HEBREW WORD STUDY – FAMINE – RA’AB רעב Resh Ayin Beth

Amos 8:11: “Behold the days are coming, saith the Lord that I will bring a famine in the land, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water but of hearing the words of the Lord.”

“Water water everywhere and all the boards did shrink

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

On a website by the U.S. Department of Energy in Ask a Scientist Professor Bill explains why we cannot drink seawater. Apparently, the salt content is so high that our kidneys cannot produce enough urine to eliminate the salt. Therefore the more seawater you drink the more danger there is in becoming dehydrated. Can you dig it? The more seawater you drink, the more you will become dehydrated.

No nation on earth has the Word of God as available to them as much as the United States. It is on TV, radio, internet, CDs, podcast, books, etc., and yet I am constantly meeting Christians who are so hungry for the Word of God that they are literally starving. It seems the more teachings and the more we get of the Word of God, the more it seems that the American Christian is dying of thirst for the Word of God. I hear of people who travel long distances, sometimes even purchase an airline ticket and rest a motel room in a distant city because some prophet is speaking. Then they sit in that audience of a few hundred people hoping and praying that the prophet will call them out and give them a personal prophecy or Word from God. Yet, if that same person would spend a few hours alone with God and His word, use the study tools online to examine keywords in the Biblical Languages (something Chaim Bentorah Ministries is committed to teaching) they will get that personal word from God if they seek Him with all their hearts, soul and mind. Deuteronomy 4:27 you will find God and the evidence will be that you will receive a personal Word from the heart of God. But it appears we in this country are just too lazy, we would rather be like the people of Israel who told Moses to go into the cloud and tell them what God says rather than go into that cloud ourselves.

The key to this verse in Amos 8:11 is in the Hebrew word which we render as Words of the Lord. Here words in the Hebrew is davar. There are basically two words in the Hebrew that are rendered in English as word. One is ‘amar which is the spoken word, average everyday words or conversation. The other is devar. These are words spoken from the heart of God. They are the prophetic words that you get from a prophet. Only you have the Holy Spirit in you to give you that prophetic Word if there is no prophet handy.

Christians are hearing lots of words about God or ‘amar in this country, but few hear devar. ‘Amar enters one’s mind, devar enters one’s heart. Many words or ‘amar are spoken which are pretty, and beautiful, but few pierce your heart like a davar. As a result, we may be experiencing a famine in this land or maybe just many Christians on a personal basis are experiencing a famine for the Word of God in their own lives.

The word famine in Hebrew is ra’ab. This word comes from the Semitic root RA. It is a loan word from the Ancient Egyptian. RA is rooted in the concept of some type of evil. In ra’ab we have an evil of famine, both hunger for food and the prophetic Word of God. It is possible to so fill your life with religiosity, idolatry, and selfish gain, personal spiritual agendas, that we have no room left for the purity of Jesus Christ to fill us with His prophetic Words or devar.

One can spend their whole life studying the Word of God, studying the works of theologians, the Word of God in the original languages, and in many academic institutions. They can earn many letters after their name and before their name, yet for all these years of study and research, they could only hear ‘amar words that only enter their mind. In fact, they might get called out by some prophet and given a Word from God, but it may just be ‘amar and not devar prophetic words that will enter your heart. In fact, it can be like drinking seawater, it will not quench your thirst and you could die of dehydration. It can never satisfy that deep longing and hunger to know God, if anything it may even make that longing more intense. The very words one may read can only be ‘amar words of the mind which would dry you out just as the water of the seas will dehydrate a person who drinks it.

I read a statistic recently that only 2% of American Christians have actually read through the whole Bible word for word? Why is that? It is because we read the Bible for what we want, not what God wants you to hear or read. As a result, we will totally miss the devar or prophetic Words of God. Like a man who only wants to experience the personal pleasure from the intimacy with his wife but will not listen to what she is saying to Him. He only wants her to shut up so he can find his pleasure. He will not hear His wife’s heart unless he seeks for it with all his heart, soul, and mind. Same with God, you want a prophetic Word from God, how bad do you want it? Enough to spend a few hours searching through the Scriptures, learning to listen for the Holy Spirit?

I shouldn’t have to teach you how to do this. But if you need some instruction you can join us at www.hebrewwordstudy.com and as a former Hebrew professor, I will teach you how to use the Biblical Hebrew in your search with just the tools offered online.

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