Hebrew Word Study: Hedge – Suk שׂוּךְ

Job 1:11 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.

I have heard for many years Christians talk and teach about God building a hedge around us. I was never sure what that meant, I would usually think of something like the picture below.  But then I examined this word in the Hebrew, it is the word sukah which comes from the same root as sukkah, the Jewish holiday of the Feast of Booths which they just celebrated.

But sukah has other usages. It means protection and covering, but a protection and covering by intermingling and weaving throughout.  It is also a word used for intercourse.  There is another possible root word sakah which comes from the root word savak.  This means the same, as far as weaving and intermingling, but this is a weaving and intermingling of love.

The enemy knew that he could not touch Job because God had so intermingled Himself in Job with his love and He could not detach His love from Job.  But the enemy knew that Job could voluntarily unattach himself from God. Sort of like a mother can never stop loving her son but he may decided to join the military one day and go off to war.  He has unattached himself from his mother where she can no longer protect him but she still loves him just as much as always.

Thus, the only way the enemy could remove this sakah from Job was to attack all that Job loved on this earth, his family, his possessions and reputation. Then Job would voluntarily unmingle himself from God’s savak or love and he would reject God’s love. But the enemy’s plan did not work for the love of God meant more to him than anything on this earth and he clung to the love of God.

The enemy might just attack us at the nearest and most precious thing in this phsyical realm. In doing so he could cause us to voluntarily detach ourselves from this hedge or sakah.  But like Job, we can also cling to the savak the love of God that has intermingled itself in us.

Ralph Carmichael once wrote  a song for the movie the Cross and the Switchblade to speak about the gang leader Nicky Cruz whose life was transformed by the love of God:  “Love was only a word to me, a word to use when you don’t know what to say, just to pass the time away, when nothings happening, love was something to think about but not to show it that would be uncool you know, love was for the fool you know… But then I heard about a love so great, makes you love the one who has done you wrong. Oh, I see love as the Son of God, who gave His life for a mean and lonely guy like me, although it hard for me to see, I will try to understand.”

That is where the enemy gets us, we just don’t understand the depth of God’s love. But we must try to understand. This is the mission of Laura and I, Chaim Bentorah ministries,  to explore the depths of God’s love so when the enemy tries to attack us at our most vulnerable state we can say like Job who knew and understood the depths of God’s love: “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.”  www.HebrewWordStudy.com

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