Hebrew Word Study – The Eleventh Hour – Chakah חכה Cheth Kap Hei

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Hebrew Word Study – The Eleventh Hour – Chakah חכה Cheth Kap Hei

Isaiah 30:18: “Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted to have mercy on you. For Jehovah is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him.”  

This looks pretty clear-cut.  The Lord will wait so that He may be gracious and all those who wait for Him are blessed. Sounds like an awful lot of waiting.  In the Hebrew what the Lord is doing to be gracious and what we are doing to be blessed is found in the word chakah which means to wait.  This is not the word Isaiah uses later in 40:31 where he says that those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. That word for wait there is gavah.  Gavah is a word used to make rope.  It is a binding process and those who bind themselves go to God will have their strength renewed.   

Chakah, however, means simply to wait, to be patient, or to hold back or to restrain. It is a word used for lying in ambush. In other words, it is a word used for waiting for that perfect moment.  It is interesting that the first use of the word chakah in this verse has God waiting so he can be gracious, chanan.  Chanan has the idea of compassion and favor.  Why does He wait or hold back his favor or compassion? The answer is given so He can be exalted.  There is just one other twist to this.  The word wait is in a Piel imperfect form.  This implies waiting until the very last minute or the last possible second.  Sometimes it seems that God waits until the movers have the furniture loaded on the truck, and they are ready to pull away when the Lord comes and says: “Ok, put it back.”  I mean like that’s hard on your heart.  This does seem to be a pattern for God, however.  Sarah did not have a child until it seems too late. Saul performed the sacrifice before battle because Samuel was late to do it himself.  Jericho did not fall until the seventh day and even then the walls didn’t fall until they march around them seven times.  God didn’t provide water for Israel in the wilderness until they were on the verge of rebellion.

Perhaps one clue is in the last part of this verse where the word wait is used a second time.  This time it is used with us doing the waiting. It is us who are waiting until that last minute.  We are supposed to be blessed when we wait. Many have been waiting a long time for a special blessing from, perhaps for years.  Waiting until the last moment for that blessing has a few benefits.  One it is a true test of our faith in God.  Another is that once the blessing comes, you sure do appreciate it more than if you had that blessing right away.

The word blessed is not the word I expected which is barak.  Instead,l it is the word it is ashar which means not just happiness but moving in the direction of peace and happiness.  The word wait, chakah, used with us is found in a Qal participle form.  Hence while waiting for God to show His favor we are contentedly being patient, waiting for Him to act. The roof is caving in, the floor is about to give away, but we just sit patiently waiting for God to act, knowing He will come through when it is the most appropriate.   Why can we sit by joyfully and contentedly waiting?   Because we know He will have mercy or compassion on us and that He is a God of justice.  

Just one final piece to this puzzle.  Just how is God exalted by waiting until the last minute?  Well, when does that last minute or 11th hour come?  That is another benefit of waiting until the last minute, that eleventh hour. It is usually when we have exhausted the last of our resources and the whole situation seems hopeless and impossible.  Then God can step in and when He does, we know it is He and not us that has brought the deliverance.  The world will see that our faith is in God alone.  He is then the one who will be exalted. 

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