HEBREW WORD STUDY – HEDGE – SAKATH – tks Samek Kap Taw
Job 1:9-10: “Then Satan answered the Lord and said: Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou made a hedge about him, and about his house and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blest the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land.”
The form used here for the word hedge is very unusual. It is found here as sakath. There are two possible root words which mean almost the same thing. One is sakak where we get the word Succoth and the other is savak.
Translators go with the root word sakak which is spelled Samek, Kap, Kap. This word means a covering of protection. It is also a word used for weaving or intermingling. God had so intermingled and woven His protection into Job that the enemy could not touch Him without touching God and, of course, the enemy was not about to try and harm God. Once more to even threaten Job would be to threaten God and that would not be a good move on his part.
To get to Job, the enemy had to cause God to unmingle Himself from Job. There were only two ways the enemy could get God to unmingle Himself from Job. He could get Job to sin and to steer his focus away from God so God would not be able to keep himself mingled or woven into Job. By getting Job to focus on things other than God such as worldly and fleshing concerns old Job would fall out of harmony with God and this wonderful tapestry that God had woven with Job would become completely unraveled. Apparently, the enemy tried that and it didn’t work, old Job kept offering sacrifices, kept turning back to God and committing everything back to Him. Every time the enemy attacked Job, Job kept hitting the mark. The enemy could not get Job to miss the mark (sin –Heb. chatah). The only other way was to get God to voluntarily unmingle Himself, to voluntarily lift the Succoth.
I believe that is why we have this particular form of the word which suggests a play on the two root words. The other possible root word is savak which also means a covering, intermingling or weaving, but this is not a covering or weaving of protection, it is a covering and weaving of the passionate love of God. God could not remove that, He could not unmingle Himself from His passionate love for Job any more than a mother could remove her love for her child. A mother can remove her sakak or her arms of protection around her child albeit reluctantly and unwillingly, but it is possible. Yet she cannot willingly remove her savak her love for the child, she cannot stop loving her child. Her child will grow up, maybe join the military and go off to war. She may long to keep her arms around him and protect him, but she must let him go, she can let go of her sakak, but she cannot let go of her savak her love for the child. So too God can let go of his sakak but not His savak for us.
Job 1:8-10 translation has always confused me. I know God is a good God and my confusion about these verses was because I did not understand something about the word “consider” meaning. Job opened the door to satan with fear/worrying about his children and making sacrifices for them just in case his children sinned. Fear gives satan access. The phrase in verse 8, have you considered my servant Job, made me think that God wanted satan to hurt Job so satan could see how upright Job was. To me that would be equivalent to me telling a man, have you considered my 13-year virgin daughter. But I cannot see a good God doing something like that to make a point of someone’s uprightness. But my understanding tells me that satan layed hands-on Job because of Job’s fear. And when we let fear dominate us we close the door to faith and God’s protection