HEBREW WORD STUDY – EMBRACE – DEVEQUT דבקות  Daleth Beth Qop Vav Taw

Psalms 63:8: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” ESV

Most your modern English translations will render the Hebrew word deveiqut as cling.  Some will say follow close, keep close, stay close or such like.  The KJV says to follow hard, I am not sure how they got that for deveiqut.  Still, the majority say to cling to God.  I have a real problem with that word cling as used in modern English.  It sounds like a parasite that “clings” to you. One time I was hiking and got stuck in “clinging” vines. I remember as a youth pastor a young teenage girl said she broke up with her boyfriend because he was too “clinging.” For me the word English word cling conveys the idea of an unwanted attachment. The one being clung too finds it an unwanted gesture and will make attempts to remove this clinging element and the poor clinger is fighting to hang on. If that is the way you view your relationship with God as a bed bug clinging to God and God trying desperately to remove it while the bed bug is hanging on for dear life, then more power to ya. 

The Jews view this Hebrew word in an entirely different light. For one thing cling is not the word they would use as, like I mentioned, it suggests an unwanted attachment. God wants us to be attached to Him, He longs for it and he sent His very Son to die for it. You don’t cling to God you embrace God.  The Jews view the word deveiqut as a communion with God that stops short of a mystical union.  It is derived from Deuteronomy 11:22: “For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,”  Holding fast is the word deveiqut.  It is a state of deep intimacy with God.  The modern Hebrew uses the word deveiqut for glue.  You are literally adhering to God and that is the Semitic root meaning of deveiqut. But that adherence works both ways.  God invites and longs for that adherence.  

If you look this word up in Jewish literature you will get many different pictures and illustrations and levels of deveiqut.  For myself, I just like to call it hugging God.  You see I have an understanding of hugs that may differ from most people.  I am told that I am on what is known as the autism spectrum.  It is called a spectrum because usually not two autistic people are alike, they all function at a different level from the lowest point of having to be institutionalized to people not even knowing you are on the spectrum, except that you seem a bit weird. I’m on the high functioning level called Asperger’s Syndrome.  Aspies, as we are called, are considered highly intelligent which is not true at all.  Some are, most like me, are not any more intelligent than the next guy, we just appear so because we tend to be deeply focused. I know one Aspie who could lecture in a university on Greek mythology but he doesn’t really know much else.  

My brain gets bogged down in ancient languages and all their little nuances.  I can talk for hours on the minute details of a Scripture passage but ask me when the Chicago Bears last won the Stanley Cup and I am clueless. 

Be that as it may, there are traits that autistic people do have in common.  We do not like to be touched, let alone hugged. When you are a Christian in a Christian community, well talk about a liability.  It is not that I cannot receive a hug or give hug, but there is a lot of thought behind it and the whole idea of hugging, putting arms around someone, where do you put your hands, how do you hold your fingers, how firm do you press etc. makes the whole process an effort in futility. In others words it is not a natural function and is very uncomfortable.

This is why I consider myself an expert on hugging, I have spent a lifetime trying to figure it out. I assume most Christians do not experience a hug from God because they are used to hugs and except in special situations and outside the sexual component, hugs are just something you do like shake hands. It tends to lose its specialness and meaning.  Maybe not for everyone, but I dare say for many.  However, for an Aspie, a brotherly/sisterly friend hug (not the one between lovers) carries very special meaning because they are rare and there is a human desire for this intimate expression.  So, God can sneak a hug in on me and I will really be aware of it and it is really, really special when I get a hug from God. 

Yet, like everyone else, there is a very strong component that is necessary to give God a hug and receive a hug from Him.  That is to actually believe you are hugging God.  It takes a very fertile imagination to believe you and God are hugging but that is really what it amounts to and why  God gave us an imagination in the first place. We cannot see God and we can only feel him in a spiritual sense. 

I know there is a problem with imagination and reality but in my mind I find no difference spiritually.  I find the supernatural to be more real than reality, if you can understand that. When I imagine God hugging me it becomes my reality and it is a very satisfying, loving hug that I constantly enjoy and can call upon at any time.

Strange, weird?  Is that any stranger than feeling joy and peace when you receive Jesus as your personal Savior?  Is it any more strange than lifting your hands in the air during a worship service, telling an unseen God you love him and then feeling His presence or His love? Try it next time you worship God and feel His presence; then imagine that the presence you feel is a deveiqut, a hug.

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