Hebrew Word Study – Garments of Holiness – Behadrat Kodesh Beth Hei Daleth Resh Taw Qop Daleth Shin
Psalms 29:2: “Give unto the Lord the glory due His name, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”
Oh, how I love to quote this verse as I worship God. I just thrill when I utter the words to God that I am worshipping him in the beauty of His holiness. I get such a blessing from this that I actually hate to figure out what it means. Right now, I haven’t the foggiest idea what the beauty of His holiness means. But it sounds wonderful.
The word beauty in Hebrew is behadrat which means a garment. For this reason, commentators expressed the worship of God in a sanctuary or church where the priest and preachers wear beautiful robes and garments. In fact, it is this verse that serves the basis for priestly garments or robes worn by ministers in a church.
I was discussing this issue with one of my passengers on my disability bus today who is Catholic and attends Mass spoken in Latin. He informed me that His Latin teacher in High School promised to give him a passing grade if he promised never to take another Latin course. In other words, he can’t understand a word spoken in the service, but he feels he is worshipping God. I found myself agreeing with him and said, “You know, God is meant to be experienced not understood.” If my passenger happens to experience God in the beauty of His holiness who am I to say he is wasting his time sitting in a service where he cannot understand a word that is spoken. After all Jesus said that we worship God in spirit and my passenger’s spirit probably understands Latin.
There is one problem with applying this word behadrat to garments worn by men. It is speaking of the behadrat kodesh the garments of Holiness. When you look at the word holy or kodesh you find it means something sacred, consecrated, or set apart. I recently heard a rabbi speak on holiness and he said that somethings are naturally holy like the Torah and then there are somethings that are no holy like an idol. Most things are neutral that is neither holy nor unholy. It is for us to make it holy. Our computers are neither holy nor unholy. We have the choice to make them holy or unholy. We can make our computer holy by listening to worship music, writing blogs teaching the Word of God and we can make our computer unholy by watching pornography. A piece of cloth can be consecrated to God, used for purposes honoring God like wearing it to preach a sermon or unholy by wearing it to impress people with the fact that you are clergy and therefore someone special.
Would you like Chaim Bentorah as your personal Hebrew teacher?
|
|
I personally don’t see how wearing a robe will make a sermon more Godly but what do I know. I prefer to consider this garment of holiness or sacredness to be our physical lives, you know like our bodies are a garment for our spirit. Hence if we consecrate our bodies to God, then our bodies as the garment of holiness becomes holy. What would that mean for us? For one thing it would mean we could worship Him. Worship has two possible roots, shachah and/or sachah. I believe both apply here and it means shachah that is to physically bow before God and sachah to be surrounded by Him and His presence. When we have a life that is consecrated to Him he can surround us with his passionate love.I recently published a book entitled “Swimming in the Presence of God” which is a book on the Hebraic approach to worship. In researching for this book I interviewed worship
leaders in various churches of various denominations. Almost without exception when I interviewed a worship leader, I was really interviewing a music leader. We have come to associate music with worship. Some people are convinced that you cannot worship God without music and will even fire up an old battered boom box with a CD of worship music and try to get their group to worship God with that awful static filled sound that has music in there some place. To my Catholic friend worship is not music but the recitation of something in Latin. Although he does not know what he is saying he knows they are words of worship. To him worship is the reciting liturgy. I spoke with another person who spends hours in prayer and finds music very distracting. To her worship is prayer to God.
Note that the word kodesh which is the Hebrew word for worship is spelled with a Cheth. This letter represents a bonding and joining with God. The next letter is a Daleth which is a doorway or portal, that leads to the final letter the Shin which represents God’s passionate love. When we are holy before God, we can join or bond with Him so that He can open a portal to his passionate love. When that happens, sachah happens and we are immersed or surround by his loving presence.
Shachah and sachah comes from a Ugaritic word. In graduate school I translated a Ugaritic poem about a goddess Anat who fell in love with a mortal man. When that relationship was consummated, the word sachah was used, the very word that the Hebrew adopted to express what happens when we “worship” or sachah God. This does not mean a sexual relationship with God, but it does mean the deepest possible intimacy that we can experience with God.
Hi there! Thank you for reading this Daily Word Study. Can I ask a favor? Share this Daily Word Study with your friends on Facebook and Twitter by clicking one of the icons below.
Thanks & Blessings, it means a lot to me!
My thoughts regarding todays verse.
Give unto the Lord the glory due His Name – We are God’s Glory so I hear that as a call to give ourselves to Him our Abba Father, Creator, Sustainer, Savior, Delighter of us….we give ourselves over to the acknowledgement that when He stamped His image on and in us – His Name – we are awakening to our genesis before we were created. Our existence in the Holy Trinity in love and we participate in that Love.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
The finished work of the cross is that we become the dwelling place of the Lord, the Temple. Therefore the garment He resides in is ourselves. We just must see that and be in harmony to the fact that the Holy Trinity makes their Temple, Their Garment, Their Beauty that they RESIDE in Holy. and we are to worship, be thankfual, give praise, be in remembrance, allow the beauty to be seen by others and to see that in others.
Just some added thoughts…. Thanks
When you said your passenger does not need to understand what is spoken in order for it to benefit him, reminds me of 1 Corinthians 14:4 | ⁴ The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies edifies the Church.
Speaking life in whatever language/tongue still releases the power of GOD to work within us. But in terms of what Christi Smith said, not sure where it says we are GOD’s glory, only that we are made in HIS image & I don’t think the two are the same.
Habakkuk 2:14 | ¹⁴ For the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of YHWH as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 42:8 | I am YHWH; that is MY Name! 𝗜 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘆𝗶𝗲𝗹𝗱 𝗠𝗬 𝗴𝗹𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 or MY praise to idols.
GOD’s glory is HIS honor, splendor, & dignity, and HE will not share it with anyone. HIS SPIRIT indwells us, so the praise & honour still goes to HIM, not any creature. To do so would be the Antichrist, isn’t that where a person seeks the praise of men as their god?
GOD doesn’t even allow me to overly delight/rejoice in a cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte; when that happens I know HE is very serious about HIS glory not going anywhere but to HIM alone. And HE makes sure I know it’s happening beforehand.
It’s cool to be under HIS mercy & grace.
Oh yes!