Jeremiah 23:23-24 “[Am] I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.”
This passage literally reads “I am a God that is from near.” The KJV renders the word for near which is miqarov as at hand which is only a 17th century KJV paraphrase which has taken on new meaning in our modern culture. Back in King James’s day the phrase at hand suggested something that was a part of you where today such an expression suggests it is like a tool that you have for ready us. The 17th century idea of at hand is more true to the Hebrew than our 21st century concept of at hand. Most translations will simply render miqarov as near. Putting the preposition Mem in front of the word qarov creates the idea of more than just being close by. The word qarov is often used for a blood relative. It is also used for an inward part, the heart, an actual part of your body. So God is not saying I am hanging around you, but He is saying, I am a part of you, I dwell inside of you, where you go I go. Orthodox Jews will wear a kippah or skull cap to remind themselves of Jeremiah 23:23 that they are always in the presence of God and whatever they do they do as unto God. Yesterday I spoke of how I imagine God hugging me. People call this make believe. I call it Jeremiah 23:23, He is not an imaginary friend to me, He is real and I do not question for a moment that He is hugging me when I picture it in my mind. No matter where I am at or what I am doing, I can pause and let my imagination create the picture of what is really taking place and that is God embracing me and when I do I feel his presence so much, sometimes I weep. I did not learn this from my Christian teachers, great as they are, I learned this from the people God chose to teach us this lesson. I learned this from studying Jewish literature as the Talmud, Mishnah, the Midrash and others.
But there is more here. Miqarov in Hebrew is grammatically a Pual Participle. A Pual will put this in a passive voice, an intensive passive voice. In an active voice the subject is the do-er or be-er where in the passive voice the do-er or be-er is being acted upon. This is why it is put in an interrogative or question form as God is comparing himself to local deities asking, “Am I just some local deity that is just in one spot or am I everywhere?”
However, putting this in a Pual form rather than a Niphal opens us up to a very subtle suggestion that we really cannot pick up in the English. You see gods in those days were local, sort of like precinct captains. You move to a new precinct or new country your got yourself a new god. Every country had their own gods. When people moved from country to country and took their gods with them their idea of that god sort of merged with the idea of the god in their new land taking on qualities of both gods. Sort of like in Haiti today where a Catholic priest can also be a voodoo priest as well, he just merged his beliefs in God Jehovah into that of voodooist. Oh, bad. Right? Do we not do the same thing in the Western world by merging our cultural religion, money and materialism, into our beliefs in God Jehovah? Do we not market God like a new diet supplement? Buy God and He will cure all your diseases, solve all your problems, and make you prosperous. People will buy the product, after all God comes cheap, just donate a few bucks. There is an old saying, “He who sells miracles will have the devil knocking at his door.” Yet that is our Western religion, we are selling miracles, either as a soap product to give a sixty year old the skin of a 20 year old or a god who will give you a new liver or lungs. Buy ‘em today.
That is why God created the Jewish people as the chosen people, that is why the Jews were commanded not to marry foreigners because God wanted to have a race of people who displayed his pure faith, not one that got mixed up with other gods into some sort of mish mosh of religion or natural culture. I mean culture cannot help but influence our faith. We walk into a church of Western architecture, play Western cultural music with spiritual messages, that is ok, but when we start mixing our state religion of materialism, competition, celebrity worship, prosperity, good old American values which are not God’s values into our faith in God, then we have crossed a line. That is why God has kept a people and a race to be a model for us. Yes, even if they have not accepted Jesus as their Messiah, they still represent the pure faith in God. I am talking about a God who doesn’t always rescue you in the natural world as seen in the Holocaust and the captivity of 740 BC, or a God who does not always give you peace as the siege of Jerusalem under Sennachrib 700BC and the siege of Israel in 2014 by Hamas. Who wants a God like that, He sure would not sell in the United States. Yet, before the IDF soldiers ever go into battle, there is a rabbi who leads them into prayer. We are not supposed to do that with our armies as Muslims soldiers, Buddhist soldiers Atheist soldiers would be offended. However, Israel believes in one God, the true God, they were chosen to display the true God who crosses all cultural barriers, who is not a product of one’s culture. He is not a God of wealth, although He can make you prosperous for His purpose. He has made Israel rich enough to pay $40,000 for a missile to shoot down an $800 rocket. Not that he does not heal for he healed a barren land and made it blossom like a rose. In fact it is this land, this people that God sent His Messiah, His very Son to bring us Salvation.
I have often been criticized for spending so much time studying Talmud, the Mishnah, the Midrash and other Jewish works when I should be studying Scofield and other Christians writers. Hey, I love the works of C.S. Lewis, Bonhoeffer and even D.L. Moody. But I taught speed reading in College and I can afford the time to study the works of Jewish scholars as well for it is in the works of Jewish literature, which I admit are not inspired, but they do teach me the true heart and soul of the inspired Word of God. I am not Jewish so I do not wear a kippah (skull cap) but I do wear a baseball cap at all times to accomplish this and often in difficult times I reach up and touch my baseball cap and sometimes I almost weep being reminded that even in that circumstance I am still in the presence of God, something I learned from Jewish literature.
The enemy wants to destroy the Jewish people and their nation because it reminds the world that He is a God that is not a national god, a cultural, or a political god but that He is the God who created the entire world and everyone in it and even sent his very Son through this Jewish, chosen race of people to be the Savior of the world. It is not Hamas attacking Israel it is the very enemy himself who wants to destroy this nation that was created to show us the true, loving, forgiving and longing nature of God.
THERE IS AN APP CALLED RED ALERT-ISRAEL. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO DOWNLOAD IT FOR WE ARE COMMANDED TO PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM. EVERYTIME THE NATION COMES UNDER ROCKET ATTACK THIS APP WILL SEND AN AUDIBLE ALERT IN REAL TIME TO REMIND YOU TO PRAY FOR THESE PEOPLE AND THIS NATION THAT GAVES US OUR SAVIOR AND OUR BIBLE AND WERE CHOSEN TO TEACH US ABOUT THE HEART OF GOD.
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