Hebrew Word Study – Diving Bird – Shalak  שלךShin Lamed Kap 

Ezekiel 18:31 “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O House of Israel?”

I discovered something interesting about the word cast which is shalak. First, this word is in a Hiphil imperative form.  This makes it causative and a command.   An imperative is a command so God is commanding us to cast our transgressions. Being in a Hiphil form he causes us to cast our transgressions. He causes this by filling us with such disgust over our transgressions that we are caused to cast them away.  

But soft, I have met many who are disgusted with their transgressions and are trying to throw them off, but they just keep coming back particularly addictions.  How are we to cast off our transgressions?   The word shalak means to abandon, to throw off and it is also a word used for a diving bird. Curious, what does a diving bird have to do with abandonment or casting off?  A related word is shalach, it is pronounced almost the same and means a spear that is being thrown like a missile. 

I had a few minutes free while waiting for some riders on my disability bus to get out of dialysis.  I parked in a parking lot where dozens of pigeons were flying around and walking around searching for bits of food.  I threw out a piece of my Egg Mc Muffin and I watched the birds fight over the morsel. But one time a pigeon went into dive-bombing mode and snatched the piece of Egg McMuffin in mid-air before it even touched the ground and the others had a chance to fight over it. My spirit was quickened. I recalled as a child my father would take me fishing off of Lake Michigan.  I would watch hundreds of seagulls flying around snatching bits of bread or pieces of bait thrown into the water by some of the fishermen on the shore. They would dive like a dive bomber to scoop the bit of food and then soar upward again. 

I realized that we are not casting our transgressions but giving the away as one would give a piece of bread to a bird diving into the waters. I began tracing this word shalak to its Semitic origins and it is a word by seamen who do what we all do when we see birds on a pond, lake, or parking lot. If we have a little bread we share it with the birds to watch them dive for it. Maybe one of the reasons we are so fascinated with a diving bird is that God is trying to show us a picture.  We just don’t cast away our transgressions, we cast them upon Jesus who is so hungry for every little morsel of transgressions that He will dive in like a diving bird, a shalak to devour that morsel of transgressions with His blood. Once He devours it, it is gone and will never return for He has completely digested it with His blood and that forgiveness only energizes His love for us and our love for Him. 

My point is this. God is not only willing to forgive us of our transgression, but He is anxious, eager, yes even longing for us to throw our transgression toward Him so He can deliver us from them. He died for those transgressions, he shed His blood for those transgressions.  Having paid such a price to cleanse us of our transgressions, does it not follow that Jesus will find great joy in being able to use this gift of cleansing to deliver us from our transgressions?  If a parent makes a great sacrifice to purchase their child a gift, they want very much to see that child enjoy and benefit from their sacrifice. Surely, God finds great joy in being able to forgive us and deliver us. 

The word transgression is pasa.’This means to rebel, sin, and offend.  But more specifically it is talking about a conscious, willful rebelling against the power of God, it is speaking in words and actions, anger, lust, and jealousy.   These transgressions are not just those of the addict and the obvious sinners.  This applies to all of us who feel a surge of jealousy, lust, or anger.  Note the passage continues by saying, “which we have transgressed in them.”   Pretty redundant isn’t it, to say the transgressions we transgressed in them?   That word bam for in them is important. In other words, they were not a part of us, to begin with, we walked into them.  I remember a student saying that this is not referring to the sinful nature that is in us. I tend to agree.  In other words, these are sins or mud holes that our sinful nature is driving us to jump into.

Now as to why we must cast off “all” transgression note that the verse says, “Make you a new heart.” Now how can we make ourselves a new heart?  Well if you look at the syntax you will find that it is the “Casting away of all your transgressions” that will make you a new heart. The word make in Hebrew is ’ashah.  How do we make or create a new heart?  Note the word is spelled Ayin which speaks of deep spiritual discernment and insight, Shin – the passionate love of God and the Hei which speaks of the presence of God.   Through our spiritual insight in recognizing our transgressions, the power of God will change our hearts so that they may be emptied of all their transgressions and filled with the presence of God. This is not casting off our sin nature, God deals with that on another level, these are the sins resulting from our sinful nature. 

It also says we will have a new spirit. This is a play on the words chadash rauch. This is very close to chadosh rauch or The Holy Spirit.” The word rauch means spirit and but it is also used for a pleasant scent.  Where our hearts were once a stench in the nostrils of God, it will become a sweet scent to the nostrils of God through the cleansing work of Jesus Christ through whose divine power, our transgressions are emptied from our hearts and then filled with the Holy Spirit – the presence of God. 

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