Jeremiah 31:25: “For I satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

When you look at this verse in the Hebrew you will find that a satiated weary soul and the replenished sorrowful soul mean the same thing.  The word sorrowful is da’av which is a melting or to pine away. As pointed out in an earlier study weary soul is a picture of drying out or leaving the soul in need of being filled.  The second part of this verse is a picture of a soul melting and needing to be replenished or filled. It is the same thing being said with different words but both meaning that a soul which is empty is filled with God.

Of course this is Hebrew poetry and we all know that one discipline of Hebrew poetry is to say the same thing two different ways.  But I have to ask: “For what purpose?”  Poetry yes, but why waste words repeating yourself.  After all I would expect the master and creator of the universe to have a lot to say and to fill his book with a lot of excessive words to make it sound pretty seems like a waste of time to me. It would be like picking up an auto repair manual and reading: “As a tree gently cradles a nest of leaves in its arms so does the McPherson strut cradle the main frame of the automobile. I mean I want to know how to replace the strut, not how pretty it is.

Sure I know the Bible is a love letter from God and you would expect some poetry and other mushy stuff like that you would put in a love letter. Still, I have a broken down life and I need a set of guidelines and instructions in helping us understand Him and He expects to repair this broken down mess. I mean when Congress passes a law it takes a volumes of books that can stand six feet tall to explain the law. Here we have the God of the universe giving us His instructions in a book in repairing our lives and it is shorter than the repair manual for my Ford Focus filled with a lot of flowery poetry. To be sure, if you take all the books man has written about certain aspects of the Bible, say the Lord’s Prayer, you could fill a warehouse. Even at that it is only man trying to explain a few sentences of the Bible.

I guess my point is this. Either God was putting together a pretty little book in which He hoped would to win a Pulitzer Prize or the book is some sort of TARDIS. I am sure you Dr. Who fans know what I am talking about when I reference The TARDIS. TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space and it is the space craft/time machine that Dr. Who travels in. The outside looks like a 4’X4’ police call box, but when you go inside you find yourself in a starship larger than an aircraft carrier.

So too with God’s Word, it is a book about the size of a Charles Dickens novel and on the outside carries as much information as a Charles Dickens novel and sometimes less interesting than a Charles Dickens novel. I mean getting through all those begats, numbers and all its symbolism can be about as exasperating as following all of Dickens’ subplots. Most Christians are content to just walk around examining the Bible’s exterior and picking out a few interesting verses to commit to memory, never realizing that they are viewing a TARDIS, a book with information that could fill the Library of Congress and more. When you really begin to open the door to the Word of God you will find that little book is filled with warehouse after warehouses of information.

Jeremiah 31:25 is like a TARDIS. Sure you have poetry and here is a good example of Hebrew poetry which uses a repetition of the same thought by using different words.  But beneath this pretty flower is a network of roots running underground that runs almost endless.

The other day you read about a little journey I took into the interior of this TARDIS by going beyond my Daleth with the words: “For I have saturated the weary soul,” which on the outside is telling us that God will fill an empty soul.  Now I would like to look at the same thought repeated with the words: “I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” Replenish is the word mala’ which means to fill and is in a piel form which really means to fill to overflowing. As indicated earlier the word sorrowful is da’ay which has the idea of melting or pining away.  Whatever the soul is losing God is filling it with something.  What is he filling it with? The word for filling tells us – mala’.   Mala’s is spelled Mem, Lamed and Aleph. The Mem is a picture of the sea filled with many mysteries beneath.  God will fill us with the Mem or his revealed knowledge. He will not only fill us with His revealed knowledge, He will Lamed it as well or teach it to us. And what is this deep knowledge that he will fill us with and teach to us? It is the Aleph or the knowledge of Himself.

You see we have only looked at the outside of the TARDIS where we see just a simple call box. We have not yet really gone inside the Word of God and saw the starship with its many rooms filled to capacity with the knowledge of God. You may feel you have a soul that is melting away or another way to express it is that all your knowledge and understanding is failing you. You may find yourself in a situation where your own understanding to find a resolution to your problems is failing you, and then your soul is becoming empty. However, God is ready to fill that emptiness in your soul with knowledge from his TARDIS that will fill you to overflowing.

I recently saw a documentary on a rain forest. The narrator said that everything in the rain forest is alive. You pick up a handful of dirt and it is crawling with life.  So like the Word of God.  Every word, every letter is alive. You pick up a word like begat and it too is crawling with life. Put it under a microscope, examine each letter and you will see life and more life.