Hebrew Word Study – Up Righteous – Yashar    Yod Shin Resh

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Deuteronomy 9:5:  “Not for the righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart do you go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations and that he may perform the word which the Lord confirmed unto thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

It doesn’t take a deep study of the Hebrew to get the literal message of this verse. God was not bringing the children of Israel into the promised land because they were good people, but because he made a promise to their fathers. God is bringing this to pass for only one reason, he is being true to His word. The fulfillment of His promise is not dependent upon one’s righteousness but upon the Word of God. 

So here I am, 72 years old. The decision must be made for my future. I cannot say with confidence that next year at this time I will working at my disability bus job. At my age, my health could easily take a turn overnight. I may not be able to drive a bus. I may be forced into retirement, I am borderline on the eye test to drive a disability bus, and I may not pass the next time I take my eye test. Will I be able to satisfy my financial obligations?  Looking at the future all I see is a land of giants. Not only land of giants employment-wise, but other giants health-wise, mobility-wise, and the many other things you never think about when you are young and you feel your senior years are just too far out there to think about or plan for. Growing old, as they say, is not for the faint of heart. “Lord, did you take me this far just to have it all end this way?”  

Now stop and think about what I have been saying. Who do I sound like? I sound like the children of Israel ready to enter the promised land only to be confronted by the giants. “Did God take us out of Egypt only to have our heads lopped off by the children of the Anakims?” Yes, Israel was a stiffnecked people, like me they could only see one way and that was the way of the natural world. Yes, in the natural world, the children of the Anakims would make short work of the armies of Israel, with nothing left but a grease spot.  Anak was a giant whose descendants were giants. We don’t know how the children of Israel knew of this race, but apparently, they were legends that abounded that struck terror in their hearts. I see my giants climb unto my disability bus every day. Many are my age or just a few years older and they face innumerable challenges, physically, mentally, emotionally, and personally. I do not think it is an accident that God calls the people of Israel stiff-necked when they fear the Anakims which means necklace or long neck. Do I detect a play on words here?

Looking unto Jesus is not just looking at him but making yourself transparent to Him as he makes Himself transparent with you. It is like a bride and groom looking at each other as they commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives. At that moment they become transparent, sharing something with each that they will not share with anyone else in the world. 

The wedding motif actually carries on through this entire verse.  Jesus endured the cross and the shame associated with the cross for the joy that would result from it.  He did it not only for us but for the joy that the sacrifice would bring to Him.  Just as the bride and groom sacrifice their personal lives and their singleness for the joy of being together.   Yet, the word joy is an amazing word to use here in this passage. It is the word chadotha in the Aramaic.  This is the word used for the joyful dancing at a wedding.  This again carries that wedding motif. The vows have been said as we and Jesus gaze at each other sharing our vows.  We tell Jesus that we are giving Him our lives and our hearts and now we enter that wedding feast where there is a wedding dance. In the traditional wedding dance couples line up opposite each other. Depending on the culture and whether traditional orthodox or not either men and women face each other or members of the same sex face each other, the symbolism still remains the same. They then move toward each other and then back away, always chor, gazing at each other, never taking their eyes off each other. Each time they back away, they move back to each other only this time drawing closer to each other.  This is to declare that the bride and groom will have times when they will struggle in their marriage and they will momentarily separate from each other, but as they look chor or gaze at each other they will be drawn back to each other only this time a little closer. This is what the Apostle Paul is describing in this wedding motif that we will dance this wedding dance. It is a joyful time of expressing our commitment to Jesus and He with us.  Even though we may sin and draw away from Jesus, He will always keep His gaze on us and we will be drawn back to Him only each time we return we will be drawn closer to Him.  Jesus will use the human frailties that the enemy would seek to use to draw us away from Him only Jesus will use it to bring us closer to Him.

So we have the wedding ceremony where we gaze at Jesus in transparency leading us to the joy of the wedding dance and now the groom takes his place at the right hand of the Father at his daqurasih in Aramaic from the root word quras which is a chamber with an upholstered chair or a divan, what we call a love seat, that is a chair made for two people to sit closely together. It could also be a bedroom and the way the syntax word suggests we could read this as the bedroom in His Father’s house.  This is where the groom Jesus would take us His bride to consummate our marriage to Him.

So next time you hear this verse, stop and consider that the Apostle Paul might be sharing something even more intimate than we the surface understanding of this verse indicates. It is also speaking of our marriage relationship to Jesus and the intimacy that He longs so much to have with us that he endured the suffering of the cross in order to obtain it.

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