Hebrew Word Study – Raised Eyebrow – Gava – גבא  Gimmel Beth Aleph

Will God Raise His Eyebrow For You? 

Matthew 22:14: “For many are called but few are chosen.”

In Matthew 22 Jesus gives a parable about a king giving a wedding feast for his son. He sent out servants to invite his friends to the wedding and no one came, they all had an excuse.  So, he sent his servants out to the highway and byways to bring people in, and even then those who were not properly dressed were not only evicted but sent out to where there was pain and gnashing of teeth. Then Jesus ends the story with many being called but few are chosen or elected.  

I have to admit that in the English translation this is depressing.  I mean who are the lucky chosen ones after all and just because you did not dress formally you get cast into hell, how unfair is that? 

First, we must consider this story in its historical context and not try to interpret it in modern, 21st Century, technological, and Western understanding.  For one thing, there were really no weddings, just a feast and the couple were married during this feast.  Secondly, these things happened all of a sudden. A banquet hall is rented and the food is laid out and then the invitations are sent.  I mean, unlike today where you get a nice little card with two or three months’ warning, in ancient times a servant would appear at your door or office and say: “You are invited to a wedding, you have an hour to get ready.”  So, the excuses that the people gave were not lame excuses, they were legitimate.  They could not drop everything they were doing to attend a wedding.  Most of our translations say this wedding host was a king. Actually, in the Aramaic, the word is malka which could be a reference to a wealthy landowner or landlord.  Landlords, like today, are not very popular.  Many are unresponsive to a tenant’s request. On top of that, they have to pay out a large portion of their hard-earned money just to have a roof over their heads.  Of course, I am talking modern terms, but the animosity towards landlords in that day was much like today.  I mean why attend the old boy’s son’s marriage? 

It is sort of like paying your tithe, going to church, watching the nursery, teaching a Sunday School class, and now right in the middle of closing a big business deal you are asked to drop everything and attend the landlord’s dinner for His Son’s marriage?   Who is this Son to you?  You do your duty, you pay your rent (tithe), you take care of His church but there is nothing in the lease about attending the Son’s wedding. 

On top of all that some landlords are slum lords and tenants may not have just a mild dislike for the landlord but hate him and when the servants come around to offer the invitation they think: “The nerve of this guy.  After not answering any prayer requests he expects me to drop everything to attend his Son’s wedding and he sends this servant all decked out in his master’s blessings who has all his prayer requests granted, let’s get him and kill his reputation, destroy his standing with the master.”  

So now the host sends his servants to the highways and byways but these poor people do not have the proper wedding garments and are dirty and filthy.  Not like the good church people with all their good works, tithes, church attendance, Sunday school teaching, etc.  These are the people who get word that there is a free lunch and since they are unemployed and/or on disability, they have plenty of time on their hands and they flock to the wedding feast.  The only problem is that they stink from their filth.  Now, most people in those days had only one set of clothes that they wore day after day.  That is a little hard for us to understand in our culture.  Heck I show up to work in the same shirt I wore the day before and my dispatcher is demanding I change my shirt and while I am at it grab some Right Guard.   I mean some of these people had not bathed in a lifetime, wearing the same clothes they were pretty ripe by the time they entered the dining hall.  I mean when the master walks up to the old boy and says; “Phew, what is that smell”  the guy probably innocently asks: “What smell?”    The master is going to say; “Get out of here, you’re ruining the dinner.  You may have been invited but your stench was not.”   With just a moment’s notice, some barely had enough time to find a rich relative who might have had a clean set of extra clothes to borrow but he did not have time to bath.  So, he may have had a clean set of clothes but the stink was still on him.  On top of that, it was considered an insult, as it is today to appear before someone of status in dirty clothes and smelling to high heaven.

Now it was a custom to pour an essential oil over a guest before entering the dining room, just as a little insurance for any lingering odors, but if you haven’t even changed clothes or taken a bath, no amount of frankincense will compensate.  So, when you came to the entrance of the dining room a servant would give you a quick once over, a sniff and if you pass muster he would simply and discreetly let you know you were properly cleansed by just giving a lift of the eyebrow.  I mean even in those days you used some political correctness and you didn’t say: “Ok, you smell good, go ahead.”  If you stunk he did not say, “Get out of here you stink.”  He would just not lift his eyebrow. Now if you refuse to take the hint and went in anyway, you were committing almost a capital offense and if the master walked by and caught of whiff, well, you can just expect to end up gnashing your teeth.   Yep, it was just the lifting of the eyebrow that determined if you were clean enough to enter the banquet hall. 

Oh, by the way, in the last verse many are called but few are chosen?   The word chosen in the Greek is eklekoi which means to choose or elect but Jesus told this parable in the Aramaic and the Aramaic Bible uses the word gava which if you trance this word to its Semitic root GB you find it is used for the raising of an eyebrow.  Many are called but few get that raised eyebrow.  Few are clean enough to enter the kingdom of God.  You may do a lot of great and mighty things, you may have a clean garment but if you have not been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, don’t expect that gava raised an eyebrow.  You may try to borrow the garment from a friend or family member who may be a Christian and you may try to borrow their garment but you will still stink and not make it to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

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