Hebrew Word Study – Distancing From God – Rachaq – Resh Cheth Qop

Jeremiah 2:5-6: “Thus says the LORD: “What injustice have your fathers found in Me, That they have gone far from Me, Have followed idols, And have become idolaters? (6) Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?”

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Jeremiah is prophesying the coming destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and his people being led into captivity.  He starts his book off by explaining why God is going to destroy the temple and lead his people into captivity.

We assume that the people of Judah have abandoned God and fallen into paganism and idolatry.  That is not really the case. True they worshipped idols but not just graven images but other forms of idolatry and not to the exclusion of God. They still kept His laws as best as they could, they celebrated Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur as well as other festivals. The word idol used in this passage is havel which is simply the word for nothingness and worthless. You have a number of words in Hebrew which are rendered as idol. There is ‘atsav which means grief and suffering, pasol which is a carved image, and cason which is a show of strength.  However, havel is rarely used for an idol but it perfectly describes the idea behind an idol, something of no value and worthless.

The word is used in this verse because God is saying that the people moved far from Him. That does not mean that they abandoned Him.  I have two brothers.  We rarely get together, I wish we would, I desire to have a closer relationship with my brothers, but they do live a distance from me and we are pretty busy with our own lives. My young brother is a linguist and travels around the world lecturing and teaching.  My older brother lives upstate drives a school bus and spends his time with a small Christian fellowship. I drive a disability bus full-time and try to run this ministry.  We get along great and have wonderful Christian fellowship the few times we are together but, at least for myself to my discredit, I allow time to slip by as I am busy and I keep saying I am going to get together with my brothers, but fail to do so. 

This is what God is saying about his people. He does not say that have abandoned Him but they have “gone far from” Him. The words “gone far from” is the Hebrew word rachaq which means to distance oneself. It is closely related to the word racham but where racham is drawing closer to the love of God, rachaq is the opposite, drawing further away from the love of God.  They just kept drifting further and further away from the love of God without even realizing what was happening. God asks in verse five; “What have I done wrong?”  The question is rhetorical, God didn’t do anything wrong to drive His people away. In fact, he states in verse six: “Neither said they; ‘Where is the Lord?’”  In other words, they never even accused the Lord of abandoning them or being unfaithful. The problem was that when they found themselves in the midst of trouble they bothered to ask: “Where are you, God?” Worse than complaining to God about your circumstances is to ignore Him and seek help elsewhere.  They simply turned to other resources rather than seek God for help.  Those other resources were havel, something that was worthless and empty. It might give brief help but has no eternal value. 

It can be summed up in one word that is used in verse six.  God led his people through the wilderness, deserts, pits, drought, and the shadow of death. Most of our modern translations say darkness rather than shadow of death. The word in Hebrew tsalem means a shadow.  A shadow is a darkness but there are really two words in Hebrew for darkness, chosek which is your word for darkness that is devoid of light, like night time, what you get when you turn the lights out.  The other word is ‘araphel which is more of a spiritual darkness, like the ninth plague of darkness that fell over Egypt for three days. This is like the “outer darkness” a darkness that is filled with terror and fear. But this darkness that God protected His people from while in the wilderness was a tsalam.  It is really hard to define.  It is not just a spiritual darkness but one of deception.

I remember some years ago I found recordings in the library of an old-time radio program called The Shadow.  The premise was a man who learned how to “cloud” the minds of men so they were unaware of his presence.  Each episode would start with a very haunting voice that would say: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, The Shadow knows.”  This was followed by a very sinister laugh.  In a sense that is what tsalem is.  It is a shadow that clouds people’s minds so they are unaware of the true motives of their hearts. I recall my recent time of living in silence at the monastery.  About the third day it was like the Lord allowed me to see a darkness deep inside of me, a cloud or tsalem a dark shadow.  It was something I was totally unaware of, in fact, I thought it was something pleasing to God only I realized at that moment it was an abomination to Him. That was the tsalem.

The enemy, like the Shadow, will cloud our minds so that we think we are really virtuous and righteous in some of our acts when in reality what we are doing is totally displeasing to God. We are turning evil to good and good to evil. We think we are being holy, pious, and righteous. We love and accept everyone, we are not haters, we believe everyone should do what they feel is right, live, and let live. We glorify and even celebrate diversity even if it includes something condemned by Scripture and pride ourselves in being so open-minded. The only thing is we are pushing ourselves away from the love of God in our pursuit of acceptance and approval by the world rather than God. We become like Judah and rachaq, distancing ourselves from the racham love of God without even realizing it.  

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