HEBREW WORD STUDY – SOUR MILK  ‘ALACH –   אלח Aleph Lamed Cheth 

Psalm 14:3: “They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no not one.” 

In our Aramaic/Hebrew Workshop on our Learning Channel, we were discussing nuances. Nuance is a subtle difference in a shade of meaning in a word. This is where a translator really has his work cut out for him and why you see so many different modern English translations of the Bible. I remember a rabbi saying that one Hebrew word could have up to 35 possible English words.  Each word may technically be correct but an individual’s interpretation of that word could differ among many different people. 

Let’s take for instance Psalms 14:3. God is looking down from heaven and he declares that mankind is altogether filthy and that no one does any good.  What is your first impression when you read this?  For me, it suggests that looks upon mankind with disgust and no one is coming up to snuff in his mind. 

Many who read this Psalm will sit back and meditate: “Is God angry with us, does He hate us? Why is He so harsh with us?”  When I read this Psalm in our English Bible I almost get the impression that God considers us completely worthless slime and but for His salvation, we would all be a bunch of irresponsible gangsters and rioters who loot and love to create havoc and hurt people. 

I remember reading where the worst form of communication is by memo or e-mail.  The reason for that is because you cannot hear the voice of the person you are trying to communicate with or look into their eyes. I remember when I worked as an insurance claim representative.  Our manager reviewed a number of files and commented on them just before he left on a two-week vacation.  He wrote on one file: “This file is nothing but chicken sh—t.  The young woman who worked on the file was almost in tears. Her supervisor reviewed the file and said her investigation was excellent and he did not understand the manager evaluation.  Two weeks later the manager returned from vacation and the claim rep did not even acknowledge him. He was baffled, he didn’t understand what he did. When he talked to the rep’s supervisor the supervisor asked, “How could you have written something so terrible about that file. I reviewed it and she did an excellent job.”  The manager said: “I agree with you, it was a great investigation. She proved beyond any doubt that the damage was due to chicken sh—t.  The insured was a chicken farmer who ran a number of chicken houses.  The chickens sat is gages above the ground and their droppings fell into trays.  The claimant had arranged with the farmer to modify the trays so he could put a machine on rails that would move across the trays scooping up the chicken dookie which he sold to a fertilizer company.   The contractor neglected to clean the dookie off the rails which was his job and his expensive dookie scooper fell off the rails and was totaled.  The damage was due to chicken sh—t. 

We have the same problem when translating the Word of God.  The words a translator chooses could be very misleading.  The translators for Psalm 14:3 chose to use the word filthy for ‘alach which creates the impression that God is really fed up with mankind.  Actually, filthy is technically correct but the emotional context would suggest a better English word used in its Semitic origin and that is sour or spoiled milk.  For many people, God is an aloof and distant God and thus Psalms 14 becomes a real indictment and creates fear in us that we can do nothing that is good to appease an angry God.

I find that as I continue my journey to God’s heart, I am beginning to see how pure God’s heart is and how inadequate I am to reflect His light. Hence, I would use a word with less emotion. Isaiah 4:6 tells us that all our righteousness is as filthy rags. There is that word filthy ’alach again.  But let’s use the word sour or spoiled milk. The word comes from an old Canaanite word for sour milk. To be corrupted or spoiled means there is another party that is suffering because of your corruption.  Sour milk does not matter unless someone attempts to drink it. Milk loses its value when it is sour. So, possibly what God is saying is that we are spoiled.  He is the one who is suffering, that we have lost our value to Him. When a child is spoiled it means he is simply taking advantage of his parent’s love.   Thus, when we are spoiled what we are doing is taking advantage of God’s love. We know He loves us, that he will forgive us so what the heck, why not indulge in some sinful passion, He loves us and He will forgive us. But God is recognizing that the very nature of His perfect love, runs the risk of spoiling us. Like a spoiled child, we hold God’s love against Him.  We say: “If you really love me you would…”  

Indeed, the picture I see in Psalms 14 is a revelation of God’s heart. He is showing Himself as a loving parent, wanting to give us everything we desire and yet knowing how easily spoiled we can and do become. I personally do not see a picture of an angry God ready to shower us with fire and brimstone, but as a parent, wringing his hands saying: “I love them so much, I have given them everything and yet all they want is more and it is as if they despise Me.”  

The last word is one I have spoken often about.  It is the word good.  There is none that do good. That sounds awful, yet the word good or tov in Hebrew simply means to be in harmony with God. Like sour milk is out of harmony with your taste buds, when we act like a spoiled brat: “God gimme this or do this or why do you do that?  Or you don’t love me because you…”  we are not in harmony with God.  

Being in harmony means being the good child, the one that accepts what his parents give him or will not give him. He is grateful and is always ready to give his parents a big hung for no other reason than they are his parents and he loves them. It is like fresh milk that has a pure and delightful taste and contributes to the body to make it healthy.

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