HEBREW WORD STUDY – THE LORD’S POSSESSION – LAYHWH  ליהוה  Lamed Yod Hei Vav Hei

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Psalms 24:1: “A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”

Every translation I read has a possessive at the end of the word Lord.  Hence the earth is not YHWH but the earth belongs to Him.  Oddly, there are those who will leave that possessive “s” off at the end and say that the earth is the Lord and everything in the earth is God. We call that pantheism. God is all around us, the waters, the trees, the grass, the animals and even us are God.  I do not find the Bible anywhere teaching such a thing, particularly in this verse.  The possessive form is correct in the Hebrew, although expressed differently in the Hebrew than in the English.  In the English we add an apostrophe and an “s” to the word Lord.  In Hebrew the word Lord has a Lamed in front of it. Hence, “The Earth is for the Lord” God created the earth for Himself, for His pleasure.  The earth and all it contains belongs to Him.  

However, as far as the human being goes, God did something a little risky, he gave the human being the choice as to whether they wanted to belong to God. God wants to own us but not enslave us.  There is a difference when to comes to God.   There is the example by the Apostle Paul of a bondsman.  A bondsman is a former slave. Slaves found themselves under the ownership of a master when they were part of a conquered nation or they were unable to pay off a debt. They served their master until the debt was paid or after seven years when they were to be released under Hebrew law.  In the Hebrew culture slaves did not spend their lives as slaves, unless they wanted to.

Some wanted to be slaves.  If they had a good master, slavery was not a bad gig.  You were guaranteed protection under Hebrew law, a good meal and a roof over your head.   Slavery was like the old military draft we had during and post World War II.  When you turned 18 you got a little notice in the mail starting off with “Greetings.”  I never got one but I had friends who did and it really did say “Greetings.” You were inducted into the military and the government literally owned you.  They could send you wherever they wanted to send you, force you to do a job you may not want to do.  But for two years you were owned by the government, however, you did have constitutional rights.  Many found the military quite to their liking and “re-enlisted” voluntarily.  Three good meals a day, a roof over your head, good job security, free medical benefits, a retirement – not a bad gig. Although nothing changed, the government still owned you until your enlistment was up.  

I have no problem being owned by God. He is, after all, my creator and who knows better how to take care of me than my creator. Not a bad gig, you have a constant companion who loves you and meets your every need.  He even offers a good retirement. But some just don’t like the idea of being owned and if they do not want God to own them, God will give them that choice.

Why did God create the human being with a free will? If He wanted the human being to love Him, He could have created a human being to love.  I was reading about the development of robotics and artificial intelligence.  It won’t be long before engineers and scientist create robot that will be almost indistinguishable from a human. With artificial intelligence it will be able to make decisions. A man can have a woman manufactured to his specification, as a woman can have a man manufactured the way she would like. This robot will be programed to show attention and affection.  Imagine, no arguments, not trying to win a person’s love, you will always have everything the way you want it. Unconditional love.  You can give the robot birthday parties and expensive gifts and the robot will be programed to show surprise, gratitude and joy.  But somehow something would not be the same as with a real human who is not programed to show surprise, gratitude and joy. One, like God, desires to know that someone loves them that was not forced or programed to love them. Someone who chose to love, who chose to love you out of all the others in the world that they could have chosen. 

God may be God, He can and did create many beings to love Him.  But they love because they were programed to love Him. He wanted a being who had a to make a choice to love Him.  He needed a human being in His emotional and moral likeness to choose between Him and someone else.  Only then could He experience the true nature of love.  But that is risky.  When someone is given such a choice and they do to choose you, you will face deep hurt and heart break. 

The earth and its fulness belongs to God.  The word fulness in Hebrew is melo which means all that it contains.  But when it came to the human being God relinquished that control and gave the choice to us. When we choose to love Him, God will experience a special joy in love that he cannot receive from any of His creation that have no choice. Thus, we become His most precious possession for we chose Him.  That make His love special for us, that brings out His racham love.  He doesn’t just love us, He cherishes us for we give Him what His heart desires most, love that has chosen to love Him.

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