HEBREW WORD STUDY – WAR OF ATTRITION – CHARAH – חרה Cheth Resh Hei

Psalms 37:1: “A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.”

God is telling us not to fret because of evildoers.  If ever there has been a year, at least in my lifetime, where I have seen Christians fretting themselves over evildoers, 2020 is that year.  Practically every modern English Version of the Bible uses the old English word fret, which is really a British word. You will rarely hear that word unless you are reading something like Shakespeare. I cannot remember the last time I heard someone say: “Don’t fret yourself.” What we say is: “Don’t worry”  

Is that what fetting means?  Don’t worry? Webster defines our modern English word fret as to be constantly or visibly worried or anxious.  It seems modern translators just walk in lock step with the old King James and for whatever reason they do not take into account that this word fret has changed over the last 400 years since the translation of the KJV.  Back in 1611 Britain, where the KJV was translated the word fret had the idea of a flow of small waves which gradually eroded a shoreline.  It took on the meaning of gradually wearing away or rubbing or gnawing away at something until there is nothing left.

There are a couple modern translations that uses the word worry and render this as “Do not worry over evildoers.  I am not saying that is not what the word in Hebrew means.  The word is titechar from the root word charah which is your Hebrew word for anger, in fact it means to burn or kindle your anger.  This is never used with God. When Scripture speaks of God burning with anger the word ‘aneph is used which is the snorting of a camel.  Actually, fretting would fit ‘aneph more that charah. But then we would have to say that God worries or grows anxious over our constant sinning.  “Aneph, however, simply means to show a great emotion, like anger, fear, grief, heart break etc.  It all depends on the context as to what emotion you will apply. However, it is linguistically more correct to use the word charah if you wish to express God burning with anger and not ‘aneph.  Yet, I find nowhere in Scripture is the word charah used with God.

David is warning us not to fret, that is worry over the evil doers, but to not burn with anger over them.  I am not saying our modern translations are wrong or in error, I am simply saying that they are not up to date with our modern English. Charah in its Semitic root has the idea of being sensitive to external influences and allowing them to kindle anger in you.  I believe a good compromise for the use of the word charah which runs the gamut from worry to anger would be to say charah means a war of attrition. 

Charah or a war of attrition is the tactic used by terrorist or guerrilla warfare. They know they cannot beat their opponent but they can wear them down. Hence the idea of gnawing, rubbing or gradually wearing away.  The war in Vietnam was often referred as a war of attrition. The leaders of Viet Nam knew they could not defeat the powers of the United  States so they just kept fighting until they wore us down, knowing that all the protest and anger that was rising over the war back in the United States would soon force the leaders to withdraw.

So, too the enemy is waging a war of attrition against the believers.  As Shakespeare said in his play Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V Claudius “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”  2020 started with the pandemic, then came a financial crisis with many losing their jobs unable to pay their rent or mortgage and even struggling with feeding their families.  Then riots broke out, then many Christians hoping for a different result in the presidential elections moved from disappointment to their anger being kindled over the reports of corruption and voter fraud. Conspiracy theories are abounding and the more Christians listen to these theories the more they charah. 

Note charah is in a Hithpael imperfect form, they are charahing themselves.  They are literally working themselves up into a frenzy. They will sit around and rather than discuss the things of God they will discuss the latest theory that the government is using the virus to close churches, that the social media is shutting down Christians and taking away their right to public worship. King David speaking from the heart of God is warning us to not let ourselves charah be filled with burning anger over the evildoers.  

He also warns against being envious of workers of iniquity.   The word envious in Hebrew is qana’ which means to be jealous.  It is in a Piel form which is intensive.  That means to burn with jealousy over the workers of iniquity.  How can we be jealous of the workers of iniquity?  We watch the workers of iniquity prosper.  We see them use their corruption to gain political power and we see our influence and power decline. We become jealous of their prosperity and power which we feel is rightly ours.  This leads us to burn with anger.  

This ultimately accomplishes the enemy’s goal.  He knows he cannot defeat us as we are covered by the blood of Jesus.  But he knows too, that he can charah us with a war of attrition. He can wear us down with the cares of this word, with news media constantly screaming at us of pandemic, riots, hatred, anger and fear until we finally take our eyes off of God and place them on man and begin to look to man, the arm of the flesh to deliver us rather than God. 

To put an old rabbinical story into a modern context: “Oh,” you say, “There is a pandemic”  The believe answers: “It may be good it may be bad but I will just sing and dance and praise the Lord.”  “There is an economic crisis”  “It may be good, it may be bad, but I will just sing and dance and praise the Lord.”  “There are riots” “It may be good it may be bad but I will just sing and dance and praise the Lord.”  “Our candidate did not wind the election.”  It may be good it may be bad, but I will just sing and dance and praise the Lord.” 

We vote, we do not compromise our faith and we can protest the protesters with singing and dancing and praising the Lord. Jehoshaphat went to war against the three kings with a choir, singing the praises of God.  God did not tell them to keep silent nor to run and hide, but to confront the enemy with singing and dancing and watch the enemy turn on themselves and destroy themselves. I Kings 22:41-53  II Chronicles 20:1-30

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