HEBREW WORD STUDY- IT BELONGS TO THE NAME – YIHI SHEM – יהי שׁמ  

Job 1:21: “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

“Rock, “ he said: “Sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper.”  Pat O’Brien – Knute Rockne All American

Yesterday I thought my computer crashed and that I lost my life’s work. One of the verses I was studying at the time was Job 1:21 so I repeated after Job baruch hashem “blessed by His Name.”  Only, surprise, when I got my laptop online I found that Job did not say “baruch hashem.” What Job said was “yihi shem YHWH meborake” which literally means: “it shall be named Jehovah from a blessing.”

Now I had to meditate on this quite a while as the syntax needs a lot of work. There are various renderings which could be grammatically appropriate. Again, as in many cases in Hebrew with the syntax is up is up for debate. I could render this as: “It will be a for Jehovah’s name.” You could also say: “It is a blessing from the name of Jehovah.”   Using a modern idiom one could say: “Let Jehovah be Jehovah.”     

The word yihi – it will be, however, has other renderings. Yihi shows possession or existence.  After all, yihi comes from the same root as the name Jehovah (YHWH).  I could render this as “It exists for the name of the Jehovah.”  However, I would choose the rendering: “It is from a blessing that belongs to the name of Jehovah.”  Better yet, how about:  “The Lord gives and takes (because it’s a blessing) that belongs to the name of Jehovah.”  The word shem or name means one’s reputation and purpose. If it is for God’s purpose then it is a blessing to Him. I mean God has been pretty generous in blessing us, why not allow Him to have a blessing once in a while?

But say, let’s step back to the prior phrase: “Jehovah gives and Jehovah takes…”    The word give is nathan which is in a simple Qal future tense. The word take is lakach which is in a Qal past tense. Lakach means to take, seize, or capture.  However, as a Qal it would not be as forceful as to seize or capture but would be more of a polite request to return something The use of the Qal form would suggest that when the Lord takes He is doing it knowing that you would like to hang onto to whatever it is but that you are also willing to voluntarily return it whenever He should request it.  

But let’s look at the tenses. Give is in a future tense and take is in a past tense.  Isn’t that a little backward?  I would think the word give would be in the past – “What the Lord has given,” and “take would be in the future; “He will take.” However, that is not the case and this should be rendered: “Whatever the Lord will give, He has already taken away.”   Take that to bed with you tonight, because He has already given notice that He may reclaim your bed at any time. He can reclaim what is His and He does not offer a lease to purchase agreement. Just be grateful you’ve got your head because, after reading the latest issue of Voice of the Martyrs I believe God owns that as well.

As I draw closer to the heart of God I am finding myself asking God less and less for what I want and more and more asking Him if He wants me to return anything He has given me. Lately, I have been returning a lot of things to Him and all I seem to get in return is Jesus. But, I’m ok with that, as in the words of that song I heard on YouTube by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir: “He Is More Than Enough.”