HEBREW WORD STUDY: BACKSLIDDEN –  SHUV  שׁוב  

Hosea 11:7: “And my people are bent to backsliding from me though they call them to the most high, none at all will exalt him.”

The syntax at the end of this verse is highly disputed.  The KJV and other translations will render this as the people will not exalt God.  However, on the other side, the NIV, as well as some other translations, will render this as God who will not exalt the people. 

Now I know our eternal state does not depend upon how who exalts whom. If a man is backsliding doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. After all, both are right. Man does not exalt God when he is backslidden and God cannot exalt man in a backslidden state.  I can see this going either way grammatically, but I choose to side with the KJV that when a man is in a backslidden state he will not exalt God. 

For one thing, what’s the big deal if God exalts you or not?  But it is a big deal if we do not exalt God.  The word exalt in Hebrew is rum which means to be high or to exalt.  However, when you view this in its Semitic root you find it has the idea of rank and/or pride. Thus, this is an exaltation of rank or pride. It could mean that God cannot take pride in a backslider. If a man is in a backslidden state, it won’t matter too much to the old boy if God holds him in high regard or not because he is not really thinking about his relationship with God.

I remember as a five-year-old child my older brother who was to walk me to school ran off with some friends leaving me to walk many miles to afternoon kindergarten (that is, of course, kindergarten miles, it was really only one block).  Of course, I arrived late and the doors were already closed.  They were very heavy doors, much too heavy for my kindergarten arms to open them.  I remember being in a state of panic.  I had heard from my older brother that my teacher would kill anyone that was late and of course I didn’t want to be killed.  Since I could not get into the building, not that I really knew what to do once I got into the building, I did the only thing I could do and that was to walk back home.  I remember reaching my home and finding the doors locked, my mother apparently was using this opportunity of public babysitting to get some shopping done. So I stood outside the door and did the only thing a self-respecting five-year-old facing getting killed by his teacher would do, I began to cry.  

About this time my father, who was a milkman, drove up in his truck. He did not even bother to park the truck but when he saw me, he stopped the truck and leaving it in the middle of the street, he jogged up to me. I remember he asked; “What’s wrong?” In tears, I sobbed: “I’m late, late for school, my teacher is going to kill me.”  My dad did not say a word, he just took me by the hand and put me in the milk truck and drove that block to the school.  Boy, how I wished my kindergarten friends could see me in my dad’s milk truck. I felt so proud of him. When we arrived at the school my father again took me by the hand and led me up to that heavy door. He was strong enough to open that door. I was not afraid because I was with my father. He led me to my kindergarten room and took off my coat and my kindergarten teacher didn’t say a word, she would not dear kill me because my father was there.  She took my hand and led me to the circle where the rest of the class had formed for some game and without a word let me join in. I noticed my father say a couple of words to the teacher who just nodded her head.  I assume he was telling the teacher not the “kill” me. Then my father left, but I was just beaming.  I had been brought to class by my father and everyone got to see this big strong man that I called dad.  

I know my father took great joy in the fact that I was proud of him. As a child and all the way up to the time he passed onto to heaven, I also sought to make him proud of me.  If God is created in our image, would He not want to be proud of us just as we are proud of Him. You think he doesn’t enjoy being the hero, comforting us when he finds us afraid, alone and crying? Doesn’t he just enjoy opening that door that we cannot open, taking us by the hand and protecting us from the terrors of the empty corridors? And does he not just love to intercede on our behalf and tell the enemy not to “kill us?”