HEBREW WORD STUDY – LIKE BITTER WATER – KEMAR – כמר Kap Mem Resh

Isaiah 40:15: “Behold, the nations [are] as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.”

The text actually reads: “The nations like a drop from a swinging bucket.” Nations being like a drop of a swinging bucket doesn’t make much sense. The word in Hebrew for a bucket is dalah where we get our modern English word for dial. A dial is a little switch that you turn right to left. It is not a word for a bucket but a swinging bucket. The word itself comes from a Semitic root for a raised pendulum. A pendulum is a body suspended from a fixed point that moves backward and forward by the action of gravity. It is a word used for the raising of a bucket of water from a well. In ancient times a bucket was lowered into a well, dipped in the water and raised up. As it was being raised the water in the bucket would splash about with some of it escaping from the bucket. The word drop is kamar from the root word marar preceded by the preposition Kap which means like or as bitterness or a drop of bitterness.

Our Midweek Bible Study in our All Access we are studying the Book of Ruth from the Hebrew Bible and we will learn this week that Ruth’s mother in law changes her name from Naomi meaning pleasant and sweet to marar which means bitter or distasteful. It is the word for myrrh which has a bitter and spicy taste. This would seem to be a reference to drawing water from a well, only to discover the water was bitter, that is polluted or poisoned by some enemy.

In ancient times wells were dug to provide water for livestock and agricultural purposes. A well was built with stones at the top and hewn into the limestone at the bottom. A well could run about twenty-five to thirty feet deep. That is about ten yards in a football field. Some could go as deep as 180 feet or over half a football field. A lot of long, hard and dangerous work went into digging a well which was essential to the survival of a community. Wars were fought over water rights and in ancient times as today the enemy’s idea of a scorched earth warfare was to dry out or poison wells. The bones of human corpses and animal corpses have been found at the bottom of many ancient wells by archeologists and it is believed this was a common way to poison a well by throwing in a decaying carcass. Thus, someone drawing water from a well would not have to wait until the bucket reaches the surface of the well to determine if the water was marar or not, the sloshing around of the water in the bucket would give off the stench before the water ever reached the surface.

Hence a rendering of: “Behold, the nations are from the stench of a bucket” would be historically and grammatically more accurate. The idea is that the nations of this world are of little or no consequence to God. He uses them but does not depend upon them. It is interesting that the word nations is really the word goyim from the root word ger which are foreigners, strangers or temporary sojourners.

A good example is kings, politicians, rulers. Their rule is only temporary and although they may believe themselves to be gods, they will be gone before long and of little consequence like a bucket of polluted water in the grand scheme of God’s plans.

We are in a presidential election year here in the United States. The Democrats front runner just swept the primaries in the early stages and is in a strong position to be the Democratic nominee to run for president against our current president. This Democratic front runner is a self-proclaimed socialist whatever that means. There are more varieties of socialism than there are varieties of apples and this front runner seems to have a variety unique unto himself. Of course, to us baby boomers when we hear socialism we automatically think communism and growing up in the Cold War, communism was bad, therefore socialism is bad. Although there is a difference the two most people, myself included, won’t spend the time in a political science class to figure it out. We do accept and spend our social security checks each month as well as turn our medical bills over Medicare which are socialistic programs. Still, we baby boomers tremble at the sound of a socialistic president, even though we have little idea of what brand of socialism he preaches and from the latest polls showing that the majority of Americans are opposed to socialism even if he gets elected, he will spend the next four years trying to get even the smallest programs past the legislative and judicial branches.

Still, Christians tremble over the thought of a socialistic president, because it reeks of atheism and Christian persecution. We do not want to lose our comfortable lifestyle, we do want to experience that drop of bitter water. But to God, it is of no consequence who is President or who is a world leader. God’s plan will be carried out.

Many years ago the richest men in the United States, Henry Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller were fearful William Jennings Bryant would be elected President. Bryant was a born again Christian who wanted to drain the swamp in Washington and restore America to its Christian values. He also wanted to end the monopolies controlled by Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller. So, these men had a secret meeting, bitter enemies who came together in a common cause to stop Bryant and preserve their monopolies. They used their money to purchase control of the media, to slam and scandalize Bryant and to praise his opponent William McKinley. All through the election cycle the news media pictured McKinley as the savior of the democracy and Bryant as a wild-eyed fanatic who would destroy our country. It worked, Bryant lost and McKinley won. The only problem is, that in order to win he had to choose Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate. Roosevelt was very clear about his determination to fight against monopolies. One month into office McKinley was assassinated and Roosevelt became president and proceeded to do what Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller feared most.

The point is things change very quickly in this world, governments change quickly, rulers change quickly. One day you put your bucket in the well and bring up pure, clean water and the next day you could pull up polluted water. Water in wells that were dependable for years can change overnight by some enemy, but God who rules this world will never change.

We live in a nation where we can choose our candidates, we need to exercise that freedom and right, but if the result is not what you hope for, ultimately it is just a bucket of polluted water in God’s eyes. He is still in control.