A life lesson and a lesson on the language שׂפה. Some background before more on Genesis 2. I searched on the word “steady.” There is not just a single Hebrew word translated as steady:
- This search for English “steady” was done in ESV – might be different in your English translation.
⦁ Psalms 112:6-8
6 For the righteous will never be moved;
he will be remembered forever.
7 He is not afraid of bad news;
his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.
8 His heart is steady (h5564. סָמַךְ sâmaḵ); he will not be afraid,
until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.
⦁ Psalms 112:8
8 סָמ֣וּךְ לִ֭בּוֹ לֹ֣א יִירָ֑א עַ֖ד אֲשֶׁר־יִרְאֶ֣ה בְצָרָֽיו׃
▸ BDB סמך
GLOSS qal: lay; support; rest; niphal: support oneself; piel: refresh
PARSING Hebrew, verb, qal, passive participle, masculine, singular, absolute
CODE@vqsmsa
- Thus would be “being supported.”
▸ Strongs h5564. סָמַךְ sâmaḵ; a primitive root; to prop (literally or figuratively); reflexively, to lean upon or take hold of (in a favorable or unfavorable sense): — bear up, establish, (up-)hold, lay, lean, lie hard, put, rest self, set self, stand fast, stay (self), sustain.
AV (48) – lay 18, uphold 9, put 5, lean 3, stay 3, sustained 3, holden up 1, borne up 1, established 1, stand fast 1, lieth hard 1, rested 1, set 1;
- to lean, lay, rest, support, put, uphold, lean upon
- (Qal)
- to lean or lay upon, rest upon, lean against
- to support, uphold, sustain
- (Niphal) to support or brace oneself
- (Piel) to sustain, refresh, revive
- (Qal)
⦁ Psalms 119:130-133
130 The unfolding of your words gives light;
it imparts understanding to the simple.
131 I open my mouth and pant,
because I long for your commandments.
132 Turn to me and be gracious to me,
as is your way with those who love your name.
133 Keep steady (h3559. כּוּן kûn) my steps according to your promise,
and let no iniquity get dominion over me.
⦁ Psalms 119:133
133 פְּ֭עָמַי הָכֵ֣ן בְּאִמְרָתֶ֑ךָ וְֽאַל־תַּשְׁלֶט־בִּ֥י כָל־אָֽוֶן׃
▸ BDB כון
GLOSS niphal: be firm, be established; endure; hiphil: establish; make firm; hophal: be established; polel: establish; polal: be established; hithpolel: be established
PARSING Hebrew, verb, hiphil, imperative, masculine, singular
CODE@vhvms
- Thus, our default for the most part being BDB, we would say “establish” or “make firm.”
▸ Strongs h3559. כּוּן kûn; a primitive root; properly, to be erect (i.e. stand perpendicular); hence (causatively) to set up, in a great variety of applications, whether literal (establish, fix, prepare, apply), or figurative (appoint, render sure, proper or prosperous): — certain(-ty), confirm, direct, faithfulness, fashion, fasten, firm, be fitted, be fixed, frame, be meet, ordain, order, perfect, (make) preparation, prepare (self), provide, make provision, (be, make) ready, right, set (aright, fast, forth), be stable, (e-)stablish, stand, tarry, x very deed.
AV (219) – prepare 85, establish 58, ready 17, stablish 5, provide 5, right 5, fixed 4, set 4, direct 3, order 3, fashion 3, variant 2, certain 2, confirmed 2, firm 2, preparation 2, misc 17;
- to be firm, be stable, be established
- (Niphal)
- to be set up, be established, be fixed
- to be firmly established
- to be established, be stable, be secure, be enduring 1
- to be fixed, be securely determined
- to be set up, be established, be fixed
- to be directed aright, be fixed aright, be steadfast (moral sense)
- to prepare, be ready
- to be prepared, be arranged, be settled
- (Niphal)
- (Hiphil)
- to establish, set up, accomplish, do, make firm
- to fix, make ready, prepare, provide, provide for, furnish
- to direct toward (moral sense)
- to arrange, order
- (Hophal)
- to be established, be fastened
- to be prepared, be ready
- (Polel)
- to set up, establish
- to constitute, make
- to fix
- to direct
- (Pulal) to be established, be prepared
- (Hithpolel) to be established, be restored
⦁ Exodus 17:11-13
11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady (h0530. אֱמוּנָה’emûnâ) until the going down of the sun. 13 And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.
⦁ Exodus 17:12
12 וִידֵ֤י מֹשֶׁה֙ כְּבֵדִ֔ים וַיִּקְחוּ־אֶ֛בֶן וַיָּשִׂ֥ימוּ תַחְתָּ֖יו וַיֵּ֣שֶׁב עָלֶ֑יהָ וְאַהֲרֹ֨ן
וְח֜וּר תָּֽמְכ֣וּ בְיָדָ֗יו מִזֶּ֤ה אֶחָד֙ וּמִזֶּ֣ה אֶחָ֔דוַיְהִ֥י יָדָ֛יו אֱמוּנָ֖ה עַד־בֹּ֥א הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ׃
▸ BDB אֱמוּנָה
GLOSS firmness; fidelity
PARSING Hebrew, noun, common, feminine, singular, absolute
CODE@ncfsa
- Thus we would say “firm” or “firm/steady” in translating here from BDB. But we have spoken many times of אמונה as “faithfulness.”
▸ Strongs h0530. אֱמוּנָה ’emûnâ; or (shortened) אֱמֻנָה ’emunah, em-oo-naw«’ feminine of 529; literally firmness; figuratively security; morally fidelity: — faith(-ful, -ly, -ness, (man)), set office, stability, steady, truly, truth, verily.
AV (49) – faithfulness 18, truth 13, faithfully 5, office 5, faithful 3, faith 1, stability 1, steady 1, truly 1, verily 1;
- firmness, fidelity, steadfastness, steadiness
- We spoke last time of your readiness to do some investigations on your own. I go through a bit more in the way of a stepwise process being used recently on the website, to help with your confidence, BUT with another important warning.
Just using one of the above as an example, סמך, I would look it up in EDBH
סמך p.172 support; be close;; complete (E46). And I would look to see if I had done a previous cognate permutations investigation for it. If not, I would move to do one.
Again, just using an example here, but one interesting root I would be led to on that investigation, considering the מ ↔︎ נ awareness, is נשק:
Where the cognate permutation investigations lead you is not to a specific definition, for the word itself סמך, has a specific definition. But how it helps is “in what sense of the word?” Thus, the spectrum along which we might be searching for “support; be close.” But, in the case of nouns, particularly what האדם was given permission to do, the nouns are not roots but still follow the rules listed by Clark and Hirsch for the roots, since letters have meanings. Similar letters/similar meanings (homorganic consonants).
In the present setting of Genesis 2, think of how primitive man might be being instructed and how names for things (nouns = persons, places, things, animals) might come about. (By the way, in English we tend to start with nouns and make verbs, like my example in Blog 147 Commentary on Techniques and Communication, “to WalMart. 🤣) We talked before about how the Hebrew roots are action verbs, and it is upon the roots that words are formed. I recommend going back to Post 03. Hebrew Thought if you have not read it in a while. So, the spectrum along which to consider a meaning of a noun in Scripture, based upon the cognate permutation meaning, puts you “playing in the right ballfield.” It allows you to know where to begin your meditations. ••• Recent rains have brought happiness to the fields. 😊
To continue with our example•••
In considering סמך and its cognate permutations, one might come up with the name of Chemosh כמוש, the primary god of the Moabites.
There is not a root כמש in EDBH. So, we want to consider this set of roots below and the cognate permutations meaning. I show below the work I did, but surely somewhere there is a library that has more refined techniques than mine. Anyway, to me this is one of the big ways in which intertextual themes are observed. (Very much looking forward to what Curwin has found).
So, in a previous presentation at the Yeshiva, we found this thread, in a larger discussion on Complacency. “Settled on his lees” is a wine allusion, an idiom for “complacency.”
And our previous work, together with the green box work above shows connections to two important ideas. First is Goshen גשן, the place where Israel was taken from Canaan during famine, and there multiplied greatly. BUT complacency there ended up leading to slavery. The other word in the title in the green box is ישן, which we will be discussing in more depth in Genesis 2, seen in verse 21 as “sleeps.” Again, this is complacency.
Remember, the idea is to look for thematic connections, something that puts you on the spectrum of strengthen/weaken and remembering that at the “weaken” end is complacency. We all tend to like our “support.” (Back to the nurturing/weaning spectrum שדי and גמל). ((Look at the BDB definition from above for סמך in this case qal: lay; support; rest. We are looking at the spectrum of “support,” and we have discussed before here, I believe, a book called “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. Like so many things in life it is about the “measure.” No support for others is harmful. Too much support for others is harmful (at some point we should return to the gleaning concept.)
I just want to go one step further here, thanks to this very wonderful gift, the AlHaTorah website. When I searched for כמש standing alone, there were no occurrences. But with prefixes and suffixes added, you see there are twelve results below. I will not go through all of them. You can certainly do the work yourself.
Here is the beginning of the כמש search with prefixes and suffixes.
⦁ Deuteronomy 34:10
10 But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
⦁ Deuteronomy 34:10
10 וְלֹֽא־קָ֨ם נָבִ֥יא עֹ֛וד בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל כְּמֹשֶׁ֑ה אֲשֶׁר֙ יְדָעֹ֣ו יְהוָ֔ה פָּנִ֖ים אֶל־פָּנִֽים׃
How do we intertextually connect these ideas, being “like Moses”
with Goshen, complacency, sleeping, Chemosh. I see a few ways,
but you may see others. I will not be exhaustive here, but some examples.
▶︎ The Israelites came out of Goshen, in Egypt. They kept yearning to go back, eventhough there were some slavery aspects:
⦁ Numbers 11:5-6
5 We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; 6 but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!”
⦁ Exodus 14:12
12 Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”
⦁ Numbers 21:5
5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”
- As an aside, the LORD does eventually give them their “stated wish:” Numbers 26:65
- 65 For the LORD had said of them, “They shall surely die in the wilderness.” So there was not left a man of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
▶︎ They came out worshipping Moses because he was the”god” that they could see.
These first two are background, helping to understand very much the desire for something/someone “visible” to be “as God.” People struggle with the idea of a God one cannot see.
⦁ Exodus 4:15-16
15 Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. 16 So he shall be your spokesman to the people. And he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God.
⦁ Exodus 7:1
1 So the LORD said to Moses: “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.
- With those as background, you may understand the people better:
⦁ Exodus 32:1
1 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us a god/gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
- Unfortunately, power like this tends to “go to one’s head,” and the words coming from Moses’s mouth reveal this. Moses was “complacent” about keeping humility as a focus (MOST important to God. Psalm51:17; Isaiah57:15 and 66:2 – contrite heart, contrite spirit.)
⦁ Numbers 20:10-12
10 And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.
12 Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”
- Moses has little faith in the people from his “high position” at that time, where he was “dwelling.”
⦁ Deuteronomy 31:29
29 For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands.”
⦁ Deuteronomy 32:49-52
49 “Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession; 50 and die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people; 51 because you trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, because you did not hallow Me in the midst of the children of Israel. 52 Yet you shall see the land before you, though you shall not go there, into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.”
- And Moses even blames the people for his mistake
⦁ Deuteronomy 3:23-26
23 “Then I pleaded with the LORD at that time, saying: 24 ‘O Lord GOD, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand, for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do anything like Your works and Your mighty deeds? 25 I pray, let me cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, those pleasant mountains, and Lebanon.’
26 “But the LORD was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me. So the LORD said to me: ‘Enough of that! Speak no more to Me of this matter.
- We see the same “blame game” being played in Genesis 3.
- And furthermore, because the LORD desired no “shrine” to this great man, the “servant of the LORD (יהוה),” no one knows his burial place. But see that he was in the land of complacency – the connection. And if you wanted to understand even more, you could do an exercise on “in a valley (in the form בגי*),” burial place קבורה**,” and “Beth Peor בית פעור***.”
⦁ Deuteronomy 34:5-6
5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. 6 And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave/burial place קבורה to this day.
* for example, see בגי “in a valley” as with בקק p.30 empty out;; pump out/hold back (B35) very interesting cognate permutation include גוי, as in “goy” the nations, “Gentiles,” cognate permutation meaning (make ready).
** קבורה includes בקר “morning” cognate permutation בקר p.30 distinguish differences;; free from control (B27) – בקר cognate permutations meaning (develop/forsake)
*** בית פעור obviously “Beth בית” is “house,” and we went through that huge investigation of “ב in,” which is the short form of בית. It is where you are currently “dwelling” – a physical representation of the unseen, the spirit and soul. The root פערEDBH p.204 open; expose;; expose; highlight (B1) – and hopefully you recognize several related roots, as עבר cross over to other dide; move to different condition, and אפר ashes and עפר dust, as examples. The cognate permutations meaning is (expand/contract activity).
- Moses had to be “reeled in” because he had gone beyond “established limits (see Blog 151. Establishing Limits).
All of this, like we have seen before in Blogs 126 and 136, are huge warnings to us, that we must see. We will work through it step by step, but the learning of the language שׂפה is not the issue. It is in learning how to apply the language שׂפה where we either succeed or fail. The number one reminder is to keep the LORD (יהוה) as #1, absolutely no other gods before him, including, and especially our own selves. Be of contrite heart! And the best way to demonstrate our contrition is ① ask God before acting (that’s called a prayer), ② wait for a response. The response is rarely immediate. One of the great tools of communication that God uses is to send another messenger/witness to help you see the answer.
Next time we hopefully will touch on “applying” the language, and we will see how we can fail. When we are given a gift as powerful as language, especially “the language שׂפה,” we must realize the first two rules of application , and why the introduction of שׂפה is talked about during the LORD’s “ceasing,” his שבת, Sabbath, as he was modeling it to us. שבת p.254 stop work; curtail activity before completion;; act surreptitiously/openly (E4) שבת cognate permutations (instill/purge). The two are tied together here. It is about “holding steady.” Remember seven, and why Judaism practices Sabbath/Shabbat on day the seventh שבת p.254 submit to God; complete;; control movement/action (E5). It is about timing. It is about allowing God his time before acting. This is done partly as a weekly reminder to be humble and submit their actions to God before completion.
Recognize please that שׂפה and שבע are cognates. Language, the “universal language,” and submitting to God.
Rule number one of “application” we generally do not follow, submitting to God; that requiring both asking of him and waiting for a response. We will see, when we do get to Genesis 3, that submitting to God was not followed there. Also, we will see a lack of patience in the training process. God “leaves” האדם in the garden for a time (Genesis2:15) again to reinforce proper timing. We must learn from what Scripture teaches. And that includes both the word and the deed. (See James 2:18 – our actions follow our faith. And our faith is shown in knowing that an answer will come when a question is posed. That is actually the demonstration of faith, to wait.) We must be able to hold steady. We know God’s support is there, in just the appropriate measure.
And••• we must not be too hard on our predecessors, as we are as they were. We like to curse the ones in the Garden, but would we have been any different? And, we must recall that the sting of failure is often the best teacher. Perhaps failure was all part of the plan for our learning the important lessons of submitting to God and awaiting his timing. If you look at that slide about Complacency above, perhaps you can see the point. If everything is always positive, we get “settled on our lees.” What happens then is we believe in ourselves as gods, that we are in control. Is is at that time the LORD must send “pourers,” we must be decanted, and even the vessel shattered. The sting is whence we best learn.
The “spectrum” upon which a word falls always involves a “measure,” and it is the measure of things upon which we need guidance. We must make choices. The best choices are under God’s guidance. If we choose of our own self-interest, our own idols, we may meet the “sting” to bring about necessary learning. Remember the two “measure” words we have looked at the most, דם and כל. Watch out for “excesses.”
We will see what our deeper dive brings. It is never too late for us to learn. We will go to the Hebrew root למד, to teach/to learn. (We looked at it before in Blog 100.)
Ⓒ Copyright, end of September 2023. Please cite if copying.