Hebrew Word Study – Search – Dresh – דִּרְשׁ֥ Daleth Resh Shin

Isaiah 55:6: Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.”

If you are a Baptist, you most likely grew up with this verse. An invitation for salvation would not be complete without its quoting. Many a saint will testify that God used this verse to bring them to the point of their commitment to God, and I, for one, will not condemn its use in such a context.  

Yet, there are times when we use a verse so much in one particular context that we fail to realize that there is an entirely different context in which a verse was used. Isaiah wrote this at a time when Judah was very prosperous. The idea of the nation falling into the hands of another kingdom seems remote. Aside from being prosperous, they were very religious.  There is that human tendency not to really pursue God when things are going well.  Then, when disaster hits, one begins his “Oh Lord.”  

Things in Judah were moving towards destruction. However, so long as the ax had not yet fallen, there was still hope. Judah could still repent and stave off future destruction.   However, if they failed to repent, God would lift His hand of protection, and the Babylonians would overrun Judah. When that happened, it was too late. The disaster had taken place, and all that was left was to pick up the pieces.  

Such is the context of this verse. However, as the verse is written, it is very troubling as it suggests that there is a time when God is close and a time when God is far away.  If you are not on the ball, you may miss your window of opportunity. Sort of like NASA waiting for the right moment when Mars passes closest to our planet so they can send out a probe. 

As I read this verse, I can not help but feel a little chill that maybe I missed that window of opportunity, and now I blew it, and I must suffer the consequences like Israel missing the opportunity to go into the promised land by listening to the 10 spies. Within 24 hours, they realized their mistake and told Moses they were ready to go, but Moses told them, “Tough buttons, you had your chance, it is too late, try it now and you will be destroyed.” Well, they tried it and they were destroyed just like Moses said. I wonder, did I miss my opportunity to enter the promised land? Am I doomed to spend the rest of my days wandering in the wilderness?

Taking a look at this verse, we see the first word for seek is dresh. Some of you may recognize this word. There is really no English equivalent that would best express this word. Many rabbis render it as a search, there is something to discover about Jehovah. The phrase “while He may be found…”  is a good translation, but not your only option.  This is all one word in the Hebrew behimaseo, which is rooted in the word masa. The word is in a Niphal infinitive form. As a Niphal infinitive, so I taught when I was teaching Hebrew in College, this phrase would indicate how an action is performed. Today, we would put it in brackets. With the word dresh being used for seek we need to view this in the context of a present situation.  For instance, if you are quite prosperous or facing a dark valley or a change in your life, this is a hint that God is showing you something important, and you need to dig and search to discover God in this situation. This would then be behimaseo which would be in brackets showing how this action is carried out. You will seek, as it is time to find Him. Put into plain English, this is to say: “Seek the Lord, while He may be found.” If you go through a change, either good or bad, stop and consider that God is showing you something very important about your relationship with Him and if you do not pause to search for this message, the change will take place and the opportunity to learn something new and important about your relationship with God will have passed. 

But soft, there have been recent discoveries, particularly from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which shed new light on the Niphal infinitive. The Niphal can be reflexive.What this means is that God will make himself known to you in that situation. In other words: “When you go through some change in your life, seek the Lord and he will make Himself known to you in a special way in that situation.

Too often we get blind sided, knocked down, flat on our face, and we look up and ask: “God, why?” That’s good, you have begun your search. Keep digging, for he is opening a window of opportunity to discover something special about your relationship with Him.  That window will close once the circumstance passes, and you may not have another opportunity to learn that something special.

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