HEBREW WORD STUDY – THE LEAST- TSAIR צעיר Sade Ayin Yod Resh

Judges 6:15: “And he said unto him: ‘Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I serve Israel?  Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh and I am the least in my father’s house.”

“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity

Gideon was called to be a great and mighty warrior. At least the angel of the Lord appeared to him and declared him as such. Even though an angel from God told him he was a mighty warrior, he didn’t believe it. He said he was the least in father’s house, which he likely was. I mean, you would not get away with lying to the Angel of God. That may be the very reason God called Gideon. Gideon had many faults but one was not pride.

I worked with a man who would just continue to brag on himself the whole time we worked together. He was a ladies man, he was street smart, he knew music and was a great singer. He knew all about nutrition and was always giving me advice. He would list everyone in the company and explain what their faults were, even mine. I swear if I asked him to parse a Sumerian verb for me he would try to do it and would insist I did it wrong. I think we all know someone like that and we all know how tiresome it is.

But what is wrong with pride and doing a little bragging on yourself. If you think about it, you do need to toot your own horn at times. As General McArthur said: “He who tooteth not his own horn will not be tooteth.” On the other end of the spectrum, you have Uriah Heep from Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield. Uriah Heep would brag to David Copperfield as to how humble he was and advise him on the joys of being humble, to eat humbly, to work humbly etc. Such a person can get just as tiresome as a braggart and as Charles Dickens was trying to point out humility can be prideful.

Yet, is pride really a sin? Aristotle considers pride to be a virtue. Even Billy Graham did not necessarily call pride sinful and quoted Ecclesiastes 2:24: [There is] nothing better for a man, [than] that he should eat and drink, and [that] he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it [was] from the hand of God. We should take pride in our work in our accomplishments. But as Billy Graham continued to point out, every other sin is the result of pride. Some forms of pride are sinful. Pride that causes us to think we are better than others and again to quote C.S. Lewis: “ A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” Pride can cause us to draw away from God. We begin to think we do not need God as much as others.

Pride can be a sneaky little buzzard and enter into our hearts without us even realizing it. Even my braggart friend would be shocked and in denial if I were to say he was prideful and annoying. He wasn’t being sinful with his pride. He believed all these things about himself so he wasn’t lying. No one was really being hurt by his pride except maybe himself as it really interfered with his social life. Again as C.S. Lewis said, we are all prone to fall into the pride trap. Somewhere we cross a line between self-confidence and pride and many of us, myself included, do even realize we cross that line. When we move into arrogance we begin to think of ourselves as better than others. That is one of the greatest failings in evangelism as the person you are witnessing to gets that feeling that you think you are so special and so full of yourself for being so righteous.

On the other end, you have Gideon who had no pride or sense of accomplishment, so God had to give him some accomplishments before forming an army. Yet, he had to reel in pride to keep it in balance. “Judges 7:2 And the LORD said unto Gideon, The people that [are] with thee [are] too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.”

The Hebrew word for least that is used here in our study verse where Gideon says that He is the least of his father’s house is the word tsair which carries the idea of being insignificant or one who is easily ignored.  This is the Hebrew equivalent of the Aramaic word used for a vessel of dishonorable use.

Each household in the first century had two clay vessels just inside the door for visitors.  One was for honorable use, this was a vessel that was filled with water for drinking.  It was usually the cleanest and newest vessel.  The second vessel was one for dishonorable use, which was the vessel where water was drawn to wash one’s feet.   This vessel was usually an older flawed vessel that was not cared for, it was not scrubbed or cleaned and was filled with a lot of cruds. That was because its use was only for washing the dirt from people’s feet.

When Jesus washed the feet of His disciples he was not just drawing water and washing their feet, he was drawing the cruddy, dirty feet smelling water. He touched it. He did it to demonstrate to the disciples what it would take to be a true servant of God.

Let me explain it this way. I have a woman that rides my disability bus. She is a real servant of God, always caring for others, helping them and she just could not understand why many people in her retirement building did not like her. She told me how God straightened her out. One of the residents in her building was more vocal than others of her dislike for this Christian lady and spread false rumors and stories about her. She said this Christian lady only tried to be helpful to gain access to other rooms so she could steal from them. This Christian lady cried out to God to do something to relieve this persecution that she was receiving for what she felt was the sake of God.

One day this Christian lady told this other woman off and said she was through with her and would never even talk to her again, let alone try to help her. Later that week this woman called and begged this Christian lady to come to her apartment to help her take some bandages on her feet off as she needed to change the bandages. She said no one else would help and she was desperate. So, whispering a “Why me Lord?” prayer she went to her apartment and there was this poor lady sitting in a chair with blood-covered bandages on her feet in great pain and discomfort. This little Christian lady immediately got a basin of warm water and soaked the bandages off and began to wash her feet.

That is when it hit her as she thought: “Oh God you are making me wash her feet, wh……” She suddenly realized God was answering her prayer. The Bible promises in Proverbs 16:18: “Pride [goeth] before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” That I personally noeth, but at least God provides a soft landing for His people.