HEBREW WORD STUDY – MEDITATE

HEBREW WORD STUDY – MEDITATE – HAGAD – הגד  

Psalms 1:2:  “But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

The vast majority of Christian Modern English translations of the Bible will render the word Torah as law. Yet, many Jewish rabbis choose to render Torah as instructions or teachings. In our modern 21^st Century understanding of the English language the English word teaching or instruction is really more accurate than law. Law conjures up the idea of courts, police officers with billy clubs enforcing the law.  Teaching and instruction creates the picture of classrooms where one learns about life  and the way the world functions.  Failure to follow the law ends up with punishment.  Failure to follow instructions and teachings ends up in – well just failure. 

The Psalmist tells us that a man of God delights in the instructions or teachings of the Lord and why not?  Who is better at teaching us to navigate the storms of life better than the one who created life and the storms to begin with.  I delight or chapats in the instructions of God so much that I spend a minimum of three to four hours a day meditating on the teachings and instructions of God. 

I was reading something very interesting in Jewish literature this morning.  Chapats which we understand from our Christian lexicons and Bible dictionaries means to delight or find pleasure in has a much broader meaning.  Jewish linguist see chapats as related to the word chapash which means to seek. Chapats is a much stronger form of chapash and denotes the goal and the striving for it.   Only in the teachings of God can man find his goal and strive for it.  

In other words God sets out the goals each person He creates.  He has created you with the gifts and talents to obtain a certain goal.  Only in the study of His instructions and teachings can you learn this goal and only through His instructions and teachings can you strive for this goal. That is why the Torah is so important to the Jewish life and thought.

So it is on this instruction that we mediate day and night.  The word meditation is very interesting in Hebrew, it is the word hagad which means to moan, growl or make a noise. Isaiah 38:14 uses the expression ‘ehagad kiyonah, to moan like a dove.  Rabbi Samson Hirsch the linguist and Hebrew master explains that hagad is that active thinking which demands  expression.  When I hear my pet doves Jonah and Shekinah coo it is as if they are in thoughtful study and are expressing these thoughts verbally.  When I study the word of God I tend to give quite, yet verbal, thoughtful expressions like “Yes,” “Wow!” and other suchlike exclamations when I happen upon some deeper understanding of God’s instructions for me. 

When we hagad or study – meditate on the word of God to such a degree that it creates a wow factor from us, then we are indeed delighting in the instructions of God  and desire to hagad meditate on it day and night.