Hebrew Word Study – Deny – Kaphar – Kap Pei Resh

Matthew 26:34, “Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.”

The Talmud teaches that the third hour is the hour of the rooster’s crow. The sixth hour is the time of the crow of the second rooster. Mark 14:72 says that before the cock crows twice. In the Greek and the Aramaic, there is no article before the word cock suggesting two different birds crowing.  Thus,  between 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM  Peter denied Christ three times. What this suggests is that this denial was not done in the heat of passion, a weak moment when he just gave off a knee-jerk reaction. This was done over a three-hour period indicating that it was pre-meditative. Peter had three hours to think over his act and he repeated the denial three times.

The word deny in Greek is aparnese which means to look back or to reject or forsake.  Peter was not just denying that he knew Jesus, he was rejecting Him.  The word in the Aramaic is kaphar which is to refuse or renounce. It comes from a Persian word for a Cyprus flower known as an alhenna by the Arabs.  It is a bush or shrub that has fragrant white flowers growing in clusters like grapes. Women will dry these flowers and mesh them into a powder that they will apply as makeup to their faces to cover blemishes. The word kaphar is identical in Hebrew and is used for the word atonement which is a covering for our sins. In fact, in the Hebrew the word literally means a covering. 

I believe a better understanding of what Peter did was to cover up his relationship with Jesus.  In that, I believe Jesus was making a little play on words here with Peter when he said that Peter would deny or cover up his so-called blemish (his relationship with Jesus)  three times. But  Jesus would perform three acts for an atonement to cover up for Peter’s sin (His death, resurrection, and ascension) as an atonement (to cover) for his sin of denial.

I was reading about an ancient Jewish belief in the Jewish commentary The Midrash Rabbah in Leviticus Rabbah 5  that when the cock crows announce the approaching dawn of day, the power of the demons diminishes, their power is for the most part confined to night only.  Why are we so vulnerable at night?  The Talmud teaches that when we sleep our bodies and minds are at rest and unconscious.  

Why did God create man to live just a short 120 years and then design him to waste forty of those years in an unconscious state?  I think the Talmud is hitting on something here.  During the day our minds and bodies are always getting in the way of the cares of this world always pushing aside our spirits, which is that part of us that is in direct link to God.   When you are asleep, the mind and body have clunked out after all that ranting and raving. That is the moment your spirit has been waiting for.  That is your spirit’s time to rise up and say, “Ok body and mind, it’s my turn to rule the roost. I am in charge now and God and I are going to have some intimate time together.” So your spirit joins with the Spirit of God in an intimacy that is just not possible when the body and mind are nagging you to death.  That intimacy may be so deep, that your mind and body cannot handle it.  In fact, it is so deep that if God knows the past, present, and future you too will see the past, present, and future and you may not be able to handle even that.  Dr. Ben Carson the world-renowned neurosurgeon said that if he were to touch one part of your brain with a sensor you would recall every word of a book you read twenty years ago. Sometimes it is best not to remember things in the past and not know the future and when our spirits are joined intimately with God we know what He knows and He must cause us to forget it or mess it up in the symbolism of a dream lest it drives our already neurotic body and mind into insanity. 

I believe Peter was manipulated by demonic spirits that early morning when they were at their peak performance and because Peter fell asleep rather than pray with Jesus in the garden, the wrong spirit came knocking at his door and he kaphar rejected or denied his Lord. 

What really haunts me is that Peter, a man who truly loved Jesus with all his heart. He honestly believed he would die before denying His Lord, yet he ended up doing that very thing. Not only once but three times within the space of three hours.  Now something to remember. In those days, even today, when an unground movement is plotting against a government, as Peter thought he was doing with Jesus, the rule of thumb is that if your leader gets arrested, all the other members scatter.  The important thing was to keep the movement going and to sacrifice their leader if need be. Yet, Peter loved Jesus so much that he had to follow him. He may have thought he was doing right by denying Jesus. He was doing what the world expected him to do, run and hide and survive to carry on the message of the movement. Yet, when Jesus looked at him after he denied Him the third time, Peter knew Jesus saw his true heart and that he was scared.  The enemy can fool you into thinking you are really serving God and being a truly sacrificing servant. Attending church every Sunday, giving your ten percent tithe (before taxes) – yep, you really are devoted to God. God just may allow you to see your true heart’s motive and you just may discover that you are really looking for a blessing by attending church or a financial return from your tithe. 

We need to pray like David in Psalms 139:23: “Search me O God and know my heart, try and know my thoughts.”  The enemy can really fool us and blind us to our true heart’s motive, but he can’t fool God and we need God to reveal our true motives as He did with Peter.

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