Hebrew Word Study – Exclusive Rights – Qana’   Qop Nun Aleph

I Kings 19:10: “And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

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As you read this I will be off the grid, living in silence before God for a week at a monastery in Kentucky.  There is something special about Kentucky, many of the great revivals in American history started in Kentucky, the latest being the revival at Asbury University. You might think I am seeking a revival in my own heart at this time.  Perhaps.  Some think I am seeking a special message from God.  Not really.  Some think I am seeking answers and direction in my ministry. I’m too old to try something new. The simple fact is that I just feel called by God to spend time in silence.  I don’t know why, I have no expectations other than some quality time with God.  It is just something I have to do, a calling.  I took a week off of work driving my disability bus, I returned my new laptop to create the funds to make this trip and I have put everything, such as it is, on hold for a week to just drop off the face of the earth and stand before God 24/7 with nothing more than an “Ok, Lord, here I am just as you have directed me.”  I will most likely end this week having no great revelation, no great spiritual refreshment, or personal revival. I will have what most people have from a vacation, some pleasant memories.

Only these memories will not be of amazing sites, no seeing pyramids, Sphinx, the Sistine Chapel, and the works of Michelangelo, no cultural restaurants to brag about nothing like that. Just hanging out with God’s creation and no one to talk with except the birds and squirrels. My only plan is to be qana’ with God.  King James renders this word qana’ as jealous.  Your more modern translations will say zealous. The word jealous during the time of King James carried more of a positive feeling than it does today. In King James’ time, it was a sign that you really cared about someone or something.  People did not really get married out of love in Shakespeare’s time.  Most marriages were arranged and if a man was jealous over another man flirting with his wife, he would display his jealousy by challenging the old boy to a duel, to the death if need be.  Now to the mind of the one living in the medieval, romantic era this quy truly loved his wife and it would be a sign of nobility bringing a sigh of envy by other women who were married to brutes and cared nothing for their wives other than the services they could provide for him. 

Thus, I go to live in silence because God has called me to silence and I am willing to sacrifice a week’s vacation and a new laptop to do it because I want to be qana’ – jealous or zealous for the Lord. Psalm 119:139: “My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words.” King David even said that his zeal has consumed him.  Once again it is the word qana’.  This zeal for God is all-consuming. Yet, God can also be qana’ with us.  Did He not say in Exodus 20:5-6 that He is a jealous God? 

When Elijah said he had been very jealous or zealous for God in I Kings 19 he had just had his showdown with the priest of Ba’al when God sent fire from heaven to consume the altar he built.  Then he killed Jezebel’s prophets and when Jezebel sent a posse out after Elijah to lop his head off. Elijah took off running where he finally ended up in a cave on Mt Horeb complaining to God that had been qana’ for him and all he got in return was heartache and price on his head.  Yet, despite all that he did not hesitate to respond to the call of God. 

I can relate to this call of God, a call of qana’.  Every time I think about canceling my trip, or getting my laptop back, I feel this burning inside.  A consuming passion of qana’ such that I have to do this. 

Rabbi Samson Hirsch defines qana’ as demanding exclusive rights.  That passion I feel, that call is God’s qana’ demanding exclusive rights to all of me. Today as I was driving my disability bus an old song sung by Billie Holiday written by Irving Berlin in 1931 popped up on my I Pod. I am not sure how it found its way to my I Pod, I had not heard the song for years, but the words really caught my attention as I meditated on this call this qana’ to silence.  “All of me, why not take all of me, can’t you see, I’m not good without you.”  

So maybe I do have an agenda and I am seeking something from this time of silence.  I am seeking God’s qana’ – God demanding exclusive rights to all of me and spending this time so that He may have all of me. He’s got my vacation time, my personal time, and even my new laptop.  So why not just take all of me?

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