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Disclaimer: I apologize for the meandering nature of this post. But as G-d is so uncontainable, I found it difficult to condense and contain these ideas into a neat package but hope this wandering is thought-provoking…
I know the verse:
Deuteronomy 9:10 Then the LORD delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. (NKJV)
and so I assumed that literally the 10 Commandments were “written by the finger of G-d.” But Ad-nai is a consuming Fire…
Deuteronomy 5:24-25 And you said: ‘Surely the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man; yet he still lives. Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God anymore, then we shall die. (NKJV)
Hebrews 12:28-29 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. (NKJV)
and the Hebrews literally saw that fire many times:
Exodus 20:18-19 And all the people are seeing the voices, and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mount smoking; and the people see, and move, and stand afar off, and say unto Moses, ‘Speak thou with us, and we hear, and let not God speak with us, lest we die.’(JPS)
Did you ever notice that the people are “seeing voices”? Here’s a more literal translation:
Exodus 20:18-19 And all the people saw6 the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw4 [it], they removed,4 and stood4 afar off. (KJV with links to Hebrew words and meaning)
Thunderings = voices; lightning= flames. If we read this account as merely words talking about some historic event or even worse, if we question that this event actually happened, we are missing the awesomeness of G-d. If the Bible is Truth, the details of this event Truly happened, as impossible as they may seem. But back to fire…this verse amazed me:
Psalms 29:7 The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire. (NKJV)
or a more closer translation…
Psalm 29:7 The voice of HaShem heweth out flames of fire. (JPS)
The word hew in Hebrew is chatsab חֹצֵב which means to cut, carve, hew…divide, which the KJV uses. Jewish tradition teaches that, one by one, the commandments were written by flame as the people said “yes we will obey.” So could it be that Ad-nai wrote the Commandments with flames of fire, carving His Word into stone, preparing to lovingly sear His Word in our hearts (Jer 31:33),and He does so as we receive what He gives us? Makes G-d-sense to me!
Jeremiah 31:33 “‘This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.’”
I wonder if the word division in Hebrews 4:12, had it been written in Hebrew, would be chatsab?
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (NKJV)
This Hebrew translation of the Brit Chadashah uses chatsab in Hebrews 4:12.
By the way, the 10 Commandments are just a shortened version of the Torah and the Torah is the Word and the Word is Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah. So to really encapsulate the ideas in this post: Yeshua is a consuming fire that dwells in our hearts causing us to be like Him to show His Glory.
This is the prayer of my heart and it’s a beautiful song. I don’t recall Chris Sligh on American Idol Season 6 but I thought that was pretty cool. He has a great voice. Baruch Hashem!
Guitar Tabs for Empty Me–only one worth trying that I could find.
Chodesh Tov!
Because the meanings within the Hebrew language are multi-layered, familiarity with even a little Hebrew can deepen our understanding of G-d’s Word. Since we’ve just walked through a number of Ad-nai’s festivals, here’s a perfect example of G-d’s love, beauty and Truth inherent in the language that gets lost in English translation: “Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years’” (Genesis 1:14 NKJV).
The Hebrew word for seasons is Moadim מוֹעֲדִים which means appointed or set times, as in “let us celebrate the moadim,” “let us celebrate the appointed times.” What’s the big deal? “Seasons” are equated with 12 months broken into 4 parts (summer, winter, spring, and fall), not specifically “set times,” which Ad-nai details in Leviticus 23 and all throughout Scripture.
In the beginning, G-d said…everything we need to know, but unfortunately so much Truth has been forgotten, hidden, or twisted by the world. But Ad-nai is revealing what has been hidden for so long that we would be prepared for this: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24, NJKV).
Like the Torah, the Living Word, the Hebrew language is a living language, the only truly living language. And though Hebrew lay dormant for centuries when it was only spoken by a small number of religious Jews, it has re-emerged as a vibrant, breathing, powerful language that Ad-nai is drawing out from within His people to glorify Himself. Learning Hebrew is not just about words and letters. Like everything else Ad-nai has created, it’s really about His Amazing love and the little gifts He graces us with, some wrapped in jots & tittles (Matthew 5:18), gifts of Himself.
Here’s a side by side Hebrew/Engish Bible site.
The Hebrew Alephbet consists of 22 letters, all consonants. Most of these letters sound like the letter name. For example, the letter Mem מ is pronounced like an M, as in Moadim, which means appointed times. Of these 22 consonants, there are 2 silent letters that can take on different sounds, mainly for vowels. Vowel markers, small symbols near a letter, are also added for clarity in some Hebrew writing. Hebrew is read from right to left, which takes a little time to get used to. But when thinking about learning Hebrew, realize just like Torah, we are not in a race to acquire head knowledge; we are in a process of spiritual growth, allowing Ad-nai to birth within us what He has for each of us, each part of the body.
The name AlephBet comes from the first two letters of Hebrew: Aleph and Beit, similar to the English AlphaBet based on the first two Latin letters, Alpha and Beta. But that is one of the very few similarities to English because Hebrew has so many more levels of meaning compared to the English language. To some degree we can describe Hebrew much like we describe Ad-nai: simple yet amazingly and beautifully complex. For example, our letter B has no meaning aside from the fact that it sounds like “bee.” In Hebrew every letter has its own meaning(s), which then combines with other letters to make up the meaning of a word or phrase. Confusing? Here’s an example: El is a simple name for G-d. In Hebrew it is spelled אל - the letters Aleph Lamed. Ancient Hebrew letters were written as pictures based on the meaning of the letter. Aleph looks like the head of a bull 
– representing strength, and is often said to represent G-d. Lamed 
looks like a staff. And so when you say the “little” word El, realize you are saying something very “big” – The L-rd is my Shepherd!
Hebrew4Christians is a great site to begin to learn Hebrew.
I began to learn Hebrew around October 2007 and have been shocked at how much I’ve gotten out of the time I’ve spent. If Hebrew, (hearing it, speaking it or just seeing it in print) somehow stirs your spirit, give it a try. I truly believe that as we expectantly enter into this holy language, it’s not so much that we are “putting in” something new, but that which our spirit already knows is “rising up,” reviving that heavenly language from dormancy. Just as the Torah is being written on our hearts, (has already been written on our hearts in G-d’s time), this ancient language has been written on our hearts as well. So as the Torah, the written Word, becomes Flesh…the Hebrew letters of that Word can become Flesh within us and begin to enter our spiritual understanding.
Here’s one example of the benefit of beginning to understand Hebrew: adam (אדָם < read from right to left) means man or mankind. It is spelled א (Ah) represents G-d and דָם (dam) means blood. So adam means G-d’s blood…there’s so much more to this but that’s just a little taste of the treasures you will find if you begin to study this Holy language.
I woke up at 5 am–which would be a fine time to get up if I hadn’t been so tired lately–and instead of telling myself to fall back to sleep for an hour, I allowed my mind to wander…big mistake since I just laid there wandering through situations and plans…And that got me thinking that the only time we turn our thinking completely off is when we are asleep. In sleep, we are finally as G-d wants us to be: resting, at peace, trusting that He will awaken us and allow us to live another day. During sleep we are completely unaware of ourselves–just as He desires us to be.
So if we can rest and be unware of ourselves while sleeping, in our waking hours we should strive for that same unwareness of self: not caring what people think, but only caring about what He thinks; not worrying about what we need to do, but trusting in Him to provide; not planning every move we will make, but listening to Him to direct our every step.
The more unaware of the self that we become, the more aware we will be of the awesomeness of Ad-nai and maybe we will be in a position to hear and obey what He is saying.
