Hebrew Word Study – Grieved – ‘Astav – Ayin, Sade Beth

Genesis 6:6: “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”

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The word in Hebrew that is rendered as repent in the King James Version in this verse is nacham which really means to feel sorrow and regret. It is unfortunate that the English word repent is used here because it is easily confused with the other Hebrew word for repent which is shuv.  Shuv is the repentance that leads to salvation as it is a repentance that means to turn away, to change your course. Sorrow or regret is the catalysis that leads to turning away but repentance leading to salvation is not nacham mere sorrow over an act. You can regret your sins but that does not mean you turn from your sins. It is the shuv, the turning away from sin that leads to Salvation.

God many times feels sorrow over things He has to do.  He will nacham at the final judgment when those who rejected His Salvation are separated for eternity from Him.  He feels nacham when those he loves reject Him. When He came to earth in human form He felt nacham over the suffering of humankind.

Allow me to explain.  God is a spirit.  A spirit cannot feel physical pain, it does not know what a stomach ache is like.  For instance, I drive a disability bus.  I had a number of people ride my bus who told me that they got over a new strain of flu going around called in laymen’s terms intestinal flu.  Oh, they described the cramps, the urgencies to be near the “special projects” room, the dehydration, and other details that I am sure you prefer I not discuss. I sympathized but I really did not fully understand their torment until they passed their “sin” onto me. Wow! When I had first-hand personal experience of this intestinal flu, the thing that amazed me the most was that this experience was somehow overlooked in Dante’s Inferno.

We say God is perfect and nothing is impossible for God.  Yet there are things that are impossible for God. It is impossible for God to sin. It is impossible for God to create a rock bigger than He can lift for He cannot perform a contradiction. He cannot lie, He cannot break a promise and there are many other things He cannot do.  Something He cannot do is suffer the pains of human flesh when He has no flesh. He could not fully understand the temptations of the flesh until He was in the flesh and the enemy could tempt those fleshly desires in the wilderness.  That is why He came to earth in the flesh. He loved us so much that He wanted to understand our struggles with the sufferings of the flesh firsthand. 

He could have just snapped his fingers and said; “Ok, everyone can be saved.”  He could have prevented that whole painful, torturous experience on the cross.  Yet, He wanted to be the high priest that understands: Hebrew 4:15: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” 

As I suffered through my recent affliction, I shook my fist at God and said: “Look the only reason I am suffering is because I picked up this virus trying to serve you by driving a disability bus. With a PhD, there are other ways I could pay my bills but no, I have to do it in the form of a ministry by driving someone who passed this stinking (pun intended) virus onto me when I tried to help the individual onto my bus whose diaper spilled its defilements onto me.  Well, let me tell you, if you expect me to suffer like this then why don’t you just come down here in a body of flesh and see what it is like.”  Then it hit me, He did!  

Today is Easter Sunday and I reflect on those words in John 19:30: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” What is finished?  In Aramaic the word finished that is used here is mashelem which is cognant to the Hebrew word shalom. The Mem in front of shelem in the Aramaic indicates a Pael infinitive.  Unlike the Hebrew, there is no infinitive construct or absolute in the Aramaic.  However, similar to Hebrew the object may come either before or after.  The object of this infinitive is It. 

First, just what does shelem mean? It can mean to be finished, but generally, it has the idea in Aramaic to mean submission or a complete submission.  Then what is the object pronoun “it”?  That is debatable.  Logically we think it is Jesus saying He is about to die, but He was not yet dead so why use a perfect tense, why not say it is now almost finished?   Something was completed before He expired and it was submission. A God who could not die had voluntarily taken on a human form so He could know what death was like. He carried out his mission to the very end, He submitted to all that a human being experiences while on earth.  We can never accuse God of not knowing what physical pain is like, what rejection, mocking, and persecution are like, and what death is like. He went through a complete cycle of submission in the flesh up to and including facing one’s own certain death. 

That brings us back to our study verse.  God not only felt sorrow over creating humankind but He was grieved.  That word grieved is ‘atsav which is a mental and emotional pain of deprivation. It is in a Hithpael form which means he made, caused, or allowed himself to grieve. Not it adds that this grief was in His heart.  This is not some superficial grief, but a deep “heartfelt” grief over this deprivation.  What was he being deprived of?  Well, sin separated Him from humankind with whom He longed to be in fellowship. He felt nacham, sorrow over this separation.  But there is more to it than just feeling the separation.  Being separated meant that He could not share in our suffering. A parent who has a child who is sick will sit by the bedside of this child that is so loved that this parent longs to just suffer with that child, to understand the child’s suffering and pain and if possible actually take the suffering off the child and onto themselves. 

He did not have to come to earth in the flesh, suffer and die, but He chose to do this because he loved us so much, He wanted to share in our sufferings.  He is our king, the ultimate leader and the greatest leader is one who will not ask those who serve Him to do and suffer something He is not willing to suffer Himself. 

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