HEBREW WORD STUDY – HOARY HAIRS – SHEYBAH -שׁיבת
Isaiah 46:4: “Even to old age, I am the same and even to hoary hairs I will I carry you. I have made and I will bear, yea I will carry, and will deliver.”
I have no idea what hoary hairs are. That has got to be old old English. Checking Webster’s dictionary I find it simply means gray hairs. If you need a good argument for a modern translation, this verse is a good one. I doubt that anyone under the age of 100 years knows what a hoary hair is. The word in the Hebrew is sheybah which means hoary hairs. More modern lexicons will say gray hairs.
Is there a difference between old age and gray hairs? This passage seems to suggest that there is. For us in our culture when we see someone with gray hair we consider them old. Ancient Jewish thought was that when you reach the age of sixty you are considered to be old and when you reach the age of seventy you have hoary hairs. I drive seniors on my bus and they will attest to you that there is a difference between sixty years of age and seventy years of age.
The Semitic implication is that when you reach your sixties you are considered old and you turn all your work and duties over to someone younger. In other words your real usefulness has ended but you are still relatively active. In our society it is called retirement. When you reach your seventies then that is the time you become weak and in need of assistance. Don’t panic, it is just a generalization. The implication in this passage of Scripture is that God does not change in His involvement with us even when the world thinks we are no longer actively useful in making a contribution to the community. God doesn’t remove any of his resources in our lives and pass them on to the next generation. In other words, God does not send you out to pasture. You are just as useful to Him at sixty as you were in your thirties. Even when you reach the point of needing assistance, God will continue to use you, you will still serve a purpose in His kingdom, and His calling on your life has not changed. As long as you have breath you have a purpose for God.
If you became disabled in your later years, well God will carry you. That word for carry is sabal. One meaning of sabal is that he will drag you along. If you feel too old and too weak to get out of bed in the morning, He will drag you out of bed and put you to work. You are alive for a purpose, He can make you useful even at the age of hoary hairs. This word sabal is also used for someone carrying a burden for another person. Let’s face it after sixty and seventy years of walking on this earth you are going to pick up a lot of emotional baggage. All your failures, your sins, your disappointments keep adding up over the years so that by the time you reach your golden years, they are indeed golden. I mean that in the sense that gold is a very heavy metal and even carrying one gold brick is a real burden compared to a brick made of plastic.
But say, this verse repeats this word sabal two times, two times in the verse God assures us that He will carry us. When something is repeated two times in the Semitic language it is done to show an emphasis. God will most certainly carry us or bear the burdens that we bear in our old age.
Recent Comments