HEBREW WORD STUDY – MOANING IN SADDNESS – ZA’AM – זעם  Zayin Ayin Mem

Psalms 7:11-12: “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry [with the wicked] every day. (12) If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.”

OMG!  Did you read this?  God is angry every day and He is locked and ready to kill off the unrighteous. Can you imagine, a day has not gone by in 4,000 years that God has not been angry.  Wow!  That is one bitter God.  “Oh” you say, “We live in New Testament times, God has now changed his attitude toward mankind.”  Oh yeah, what about Hebrew 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Or Malachi 3:6:  “For I [am] the LORD, I change not;” 

Sounds to me like God has not mellowed out over time. I don’t know about you but reading the Bible in our English translations makes it sound as if God is too busy with his anger, wrath and rage to love us. 

Let me tell you, I have studied the Old Testament in Hebrew for 45 years every day and God being angry every day – I am not buying into it.  Maybe church leaders have an agenda to teach an angry God to keep people in line, coming to church and tithing but I am not a church leader. If I were a pastor (and I was) I would likely hang on to this teaching of an angry God. However, I am not is a leadership position is a church so I have no such agenda and I am free to translate according to my own heart and love for God. I just cannot accept the fact that the God I have come to know and love is sitting on a throne in heaven stewing on his anger every day.

As you can see the KJV says God is angry and the translators put a little commentary in there saying He is angry “with the wicked.”  The words “with the wicked” are not in the text, it simply says He judges the righteous and He is angry every day. Let me point out this one thing, there is no word in Hebrew for anger.  There are a number of words that can be translated as anger, let’s see there is ca’as, aneph, rogazah, hitaratachot, chama, qetsiphah, leqntar, and about 10 other words in the Hebrew rendered as anger. This does not even include the words for wrath and rage.

Yet, anger is a very complex emotion.  If a woman finds out her husband has been cheating on her she is angry.  We hear the English word anger and we think of rage, irrational behavior or a threat of violence.  How would you describe the anger of a woman who has been betrayed by her husband? There is hurt, sorrow, fear, unfulfilled desire, rejection, abandonment.  But we wrap it up all in one word, anger.  The Hebrews did not do this, they had a word for each emotion that is built into anger, rather than consider the basic emotional context of the anger, translators just go with the English word anger. 

So, what is the emotion that is used in Psalms 7:11?  It is the word za’am.  You look it up in your lexicon and it will say anger or rage. If you trace this word to its Semitic root it is used for the roar of a camel. If you are not familiar with camels you would interpret their roar as anger.  I have been doing a lot of reading on camels and I suspect lexicographers either did not have our modern knowledge of camels or just went with their impression of camels.

For instance, I learned that camels do not roar, they moan and groan. You moan and groan when you are not happy with the way things are going, it doesn’t mean you are angry, just disappointed and filled with sorrow.  One researcher I read said that camels were really very sweet animals. She often went to sleep with her camel laying its head on her lap moaning and groaning.  Camels will moan and groan when alerted to danger.  In fact this one writer says that camels do not get angry, they just get even.  The writer told the story of a tourist traveling with a caravan for adventure sake.  He started to mistreat and abuse one of the camels. The camel fussed but really did not do much.  However, that night the camel came over to the tourist, broke his arm and then went back to his spot, laid down and went back to sleep.  The tourist had to be medevac’d out of the desert.

Why do we have to say that God is angry?  I say every day He lives He is not angry but filled with the hurt of man’s sin. God is pictured as moaning and groaning over the sins of the unrighteous. So what about verse 12 where God is sharpening His sword and bending his bow if the unrighteous do not repent?  

To Be Continued: