Let it go, this too shall pass

 C.S. Lewis writes in The Screwtape Letters:

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal…  As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.  This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change.  Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks…  As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty.

Peaks and valleys are our lot in life, and our trouble begins when we forget the truth of this.

I often think of this undulation principle when observing a friend going through a difficult season.  It is much easier to notice it and remark on it when one is on the outside looking in, rather than the other way around.  When we are inside it -- in the valley or the trials -- we forget that “this too shall pass” (a well-known phrase that comes not from the Bible, but from a Persian fable).  The phrase is also at the center of the sublime song by the American rock band, OK Go (and shown in not one official music video, but two of them).  To be sure, the Scriptures give us this theme (“weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning”), which is perhaps why we associate the phrase with the Bible, rather than with Medieval Sufi poets.

“This too shall pass” and CS Lewis’s “law of undulation” have been on our mind as we consider the Hebrew word for distress: TSARAH (צָרָה).  The Hebrew Bible gives us this word 73 times.

…then let us arise and go up to Bethel, that I may make there an altar to the God who answered me in the day of my DISTRESS and has been with me wherever I have gone.

Genesis 35:3

 

Go and cry to the gods whom you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your DISTRESS.

Judges 10:14

 

But you have this day rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your DISTRESSES; and you have said, ‘No!  but set a king over us.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.”

1 Samuel 10:19

 

The word TSARAH derives from TSARAR (צָרַר), a verb which means “to bind or tie up”.  It can also mean “to be restricted, narrow, or cramped”.  And the evocative power of Hebrew comes crashing through: to be in distress is to be in a tight spot.  Our hope in distress lies in the fact that it is only temporary; it may endure for a season, but “joy comes in the morning”.

Recently, however, we have come across a different reading of the word TSARAH which gives a fresh slant to its meaning. 

Since the Fall, suffering and distress have vexed humans – indeed, all creation.  Explaining why there is pain in the world is man’s philosophical and religious quest.  Indeed, the problem of pain (as the philosophers name it) is often the atheists’ argument against an all-knowing and all-loving G-d.  “If He is omnipotent and loving, why is there suffering in the world?”

The Jewish sages are no different in asking why there is pain.  But they are different in how they have answered the question.  In their view of the question, it is physically impossible for the human brain, with its limited abilities, to grasp an infinite G-d, or, for that matter, to understand His ways.  The medieval Jewish sage, Yosef Albo, wrote, “If I knew Him, I would be Him.”

This leads us to a new reading of TSARAH.  One of its meanings is “narrow”, which certainly can mean a “tight spot”.  But what if it has more to do with how we see the world?  We are given only a narrow, subjective view of the world and our place in it.  We experience our suffering as the totality of existence.  As the Dread Pirate Roberts tells Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride, “Life is pain, Highness.”

But this is only so because our view is necessarily limited.  We do not see the whole picture, but only fragments.  We see the narrow window of our valley, unable to see the peak we have left or the peak which awaits.  All valley, all of the time.

The Jewish sages connect words that share letters.  So TSARAH is connected with other words which share its consonants, in their thinking.  One word with which TSARAH shares consonants is TSOHAR (צֹהַר), which means “midday or noon”, but practically means brightest light of day.  It occurs 24 times in the Hebrew Bible, but the oddest one is in the story of Noah building his ark:

You shall make a WINDOW for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side.  You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.

Genesis 6:16 NKJV

While the NKJV translators are consistent with the KJV, NASB, and Wycliffe, other translators have struggled with the English meaning of the word.  Most render it “roof”, which is odd for a word that means “noonday” everywhere else.  What gives and what does this have to do with distress?

The sages connected “suffering, distress” with “window” or “noonday” because suffering opens a window into our deepest recesses, allowing us to become aware of, and gain access to, dormant potentials and deeper reservoirs of energy and insight that might have otherwise remained unrealized.

This is one of the hidden blessings of the valley seasons – the pain and distress in life: they allow us to pause, reflect, dig deep, and grow beyond what we ever thought was possible.  Pain pushes us out of our comfort zone and goads us to do the hard work of adaptation and evolution.  Without it, we might simply stay safe in our own status quo and never risk becoming who we were ultimately meant to be.

Moreover, pain can also create a window into other people’s experiences.  Therefore, another blessing of pain is that it can serve as an agent of empathy, enabling us to connect, relate, and understand suffering and situations other than our own, thus expanding our heart and worldview.

The Messiah teaches us to give thanks in all things.  Our Scriptures teach us that in all things – including suffering – G-d works for the GOOD of those who love Him.  TSARAH is a narrow view, but it might just give us a TSOHAR to the bigger picture if we hold fast and look for it.  This is not a “let go and let G-d” stock phrase.  But rather an orientation on the Truth of G-d working in all of our circumstances – even the hard ones which press us tightly.

 

A bit about Scandals

 In the modern Church, we have become quite familiar with the idea of “scandal”.  From fallen Evangelical titans to covered-up child abuse in the Catholic Church, our world seems rife with it.  We do not typically see scandal as anything but negative.  But the word’s origin story ought to offer us some different perspectives on “scandal".

The Greek word behind our English word is skandalon (σκάνδαλον), which ought to make everyone think of that outstanding song of the same name from Michael Card.

“He will be the Truth
That will offend them one and all
A stone that makes men stumble
And a rock that makes them fall.
And many will be broken
So that He can make them whole.
And many will be crushed
And lose their own soul.” 

Scandalon is used 15 times in the Greek New Testament.  However, it also appears in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. 

“Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God.  I am the Lord.”

Lev 19:14

 

“He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah he will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.  And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.”

Isaiah 8:14

The word means “trap, stumbling block, offense, snare”.  The Hebrew equivalent is MIKHSHOL (מִכְשׁוֹל).  It is used 14 times in the Hebrew text, including eight times in Ezekiel, three in chapter 14.

Whether we experience scandalon as a positive or a negative depends in large measure on our point of view.  In a typically excellent article, Father Stephen Freeman writes about the incarnation and the transfiguration:

“The scandal of the Incarnation, God-becoming-man, is the seeming contradiction of the utterly transcendent God and the particularity and limits of human existence. It is a scandal whose errors  run in two directions.  First, there is an assumption that God is so displeased with sin that He can have nothing to do with it, or that sin somehow nullifies the work of God. Second, there is an equally odious belief that human beings, in their observance of the commandments, are never righteous enough to actually be compatible with true holiness. The first is an error about God, the second an error about human beings.”

 You can read the rest of Father Stephen’s piece here at his blog.

 

Bible Geek Word Nerd – Samson – ALAH

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

(Six-minute read)

In late 1971, English rock band Led Zeppelin released one of the greatest rock songs ever written or played, “Stairway to Heaven”.  Nearly eight minutes in length, the song is beautifully crafted and magnificently played, with three movements, from folk to classic guitar rock, slowly rising to its crescendoing climax.

It would be a fair question to ask what Robert Plant and Jimmy Page’s composition has to do with Bible words.  Well read on, good friend!  Read on!

We have been talking about Samson, and have been exploring several of the words from this passage in the Book of Judges:

Now see to it that you DRINK no WINE or other FERMENTED DRINK and that you do not EAT anything UNCLEAN.  YOU WILL BECOME PREGNANT and HAVE A SON whose HEAD is never TO BE TOUCHED by a razor because the boy is to be a NAZIRITE, DEDICATED to God from the WOMB.  He will take the lead in DELIVERING Israel from the HANDS of the Philistines.'
Judges 13:4-5

Today, let’s take a look at the phrase (from the NIV) “his head is never to be touched by a razor”, but with a focus on the verb.  The NASB, ESV, Amp, and KJV translate the Hebrew phrase as “no razor shall come upon (or “on”) his head”.  The HCS and NLT simply say, “his hair must never be cut”.  It is clear from these various translations what the point of this phrase is, but it’s interesting what different choices the translators have made to describe this simple prohibition.  There is a mysterious choice of Hebrew the author has made in crafting this phrase, and that Hebraic mystery might say more to us than the simple act of not cutting hair suggests.

There are many, many words in the Hebrew lexicon that mean “to cut”.  Pair any of them with the Hebrew for “no” (e.g., LO, AL, AYIN), and you say “do not cut” as the NLT says it.  The author had choices to convey the plain meaning (PSHAT) of “do not cut his hair”.  But we are suggesting there might be some symbolic meaning that we miss with the plain wording of English.

Here are some of the words for “to cut” which the author chose not to use in this expression:

KARATH (כָּרַת) – “to cut, cut off, cut down”, 289 uses in the Hebrew Bible; it is the verb behind the expression “make a covenant” because to do that, one has to cut up an animal.  The expression literally means “to cut a covenant”.

On that day the Lord MADE a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates…
Genesis 15:18 NIV

QATSATS (קָצַץ) – “to cut off, cut in two”; 14 occurrences, including this one which is about cutting hair:

Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert that CUT the corners of their hair; for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
Jeremiah 9:26 RSV

NATHACH (נָתַח) – it can mean “to cut”, but most often, it means to cut into pieces or divide:

[Saul] took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of messengers, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!” Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man.
1 Samuel 11:7

GAZAR (גָּזַר) – “to cut, divide”

So he went with them.  And when they came to the Jordan, they CUT DOWN trees.
2 Kings 6:4

GADA (גָּדַע) – “to hew, hew down, cut, cut off”

“I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and CUT ASUNDER the bars of iron…”
Isaiah 45:2

Each of these verbs could have worked in the phrase, but the author did not choose them for some reason.  He chose a different verb, coupled with the rarely used noun for “razor” (MOWRAH (מוֹרָה) always used in conjunction with a vow of this nature).  Nothing the LORD does is random or haphazard.  His Holy Spirit chose the verb with deliberate intent, which might tell us something about this particular Text and the deeper purpose of this separation to G-d.

The Hebrew verb in question is ALAH (עָלָה), which sounds exactly as you think it sounds (as the Arabic name of the god is Islam).  The homophonic closeness of the two words is not surprising.  ALAH, as a Hebrew verb, means “to ascend, to go up, to climb”.  It is used 888 times in the Hebrew Bible, beginning on the second page of the Text:

…but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground…
Genesis 2:6

ALAH is the verb related to travel.  People “go up” to Jerusalem because of its elevation, including ways that strike modern readers as odd:

but ‘As the Lord lives who BROUGHT UP the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land which I gave to their fathers.
Jeremiah 16:15

ALAH sounds odd in this context because we are accustomed to modern maps, where travelers come DOWN from the North, and UP from the South.  But obviously, the ancients did not have maps with an overhead perspective to study.  They had sunrise and sunset for their orientation and the heights of hills to give them perspective.  To reach Jerusalem or any high place, you must ascend (ALAH).  This notion lies behind Psalms 120 – 134, which are called “songs of Ascent” (MA ALAH – what comes up) – you ascend to reach Jerusalem. 

ALAH is the verb in the famous passage about the Shining One (sometimes translated as Morning Star – son of the dawn):

You said in your heart, ‘I WILL ASCEND to heaven; ABOVE the stars of G-d I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I WILL ASCEND ABOVE the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.’
Isaiah 14:13-14

In Genesis 28:12, the angels of G-d ASCENDED to the Heavens in Jacob’s dream (a stairway to Heaven – one imagines Robert Plant’s vocals).  In Genesis 35:13, G-d Himself ASCENDED from Jacob.  In Exodus 2:23, the prayers of G-d’s people ASCENDED to G-d.  And Moshe ASCENDED the Mountain of G-d to meet with the LORD there throughout the TORAH.

The verb is obviously flexible in its use, meaning much more than “ascend” and similar English words.  For instance, how do translators make sense of ALAH in this context?

Every animal that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two, and CHEWS the cud, among the animals, you may eat.  Yet of those that CHEW the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they CHEW the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you.
Deuteronomy 14:6-7

It does not make sense until you consider cow or ruminant biology, and why they chew the cud.  Cows eat fibrous grass and hay, which are actually quite difficult to digest.  The first section of the cow’s stomach has a bacteria called rumen, which break down the fibrous grass and hay into what we call cud.  The cud is regurgitated – that is, it ASCENDS up the digestive track – into the cow’s mouth, where she chews it again, before sending it back to her stomach to complete digestion.  The cud ASCENDS…which explains ALAH in the nine verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy translated as “chew the cud”.

ALAH can also mean “offer”, as it does in Genesis, when Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac.

He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mori′ah, and OFFER him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and OFFERED IT UP as a burnt offering instead of his son.
Genesis 22:2,13

ALAH is also “to offer” in several other passages in the TORAH: Genesis 8:20, Exodus 30:9, Exodus 32:6, Exodus 40:29, and more.

Now let’s return to the question of why the author of Judges chose ALAH in this passage instead of another verb that means “to cut”.  It seems that the answer might lie in ALAH’s association with that which is above us.

In ancient cosmogony, the Israelites imagined a three-part universe.  There is the land – HA ERETS (הָאָֽרֶץ) – where man and all created life dwells.  Then there is the underworld – SHEOL (שְׁאוֹל) – the place of the dead, which is under the land.  And finally, there is the Heavenly space – HA SHAMAYIM (הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם) – where the gods and G-d dwell.  Each space is divided from the others.  Created life is separated from the Heavenly realm by the RAQIA (רָקִיעַ).  SHEOL is separated from ERETS by the ground.

Things that ASCEND – smoke, vapors, Moses up the mountain, angels on ladders – move closer to G-d’s space in the Heavenly realm.  It seems that the author of Judges wants to draw our attention more to LIFTING a blade to the Nazirite’s head than he does to the act of cutting.  He wants to remind us, in subtle ways, that the Nazirite – Samson in particular – is devoted to Him who dwells in the Heavenly spaces.

Connecting ALAH with ROSH, one does not approach that summit because it is Holy (QADOSH) and set apart.  One does not simply buy a stairway to Heaven...

Bible Geek Word Nerd – Samson – HARAH / YALAD

 

We don't know what we think we know.

 Thelma McQueen was born in Tampa, FL, in 1911.  Educated by nuns in Augusta, GA, she hoped to be a nurse, but a high school teacher encouraged her in the theatrical arts.  Thelma McQueen blossomed as an actress and a dancer.  She performed as a faerie in Max Reinhardt's Hollywood Bowl staging of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream", where she acquired the nickname "Butterfly" due to her fluttering hands.  She was spotted by talent scout Kay Barrett while performing on Broadway.  Barrett encouraged her to screen test for David O Selznick, who was in pre-production for "Gone with the Wind".  Selznick cast her as the simple-minded housemaid Prissy, and McQueen forever became known for one line: "Oh, Miss Scarlett!  I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" 

Prissy shares that ignorance with most of us.  We probably think we know something, but as Slowman and Fernback relate in their book, The Knowledge Illusion, we actually know quite a bit less than we think we do about a great many commonplace things, including the experience that every human on the planet shares: birth.

Manoah and his wife are not dissimilar to us.  Even though births – and deaths – were everyday occurrences in their lives, they would need help to not only bring their promised child into the world, but also to raise him as the LORD intended.  For his birth, they would have the support of a local midwife.

The Hebrew Bible tells notable stories of the service of midwives.  Genesis 35 relates that Rachel's labor with Benjamin was attended by a midwife (Genesis 35:17).  At the birth of the twins, Jacob and Essau, the midwife tied a scarlet thread (SHANI (שָׁנִי) is the same word used in Rahab's story in Joshua 2) around the wrist of Essau.  Perhaps the most famous story involves the midwives in Egypt, who refused to submit to Pharaoh's evil command to murder the baby boys at birth.

 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, 'Why have you done this?  Why have you let the boys live?' The midwives answered Pharaoh, 'Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.' So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.  And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Exodus 1:18-21

We are going to look at two phrases from our passage in Judges 13:

 Now see to it that you DRINK no WINE or other FERMENTED DRINK and that you do not EAT anything UNCLEAN.  You WILL BECOME PREGNANT and HAVE A SON whose HEAD is NEVER to BE TOUCHED by a RAZOR because the boy is to be a NAZIRITE, DEDICATED to God from the WOMB.  He will take the lead in DELIVERING Israel from the hands of the Philistines.'
Judges 13:4-5

The phrases are "will become pregnant" and "have a son", announcements that no doubt brought a mixture of joy and trepidation, as any parent well knows.

The Hebrew word HARAH (הָרָה) means "to conceive, to become pregnant".  This word only occurs 43 times in the Hebrew Bible, despite this being such a commonplace event.  After all, every human who's ever lived – except for two – has lived because their mothers became pregnant.  But there you have it: Scripture is not telling a pregnancy story.  It is, however, telling a birth story, which we shall get to momentarily.

HARAH's first appearance is in Genesis, when Mother Eve becomes pregnant:

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she CONCEIVED and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the Lord."
Genesis 4:1 (NKJV)

HARAH is used three times in Hosea, describing Gomer's pregnancies, such as,

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she CONCEIVED and bore him a son.
Hosea 1:3

The word can also be used figuratively.  For instance, Hosea uses Gomer's unfaithfulness as a condemnation for the iniquities of G-d's people:

For their mother has played the harlot; she who CONCEIVED them has behaved shamefully.  For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.'
Hosea 1:5

HARAH is used figuratively also in Job 15:35, Psalm 7:14, and Isaiah 59:4, where mischief is conceived.  In Isaiah 59:13, words are conceived.  And then there is this in Isaiah 33:11:

You shall CONCEIVE chaff, you shall bring forth stubble; your breath, as fire, shall devour you.

The Hebrew word behind "have a son" is YALAD (יָלַד), a verb that is used nearly 500 times, many of them in conjunction with HARAH, as in Job 15:35, Psalm 7:14, Isaiah 33:11, Isaiah 59:4, among other references.  YALAD gets translated as "to bear (offspring)", "to bring forth", "to give birth", and "to have a son", as it does in Judges 13.  It also means "beget".  So all that begetting in your King James Bible are YALAD.

YALAD is also the word used for "midwife" every time the word appears (for example, Genesis 35:17, Genesis 38:28, Exodus 1:16, Exodus 1:21).  YALAD gives birth to other forms (see what we did there?), such as the noun YELED (יֶלֶד), meaning boy, child, or youth.  It's used 89 times in the Text.  The feminine form is YALDAH, meaning girl or maiden, but it's found only three times.  YALDUTH (יַלְדוּת) is the plural form, and it also is used three times.  For instance, it's applied to Joseph when his brothers have dragged him from the pit and sold him into slavery.

Then Reuben returned to the pit, and indeed Joseph was not in the pit; and he tore his clothes.  And he returned to his brothers and said, "THE LAD (YELED) is no more; and I, where shall I go?"
Genesis 37:29-30

YELED is used eight times in Exodus 2 when describing Moshe.  In Daniel 1, the word is used five times for the youths of Judah who are led into captivity to Babylon.  Zechariah uses both YELED and YALDAH:

The streets of the city shall be full of BOYS and GIRLS playing in its streets.'
Zechariah 8:5

The Messianic Psalm 110 uses the plural YALDUTH:

Your people shall be volunteers In the day of Your power; in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your YOUTH.
Psalm 110:3

Yes, "youth" is plural in that verse: YALDUTH.  Does it give off a different slant when you read "youth" as "youths"?

HARAH and YALAD are significant words in the cycle of life.  Their appearance in Scripture marks the beginning of a new cycle, particularly when conception and birth are miraculous, as Samson's is.  Miraculous or unexpected conceptions and births are signs placed in the Text to grab our attention to something big the LORD is doing.  This verse is usually read around Christmas, rather than Passover or Easter.  Nevertheless, it fits the theme.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will CONCEIVE and GIVE BIRTH to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14

And we can all echo Butterfly McQueen's Prissy and say, "We don't know nothing about birthing" that miracle Baby.  And yet we rejoice, as we do in all births.