Hebrew Word Study – Fight – Yilachim – Yod Lamed Cheth Yod Mem

Exodus 14:14: “The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace.”

“If I see ten problems walking down the road toward me, I can be confident that nine will fall into a ditch before they reach me.” President Calvin Coolidge

Do you ever face a problem that just saps all of your strength? You cannot concentrate on anything else but that problem.  You are unable to enjoy the pleasures of the day and at night you find you cannot even find peace in a deep, restful sleep. Then before long, you discovered the problem was not even a problem at all.  You wasted a perfectly good day fretting over a problem that didn’t even exist. 

How often do you spend so much of your time over problems that God has chosen to fight for you?  Looking at the literal understanding of Exodus 14:14 it clearly tells us to let God do the fighting and we just hold our peace. God may be fighting your problem today but are you holding your peace?

The word peace used here is charesh not shalom. The word charesh is in a Hiphal form.  There are two possible ways to express this in the Hiphal. You could say: “The Lord will fight for you and just keep your big mouth shut.” Or you could say: “The Lord will fight for you and you will just go about your business.”  I would say it can be rendered both ways. “The Lord will fight for you, so just shut your mouth, quit bellyaching, and go about your business.  

Maybe if we concentrate on this word fight we may find it easier to charesh. Fight in Hebrew is yilachim. Amazingly the root word for fight is lechem which is the word for bread or nourishment. When it is used as a verb it means to feed, or devour.  The word fighting or even waging war may not be an appropriate rendering for yilachim in the context of Exodus 14;14.   For one thing, in English, the word fight suggests the outcome is uncertain.  I mean does God have to duke it out with an enemy? How many punches does He need to get in before the enemy topples?  Only one English translation that I read uses something other than fight and that translation renders this as the Lord saying He will make war for you. That is why I prefer to read a verse in the Hebrew Bible before going to the English translations as there are often a wide variety of English words that could apply to one Hebrew word.  I remember one rabbi saying that one Hebrew word can have up to thirty-five English words that would apply to that one word. Biblical Hebrew has only 8,500 words whereas modern English has over a million words. So, one word in Hebrew has to go a long way. 

Keep in mind that all words in the Hebrew originate as a verb and the noun evolves out of the verb. Originally as a verb lechem meant to eat or consume. The noun form would then be bread. Here the verb finds itself in a Niphal form and thus it would mean to devour in modern English that would mean to lick the plate clean or scrap the bottom of the Twinkie wrapper.  God does not square off with our problems and start punching them out while we sit back cheering him on: “Give him the left, the left, oops, that must have hurt, sorry about your black eye God, but you sure showed him, didn’t you? You sure are a pal.”  God does not fight, he just walks up to our problem and eats it up “Gulp! Burp!”

Yet, we just keep saying: “Well, God is fighting for me, God is handling the problem, it will just take time.  Poor God, he must really be getting tired, must be the 9th round already.” I mean really?  Let’s face it, God does not need to duke it out with our problems.  The bell sounds, he walks out and one punch to the jaw and the problem is down for the count.  But that is not lechem.   Lechem is the bell ringing and God walks out faces the problem and with one gulp, burp, and the problem is history.  If God does duke it out with a problem he is just tenderizing it so it is not so chewy when he devours it.  Also, he may not be removing the problem right away as he wants it to fatten itself up so it’s got some meat on it when it comes time to eat. 

To use the word lechem in the context of God defeating your problem is not so much a knockout where it can get up for another chance in the ring but it is more like the next time that problem arises, it is just a burp.

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