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HEBREW WORD STUDY – YOUR GOD – ELOHEKEM – אלהיכם Aleph Lamed Hei Yod Kap Mem

Jeremiah 42:3-4: “That the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do. (4) Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, I have heard [you]; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words, and it shall come to pass, [that] whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare [it] unto you; I will keep nothing back from you.”

The Book of Jeremiah is an amazing story that, just between you and me, is being played out in this country today as we move from 2020-2021.  Keep in mind I am not a prophet or son of a prophet. The phrase son of a prophet is a Hebraic idiomatic expression for one who was mentored by a prophet.  That is not me. However, I challenge you to read through the Book of Jeremiah, do it in a paraphrase, and have a commentary handy to follow the timeline. I think you might be inclined to agree with me that we are seeing the same scenario being played today in the United States only in a different kind of way.

Babylon had conquered the nation of Judah contrary to all the prophecies of the prophets who said that Babylon would be defeated and destroyed and God would spare their nation. There was, however, one prophet who told a different story.  His name was Jeremiah and he said; “The party’s over, get ready.”  The people laughed at Jeremiah and mocked him: “Come on Jeremiah, what do you take us for anyways?  Do you honestly expect us to believe God is going to allow his people to go into captivity, to be defeated?  Sure, we got a little liberal in our theology but at least we still believe in God unlike that godless nation called Babylon. Do you honestly think God is going to let us be destroyed by such a pagan, idolatrous nation?  Look, Jeremiah, look at the temple do you believe God will allow his temple to be destroyed? Ha, why when the final votes are counted our prophets are going to prove you for what you are a false prophet.” 

Well, you know the story, the election results came in and Judah had a new government under Babylon.  Babylon took the youngest, ableist, and strongest into captivity and left a small remnant of the elderly and weak to fend for themselves.  However, a Judean military leader Johanan managed to help many of the captives escape and now they are back in Judah and have assassinated the puppet Babylonian governor Gedaliah. Now the people were really scared. How will Babylon react to this coup? With tails tucked behind them the leaders of Judah, the remanent came to Jeremiah. 

Note what they ask Jeremiah: “That the Lord your God may show us.” Your God is eloheka which is in the second person masculine singular. Not plural, not our God but your God. They blew it, they were not willing to admit that Jeremiah was really a true prophet. They were not ready to admit their prophets were wrong, so Jeremiah must have been prophesying from some other God than their God Jehovah.  They wanted to know if they should flee to Egypt before Babylon returned to lop off their heads. 

Note how Jeremiah responds: “I will pray unto the Lord your God.  Here the words your God is Elohekem which is the second person masculine plural. It’s Odd why Jeremiah does not use the possessive case “our God?”   For one thing, I believe Jeremiah knew as explained in the rest of the chapter that the people would not listen to him. They already had their mind set on what they were going to do they just wanted confirmation, they wanted God to agree with their plan. Besides they did not pay attention to Jeremiah when he spoke of his God. So, he put it bluntly, “Your God is telling you to stay put. If you do you will not be harmed but if you seek aid and protection from Egypt you will die by their sword.”  That was all the proof they needed that Jeremiah was a crazy man.  They had hoped that maybe he could give a better plan than Egypt but to stay put after assassinating the Babylonian puppet was suicide.  They not only did not listen to Jeremiah’s word from God they dragged poor Jeremiah along with them to Egypt. 

Suppose, I were to tell you that YOUR GOD has told you to just accept the election results, stop running to different prophets, or listen to dreams that there will be a last-minute miracle and your candidate will really win.  That is why I told you at the beginning that I am not a prophet for you would surely label me as a false prophet.  You are so convinced that these election results could not be the plan of God, that somehow we Christians did not pray hard enough and long enough. What do you think God was doing during all these prayers? Did He have a couple of angels up there in heaven with a counter counting the numbers who were praying and a stopwatch timing the length of each prayer?  Then on November 3, God asks: “Ok, what’re the results? Count Angel: “Only 4,643,852 Christians actually prayed.”  God looks disappointed and hopefully asks: How about the length of the prayers?  Timing Angel: “Well, I am afraid the average prayer was just five minutes.” God shakes His head: “Too bad, too bad, I really wanted this guy in office but there were just not enough prayers and they just did not spend enough time praying.”  

Maybe God heard your prayers but He heard the cry of your heart, not your mind which told you the logical and reasonable thing God would be expected to do like Judah thought – to flee to Egypt, when your heart was saying: “Let’s do the most ridiculous totally illogical thing so we can see You move in the way You want to move and the world will know you really are God.” 

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