HEBREW WORD STUDY – GOD CARESSING US – RACHAM – רחם  Resh Cheth Mem

Psalms 25:6: “Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they [have been] ever of old.”

If you see the Hebrew word chasad in a Bible verse it will most likely be translated as mercy. So then why do the translators render chasad here as lovingkindness? Simple answer: because they already rendered racham as mercies and of they rendered the verse as “Remember, O lord thy tender mercies and thy mercies…” well, that just gets monotonous. Yet, our lexicographers would have us believe that racham and chasad means pretty much the same thing except racham is a tender type mercy.

We can assume that tender mercies are much better than just plan old mercy so why not stop with just tender mercies?  If God is showing us tender mercies it stands to reason that plain old mercy, chasad is wrapped up in racham. But then why would God put the two mercies in this verse if racham and chasad mean the same thing with one being a little more tender than the other and what the blazes does it mean for mercy to be tender for crying out loud?

So translators just render mercy – chasad as lovingkindness so you don’t have a redundancy.  I say baloney.  I have spent years researching racham in various Semitic languages and I find that mercy is just one small part of racham and not even worth mentioning since you already have a perfectly good word for mercy – chasad.  Sure, racham can mean mercy but it means so, so much more.  Some translations will say compassions.  Well, that is close, but no cigar.  “Then,” you say, “What is the correct English word for racham?”  The answer is simple, there is no English word for racham.  We can only describe it, but we have no English word for it.  Rod McKuen, the pop poet of the mid 20^th century would call it the sun, a motif he used to describe a love that is indescribable.  Something you can only feel but not describe.  

Racham means love but since we already have a perfectly good word for love in Hebrew ahav, why do we do with another word.  I mean ‘ahav goes the limit.  The Septuagint uses the Greek word agape, unconditional love for ahav, you certainly can’t do better than that, can you?  Well, God can.  You see racham is used only for God loving us in the Bible except for one place in Psalms 18:1 where David says: “I love you, Lord” and uses the word racham. Only when David uses it the word is in a Qal simple verbal form. Always when God uses racham to express His love for us it is in a Piel intensive form.  In other words the ultimate love we can feel and if we feel it for God, God just one ups it for His love for us. 

I’ve described in past studies the many expressions of racham. It is ultimately a word for womb. It expresses the love a mother has for a child while in the womb and immediately after birth. It  is the love a mother feels when that baby is placed in her arms for the first time. 

Yesterday, one of my students on our All Access Site shared another dimension of racham with me that I never considered. Although it does appear in some lexicons, it is just their choice of the word that caused me to pass it over.  The word is fondle. The idea of God fondling us just sounds too creepy so I never ran with that rendering.  However, my student pointed this out to me the same day I was researching the Weekly Torah Portion called Re’eh.  In this study we have Deuteronomy 12:5 “But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go,”  What I found interesting is that I read the word habitation or dwelling which is shachan as an infinitive construct because of the prefixed Lamed and the Masoretic pointing. But when I read this in Jewish literature I found the Jewish rabbis ignored the Masoretic text and read shachan as an infinitive absolute. This would really make more sense than if we read it as an infinitive construct. As a construct it would suggest the Lord or his presence would dwell only in the Holy of Holies and no where else.  The Bible clearly states that God encompasses the entire world, Psalms 139:7-12.  Thus shachan should be read like the rabbis read it as an infinitive absolute which would suggest that this dwelling place of God’s presence is a special presence, a unique presence found only in the Holy of Holies. So what is the unique presence of God?  I mean is there a difference between the presence of God that you feel in your daily walk with Him as opposed to when you worship Him?  

I believe that is where this I would give consideration to the rendering of racham as fondling. I don’t like the English word fondling, it is just too creepy, suggesting sexual harassment.  That word fondle has taken a very negative idea in the English in the last 50 years.  We need to upgrade it to something that is more politically correct in 21^st Century English.  We need to upgrade it to a word like caressing.  Ah, now that fits.  

I have a friend who is a nurse tell me that if a baby is not held and caressed, it will grow up mentally disturbed or even die.  You can feed it, change its diaper and meet all its physical needs but if not lovingly caressed, racham, it will perish.  The people of Israel had to visit the temple three times a year, they did so to worship God in a special way, but in that worship they felt something more to the presence of God, they felt His racham, His caress. 

The presence of God is with us all the time, but when we worship God, it is a special presence that we experience, it is racham, it is God caressing us.  You see, it is us that needs to worship God more than God needs the worship and praise. God’s only need for worship is the opportunity to love us, to racham, to caress us.  But that is just a need God has, that is why He created us.  We, however, need His caress for like a little baby, without it we will die, that is die spiritually.  

We need to worship God much more than He needs our worship, for without we will spiritual perish.