Do you consider yourself a child of God? Do you look at others with a questioning eye? How can they act / believe the way they do and consider themselves a child of God also? Do you judge others? In a way, I suppose this harkens back to the title of the website, from Matthew 7:1-5.
I want to get across a couple of related messages today. The first is, just what does it mean to be stiff-necked, since the children of God are repeatedly called that, in Scripture (Hebrew and Greek). The second is how easy it is for us to be stiff-necked, if we do not read God’s word with a discerning eye, which has been the goal from the beginning of the website••• to help you learn how to have a discerning eye.
The first occurrence is in Exodus 32:9
9 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people (עַם־קְשֵׁה־עֹ֖רֶף)!”
People is עם, from p.187 עמם develop without outside interference
Stiff is from p.234 קשה harden; CM emerge and separate (C18)
Neck is from p.193 ערף loosen; partition; CM facilitate/restrain penetration (A49)
The other seven occurrences in the Hebrew Scriptures also use the same words, קשה ערף. We separate ourselves from others by hardening our opinions.
One occurrence is in the Greek Scriptures, Acts 7:51-53
51 Oh stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and in the ears! You always fell against the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, you also did. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those before proclaiming concerning the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become betrayers and murderers, 53 who received the teaching/Torah by the disposition of angels and did not keep it.
Acts 7:51 harkens to Deuteronomy 10:16-19
16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. 19 Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Circumcising the foreskin of the heart is also referred to in another place as changing a heart of stone into a heart of flesh:
Ezekiel 36:26
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
What is this business of “circumcising,” anyway? The root is
p.137 מול cut; move in opposition (no cognates).
Our natural tendencies are self-seeking; the idea of circumcising is to move in opposition to our self-seeking. The cutting aspect, requires that we feel the pain of others, whether in recognizing the need to limit sexual drives, or in the case of the heart, to be able to see things from the other person’s perspective, to oppose our own limited vision, and be open (remove the log from our own eye). “Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Being stiff-necked is the opposite of having a circumcised heart; if we look back to the roots, it relates to being very hardened in our separations, saying, in effect, “I am right; you are wrong!”
From Merriam-Webster:
I highlighted “adamant” in the above list of synonyms, which is the segue into the second point I want to make. And I make this point simply because, so many times I have been in conversations with others about what Scripture says, and those persons are so very adamant about what it says••• perhaps, just perhaps a word study can help with a little circumcising. At least that would be my hope.
Have you been in discussions with others who say something along the lines of, “God’s Word says ‘All,’ and that is the final word, it means ‘All!’ ••• perhaps
I will not bore you with the hours and hours of background research I have done on this one, but will give you the highlights.
The word most commonly translated as “all” is h3605. כֹּל ḵôl (Strong’s). It occurs about 3000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. CWSBD lists the two-letter words as “particles,” a piece of a root. Though Strong’s steers us toward כל having come from כלל, “to complete,” there is no clear indicator that כל always refers to “complete,” or “all.” The “particles” share letters from a family of Gradational Variants and might, in any circumstance, lean more in the direction of one or another root in the family. Let’s look at this כל family.
First we must recall that the letters themselves have meaning, which were derived from pictographs in the ancient Hebrew writings. We have referred many times to the work of Jeff Benner, in his Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible (AHLB), as he shows the derivation from the pictographs. I list here the definitions Benner gives, plus some of the (more limited, only listing a few individual consonants) definitions given in the EDBH.
From AHLB:
כ – bend and curve, to tame or subdue
ל – authority, yoke, tie or bind; as prefix – to, toward
Benner shows the pictograph of the kaph (כ) as the palm of the hand, and the lamed (ל) ad a shepherd’s crook.
From EDBH, p.299:
• The כ highlights an example for all to emulate
• The ל indicates movement or return to an object
There are many “definitions” out there, all based on a combination of the pictographs and Biblical usage. These are from a website called “Deviant Art,” by an artist who has studied the meanings for over thirty years:
https://www.deviantart.com/sum1good/art/Hebrew-Letter-Meanings-Chart-204903888
The Gradational Variant family for כל is as follows, also with a Derivational Variant:
GV p.119 כלל complete [by including everything]; p.118 כלה strive [to attain]; p.118 כלאrestrain [prevent]; p.116 כול contain [a measured quantity]; p.104 יכל prevail; p.156 נכל plot [harm; endanger through veiled acts]
DV p.9 אכל – p.119 כלל complete [by including everything]; p.118 כלה strive [to attain] > p.9 אכל consume
CM כלל encircle (C26); כלה and כלא contain/expose (C25); כול express control (C5); יכל(none listed); נכל (none listed); אכל move directly/circularly (A11)
An aside••• we have purposely avoided discussion of vowel pointing in this study, so as not to get entangled in controversies over changes that may or may not have been made in the text by the Masoretes. I make a simple statement here, that in pronunciation, the Masoretic listing כֹּל, with the dot over the kaph, is/can be a replacement for כול, with each being pronounced with a “long ō” sound, “kohl”•••
I want to give you two examples, which hopefully will at least give you some reason you “pause” before you come across too adamantly in discussion about your beliefs, but circumcising your heart and being willing to listen to the other person’s point of view. The first is fairly simple; the second will take a little more thought from a Scriptural study point of view. Then we will circle back to the Gradational Variant family of כל.
The simpler example is from Jeremiah 33:8. Here is the Strong’s listing for h3605. כֹּל ḵôl:
h3605. כֹּל ḵôl; or (Jer. 33:8) כּוֹל kowl; from h3634. כָּלַל ḵâlal; properly, the whole; hence, all, any or every (in the singular only, but often in a plural sense): — (in) all (manner, (ye)), altogether, any (manner), enough, every (one, place, thing), howsoever, as many as, (no-)thing, ought, whatsoever, (the) whole, whoso(-ever).
h3634. כָּלַל ḵâlal; a primitive root; to complete: — (make) perfect.
Here, even Strong’s points out that the word in Jr33:8 is כול, but then indicates that the root is כלל. See in our listing that כול is an independent, though related root, from the same family.
Jeremiah 33:8
8 וְטִ֣הַרְתִּ֔ים מִכָּל־עֲוֹנָ֖ם אֲשֶׁ֣ר חָֽטְאוּ־לִ֑י וְסָלַחְתִּ֗י לְכָול־עֲוֹנֹֽותֵיהֶם֙* אֲשֶׁ֣ר חָֽטְאוּ־לִ֔י וַאֲשֶׁ֖ר פָּ֥שְׁעוּ בִֽי׃
Jeremiah 33:8
8 I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.
I would argue that the first “all” is accurate, but the second really is from the root כול, “to contain a measured quantity,” because rebellion is a greater offense, and the atonement proceedings were intended for unintentional sins, not for an attitude of rebelliousness. The root for rebellion is p.208 פשע, “transgress; misuse a relationship.”
I support this from the LORD’s self-description, Exodus 34:6-7 LITV
6 And Jehovah passed by before his face and called out: Jehovah! Jehovah God! Merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and great in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and not leaving entirely unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on sons, and on sons of sons, to the third and to the fourth generation.
I also support this from the Greek Scriptures, pointing out a phrase that we like to overlook, in choosing to follow God’s path of righteousness: Mark 10:28-31
28 Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
There are repercussions to our choices, the “cleansing” we endure. Paul says, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
The second example we have to work at a bit more. It is an example I have pulled from David A. Clines, The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, p.176. He lists the occurrence of כל in Pr28:5 as derived from כון “measure.” Let’s look at that example.
Proverbs 28:5
5 אַנְשֵׁי־רָ֭ע לֹא־יָבִ֣ינוּ מִשְׁפָּ֑ט וּמְבַקְשֵׁ֥י יְ֝הוָ֗ה יָבִ֥ינוּ כֹֽל׃
Proverbs 28:4-5
4 Those who forsake the law praise the wicked,
But such as keep the law contend with them.
5 evil men do not understand justice,
But those who seek the LORD understand all.
Really??? Understand “ALL?”
The root “seek” is p.31 בקש seek the unknown;; CM target an object (B36).
First, a personal note, I would argue that for me, I have sought God my entire life, though sometimes it was by running from him, sometimes rebelling against him (acting out to find a response – see 2 Peter 3:9) and sometimes diligently reaching out to him. I have had my share of “cleansings” and “persecutions,” all well-deserved. And I come closer to understanding “a measure” of what justice is about (see the context), but I absolutely do not understand “ALL.”
This is why it is preposterous to say we are in “The New Covenant.” We may have begun our walk (p.59 הלך walk; progress step-by-step toward a goal;; CM move piecemeal (A61)) toward the New Covenant, but by no means have attained it. Why? This is the New Covenant:
Jeremiah 31:33-34
33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law (h8451. תּוֹרָה tôrâ) within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
This is the circumcised heart••• this is the New Covenant••• it is when we will all know the LORD intimately, with his h8451. תּוֹרָה tôrâ, teaching, upon our heart, and I will no longer need to write such as what I write.
So, circling back around to the Gradational Variant family of כל, I challenge you to consider, the next time you are reading Scripture or in a discussion about Scripture, on a point you have strong feelings about, pause (that sabbath moment, p.254 שבת curtail activity before completion), question your “assumptive reasoning,” and ask yourself whether what God’s Word means is “ALL,” or might it mean some other member of the family? Especially, perhaps containing a measured quantity. God is a God of “measured response.” That is God’s nature, as seen here in 2 Peter 3:9 and Proverbs 28:4-5.
GV p.119 כלל complete [by including everything]; p.118 כלה strive [to attain]; p.118 כלאrestrain [prevent]; p.116 כול contain [a measured quantity]; p.104 יכל prevail; p.156 נכל plot [harm; endanger through veiled acts]
DV p.9 אכל – p.119 כלל complete [by including everything]; p.118 כלה strive [to attain] > p.9 אכל consume
CM כלל encircle (C26); כלה and כלא contain/expose (C25); כול express control (C5); יכל(none listed); נכל (none listed); אכל move directly/circularly (A11)
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