HEBREW WORD STUDY – HIDING – SATHAM סתמ
Deuteronomy 31:18: “And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.”
There is a story told by Abraham Heschel a Jewish philosopher about a Rabbi Dov Baer who was walking on a street accompanied by his disciples and saw a little girl hiding in an alcove, weeping. “Why are you crying, little girl?” asked the rabbi. She replied: “I was playing hide-and-seek with my friends, but they didn’t come looking for me!” Rabbi Dov Baer sighed and said to his students, “In the answer and the tears of that little girl I heard the weeping of the Shekhinah, ‘and I will surely hide my face.” I, God, have hidden Myself too, as it were, but no one comes to look for me.”
God is not hiding his face so as to punish his people for their evils, he is hiding his face because their evils have cause Him such grief, that he must turn away to weep. Their evil is having turned to other gods. God was not good enough us so we turn to other gods to meet our needs, we commit spiritual adultery and give ourselves to other gods to meet their needs and like a rejected lover, God suffers such hurt that he weeps.
If you look at this verse in the Hebrew you will find the word hide is repeated twice. Actually, the first time the word hide is written it is written as an infinitive. In Hebrew, one way to communicate the intensity of a verb is to precede the verb with its own infinitive. Thus our English translations will render this as “surely hide.” But a literal reading of this really speaks of twice hiding.
Certain sages suggest that this means that the hiding is itself hidden. In the first hiding, God has hidden Himself like the little girl playing hide and seek. When we miss his presence we will come searching for Him. As David said in Psalms 30:8 “When you hide yourself, I was terrified.” Like the little girl playing hide-and-seek, she anticipated her friends finding her and experiencing the joy of their reunion. But when her friends did not seek her, she remained hidden in her hiding. She remained hidden for another reason, so she could weep over the rejection from her friends. So too, when God is forced to remove His presence from us because of sin and we do not search for him, this rejection will cause such grief to God that he will hide in His hiding so He may weep.
The word hide is satham which means to conceal or to keep secret. The word is spelled Samek, Taw, Final Mem. The Samek in this word would suggest that this concealment or keeping secret is meant for protection or shelter. God is hiding his presence to protect Himself from the next letter which is a Taw. The Taw’s shadow is avoiding the risk of intimacy. His intimacy involves the Final Mem which are His hidden secrets. We are well aware of the pain of being intimate with someone and then having that person draw away from us. But it is even more painful when you have shared your deep hidden secrets with that person and then to have that person draw away from you.
If we are made in God’s image, would not God feel the same pain we do by being intimate with us and sharing his hidden secrets with us. Then when we draw away from Him, in His grief He will, Deuteronomy 31:18, hide his face or presence from us. If we do not seek his presence again He will surely hide or hide His hiddenness so that He may weep over His broken heart.
CHAIM & LAURA
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