HEBREW WORD STUDY – JESHURUN – YSEHURUN – ישׁרונ
Deuteronomy 32:15: “But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Thou are waxen fat and thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness, then he forsook God which made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.”
“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might have been!” John Greenleaf Whittier:
In the Jewish work Genesis Rabbah 77:1 we find that the word Jeshurun is a reference to the noblest and best among you. The word itself comes from the root word yashar which means to be upright or righteous. It represents someone or certain people who are chosen by God, given special favor by God to accomplish something for Him. Actually, I think that takes in all believers. Do you ever get that feeling that God has given you special favor, that He has endowed you with a something special from the Holy Spirit to carry out some special task? You should, because He has. I Peter 2:5 talks of the priesthood of all believers. You and I fit the bill or definition of a Jeshurun.
I know, some of us can be a pretty sorry excuse for a Jeshurun. This morning I was reading about the persecutions of early Christians in Rome. An artist drew a picture of a group of Christians, young people, in the Roman Colosseum about to be attacked by lions. As I stared at this picture I pondered my early years where I focused on the blessings of God for my own selfish purposes. I wondered how different my life would be today had I been that dedicated to pursuing my love for God and not blessings for myself.
My father grew up on a farm. He used to say that a well-fed cow will grow insolent and rebellious and will end up kicking you if you are not careful. The cow becomes spoiled and demanding. That appears to be the idea behind this verse. We can grow fat and lazy with God’s blessings and then when he removes one, we begin to whine and kick.
C.S. Lewis described how parents will dote on a newborn baby and give it everything it wants. But when it grows older, much of that attention ceases as that child must learn to find its way. So too as new Christians we probably felt we found a genie in a bottle who granted our every prayer request. As we grow older in our relationship with God, however, that attention from God may not seem as intense. Perhaps God is saying: “It is time to look beyond yourself and see a world out there that is in need.” We get so use to God’s constant attention we start to become like the fat old cows and start kicking when we are not getting that immediate response from God. We become too attached to the blessings of God rather than to God Himself.
When you examine this passage very carefully you notice from its syntax something really wonderful. God is addressing these fat old cows as Jeshurun. Even though we allow ourselves to become fat old cows, kicking and screaming when we are forced out of our comfort zone, God still calls us His Jeshurun, His righteous, noble and best. We are still His poopsie doll. He may no longer be the celestial genie where our wish is His command. But he does become our heavenly Father, one with whom we have a love relationship and not a give me relationship.
Sometimes God has to put us fat old cows on a diet where we lose a few pounds of blessings so we can appreciate the Rock of our Salvation.
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