HEBREW WORD STUDY – VANITY

HEBREW WORD STUDY – VANITY – HACAL הבל 

“Job 27:12: “Behold, all of you yourselves have seen (it), why then are you altogether vain?”

“If the judge should say to the man, ‘Take the splinter from between your eye.’  He would reply: ‘Take the  beam from your between your eye.’”  Babylonian Talmud  Baba Bathra 15b. 

“There are only two perfect people in this world, thee and me and sometimes I wonder about thee.”   Quaker saying.

In today’s dialect, we could render this Job 27:12 as: “It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”  Job’s friends, I suppose like all of us good church people, loved to give advice to someone who was facing some struggle.  It is rare that I don’t attend a small fellowship (prayer group, Bible study, etc.) where someone doesn’t end up sharing some personal struggle and suddenly it is like sounding the opening bell on the stock exchange.   Everyone has some advice to offer which are usually some form of sound bite like: “Just trust God,” “Pray about it, “ or “God is faithful.”  

Everyone is just waiting for the opportunity to share the depths of their wisdom and knowledge.  We all like to think we’ve cornered the market on truth.  Job’s friends were no exception and after hitting Job with all their wonderful words of wisdom, Job responds by asking: “What, are you altogether vain?” In the Hebrew, a literal rendering would be: You all perceive and what happens?  This vanity becomes your vanity. 

The word in the Hebrew for perceive is very interesting.  It comes from the root word chazah which means a vision, deep spiritual insight or a prophecy.  What Job is literally saying is: “You say you have a prophetic word.”   But what happens? This vanity becomes your vanity.”  The word vanity is haval which means a vapor, mist or a fog.  This creates a double meaning for the word and hence, the repetition of the word develops a play on that double meaning.   Something being a vapor, mist or fog is not clearly defined.  A prophecy or vision is often in symbols and its meaning is not readily apparent, it is like a mist or fog. Thus one use of the word haval is for something that is not clear or readily apparent.  The second use of the word havel  is to express foolishness or uselessness. Just as a fog or vapor seems to have substance, but when you walk into it, it doesn’t have the substance that it appears to have from a distance.   Thus, Job is saying: “You have a prophetic word, but it lacks clarity and has made you foolish. 

How has it made his friends foolish?  When you look at the built-in commentary on the word haval it will tell you how.  The word is spelled Hei whose shadow represents self-deception.  The next letter is the Beth whose shadow shows feelings of spiritual superiority to others and the final letter is the Lamed whose shadow indicates self-importance and from that, you have a good description of Job’s friends.  They were deceived by their feelings of superiority and self-importance and it ended up turning the word they had from God into foolishness. 

It is interesting to note that the word haval (vanity) has a numerical value of 37.  A prophet’s word also has a numerical value of 37.  If you ever feel you have a word from the Lord for someone, it is best you first examine yourself to be sure you are not deceived by the Shadow of the Hei, Beth and Lamed, spiritual arrogance.