ARAMAIC WORD STUDY  – Violence – Hatara  

(This Word Study is excerpted from Chaim Bentorah’s book: Aramaic Word Study: Exploring The Language Of The New Testament)

Matthew 11:12: “And from the days of John the Baptist until the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”

Micah 2:12-13: “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make a great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.”

Now when we look at this passage, the breaker and the king are one and the same. However, in rabbinic interpretation, the breaker is interpreted to be Elijah, and their king is the Messiah.

Keeping this in mind, let us jump to the New Testament. I have always been troubled by the verse in Matthew 11:12: “And from the days of John the Baptist until the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” What in the blazes does it mean that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and we are to use violence to take it by force. That sounds just so, well, unchristian to me.

I wonder how many Christians today would divorce themselves from God if the prosperity, comfortable lifestyles, and that fuzzy warm feeling of His presence would suddenly end.  The enemy was making a good point about Job.  Probably even Job was not sure if he was serving God because God paid him so well.  I wonder if the story of Job is more common than we realize.  I wonder if the enemy does not stand before God with the same challenge as us.  I wonder if God does not allow the enemy the same freedom as us as He allowed for Job just to slap the enemy in the face and prove that true love cannot be purchased.

Perhaps God has allowed the enemy to unmask his evil in our nation today. If I read Scripture right and the church continues in the direction it is headed, I believe many of us will enter a Job-like experience. God may just want to use us for the purpose He created us, to love Him when the lights of fame, fortune, and prosperity ended.  Will we say like Job: “Should we only serve and love God in good times?”  Maybe for once we can bring some real pleasure to God and love Him not because he has given us so much, but just because we have chosen to love Him.

We think worshipping God is all about a warm fuzzy feeling.  But we marry God for better or for worse, for richer and poorer, and just as a husband mourns and feels sorrow when his wife is sad and heartbroken so too does God mourn and feel sorrow when our hearts are broken.  But it is the other way around.  A loving wife will feel sorrow and mourn when her husband is sad and heartbroken. They were married with the promise to share each other’s joys and sorrows. Does it not stand to reason that we too should mourn and feel sorrowful when the God we love has a broken heart?  

Zephaniah 3:17 is the best expression in the Old Testament of God’s love.  I mean read this carefully.  He is saying that He will rejoice over us with joy, He will rest in His love, and He will joy over us with singing.  I taught middle school for a few years and I watched many young teenage girls and guys go through their first love.  I mean cloud 9, over the moon, smitten, dreamy, and totally useless as a student type of love. They just love to be in love.  What a sensation, what an experience.  You remember your first kiss, sure you do.  We all do, it was just so, so, you know the thing. 

Look at this verse in Hebrew what does it mean when God says He will rest in His love?  This phrase is a very troubling one for translators. Perhaps because if they translated it the way it should it would make God sound like a giddy teenager in love.  The Hebrew word that is rendered for rest is charash which in its root meaning can be very troubling. Yet, it makes perfect sense when you use it as a metaphor and put it into a proper context. You see the word charash means to be enchanted or bewitched.  Those are not words we like to associate with God. I mean in its literal sense the English word enchant and bewitched implies putting a spell on someone or witchcraft.  However, if we trace this word charash to its Semitic root it does not really imply a real spell or witchcraft,  but the idea of being so taken with an object or person that you become obsessed with them.  In other words, charash really means an obsession.  So, we could say: “He will rejoice over you with joy.  He will be obsessed with His love for you, He will joy over you with singing.”  I like to use the word enchanted but don’t quote me. “He will be enchanted with His love for you.”

You see God just loves to be in love.  Just like my little students, like you, like me and any other human being, we love to be in love.  No matter what age we are. I heard on the radio today about a place called  The Village in Florida, a retirement and senior living community.  These are people in their so-called Golden years.  They have a practice that if you are available, that is available for the romantic intentions of the opposite gender, then on a certain day, you wear a certain color.  If you wear that color you will likely have some elderly gentleman or lady hit on you.  No matter what age we humans love to be in love.  Never forget we are created in the image of God and He is the granddaddy of romance who loves to be in love and when we return that love, He is charash, obsessed, or enchanted.

(This Word Study is excerpted from Chaim Bentorah’s book: Aramaic Word Study: Exploring The Language Of The New Testament)

Thanks & Blessings, it means a lot to me!