Aramaic and Hebrew have the word dresh only in Aramaic it means again or from above but in Hebrew it means to search and seek out. Now let me point out that this is original research which I am doing for my doctoral dissertation and any such original research must always be taken with a grain of salt and subjected to much scrutiny before it is accepted as reliable. Yes, I am saying I am not reliable here. Be that as it may, I am at a great disadvantage as I have not yet found a source studying the Old Galilean Western Aramaic that would fall into our Evangelical conservative camp. In others the only resources on the Old Galilean I have been able to locate have no problem with saying Jesus was not divine and
as such would be subject to error. I am one of those crazy people who actually believe Jesus was both human and God at the same time and thus unable to commit error. So the only way I can interpret this exchange and have Jesus coming out divine is to say He intentionally used the subtle difference in dialect to cause the confusion on the part of Nicodemus so He could pull off a very clever play on words and tell this old, respected, learned Pharisee in a very loving and gentle way that he spent his life barking up the wrong tree. Although communication between the two dialects is possible; just as it would be with us in the United States and someone from, say, New Zealand. I say New Zealand because I once had a student from New Zealand who was telling about a famous preacher in his country and he said: Aye, we re mates. I remember my immediate thoughts, I didn t know they both served in the Navy. Then as I continued thinking of the word mates as used in our culture, I had a horrible thought, which I quickly dismissed. All my student meant was that they were best buds. Jesus would have been very much aware of the difference in dialect, but he threw out the words Mitheelad min dresh to throw old Nicodemus off balance, because, as learned scholars, both would have been fluent in the Classical Hebrew and there would have been no misunderstanding when Jesus said: You are master in Israel and you don t know these things? In other words Jesus was telling him that as a master of Israel, he was fluent in Classical Hebrew and he was to think on this in Hebrew. Mitheelad min dresh in Aramaic means born again or born from above, but in Hebrew it means: Search and seek like a child. I reviewed my research on the Pharisees and Sadducees before this study and found that the Pharisees believed Oral tradition was as authoritative as the Torah where the Sadducees believed only the Torah was authoritative. In other words the Pharisees revered the teachings of their fathers. The doctrines of man substituted the teachings of Scripture
for the Pharisees and Jesus was telling Nicodemus, aside from the fact he had to be born again as we understand born again, that he also had to become like a child and divest himself of a lifetime of study of the teachings of man and begin to search for God like a child, simple, pure and harmless and not filled with the complexity of man s reasoning, intellectual conclusions and rationale. Only then could he truly become mitheelad min dresh (born again). Well, I am personally comfortable with this further insight into John 3, except for the fact that there is a lesson in this for me personally and I think I may have to revert to the mind of a child me to comprehend it.