Hebrew Word Study – The Rulers – Hanesiaim הנשאם  Hei Nun Sine Aleph Mem

Exodus 35:21,27: “And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whom his spirit made willing, and they brought the LORD’S offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation, and for all his service, and for the holy garments. (27) And the rulers brought onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate;”

Let me start off by saying hanesiaim is spelled incorrectly in the Hebrew in this title. That is the way it is found in the inspired Word of God and there is a reason which I will explain.

When Moses assembled the people of Israel to give them the instructions for the building of the tabernacle he called upon those whose hearts stirred them to bring various offerings. There was no pressure, not heart-rendering pleas for offerings, just a simple request and an emphasis on the fact that only those whose hearts stirred them.  

The word for stir in Hebrew in its root is nesa’ which is easy to remember just think of NASA which launches or lifts up rockets to the heavens.  Nesa’ means to lift up and in this context, it means anyone whose heart is lifted up to heaven.  If that person has a willing spirit then they are permitted the privilege to give an offering to build the tabernacle. The word for willing is navad which is to voluntarily give without any agenda or expectation of receiving something in return. 

Thus, the only ones who were permitted to give were those whose heart was lifted to heaven and gave without any expectation of a return.  I remember when I was a pastor in a church a member gave a special offering just before January first of the new year. When he got his receipt it showed that he gave this gift after the first of the year.  He was livid because he could not claim it as a tax deduction for the prior years.  In his righteous anger, he declared to the trustee that had he known that his gift would be dated after the first of the year he would not have given that offering. 

I recently read where a certain billionaire who has clearly shown his disdain for evangelical Christianity and makes no effort to cover up the fact that he wishes to see the church destroyed gave a substantial gift to an evangelical organization. Unless he has had a spiritual awakening and his present behavior and testimony would put that in doubt, I would tend to believe that he gave this gift to this evangelical organization with the intent of using his money to establish some nefarious control over that organization. 

It is almost expected in our culture that if you give some sort of financial gift you are to receive something in return.  Some may simply want a building or project named after them to show a personal legacy, some may simply be seeking a tax shelter and some may be seeking a subtle but definite control over the organization that they donate to.  They may not make outward demands but there will be that subtle little hint that if the organization does not behave the way they want, they will withdraw their support. So these givers are wined and dinned, praised, given honors, honorary degrees, and celebrity status to keep them happy which they fully expect. The Bible condemns this in James 2:2-4 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. (3) and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” (4) have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?…  

There is a very profound thought hidden in our study verses.  The men came with the women to give their donations. The first was the women, then the men, and the third in line were the rulers or leaders among the people. That is curious as you would expect the leaders to lead the way, to be the first to give, to set the example, instead they were the last.  Now to be fair the Midrash and Talmud suggest that the leaders stood back and waited for everyone to give and then they figured they would give what was lacking.  That was quite noble but still, even in that, there would be some prideful motive behind their offering.  “We are the leaders and we will make sure God gets all that is coming to Him.” As it turned out by the time their turn came to give, enough had been given such that God restrained any further giving. The leaders could only submit their gifts to provide the garments for the priest but could not give for the tabernacle itself.

There are two things that show that God was not pleased with this noble attitude. The first is that in Numbers 7:10-17 another offering was taken and the leaders were the first to step forward. They apparently learned their lesson the first time around. A more telling show of God’s disfavor is in the spelling of the word for leaders. The word is hanesiaim spelled Hei, Nun, Sine, Aleph, Mem.   This word is spelled wrong. Can you dig it?  The inspired, inerrant Word of God has a spelling error.  There must be a Yod between the Aleph and Mem. 

There are Bible scholars who point to this and say; “Lookie here, a spelling error. The Word of God may be inspired but it is not inerrant.”  How short-sighted can you get? God may have a perfectly good reason for leaving out the Yod.  You see, according to the teachings of ancient sages and the Hebrew masters the “i” can be expressed as a chiqi. A chiriq is a dot under the preceding consonant. It can also be expressed as a chiriq, a dot under the preceding consonant, followed by a yod.  Here we have just a simple chiriq and we are good. But everywhere else where you have a plural ending there is a Yod, why is the Yod missing here when there is no grammatical reason to leave it out? The sages call this a remez, a hint that there is a deeper meaning here.  The Yod represents a connection between heaven and earth.  God left that Yod out of the word for rulers to show that these rulers did not have a nesa’ lev a heart directed toward heaven and a navad nephesh a willing spirit in their intent to give an offering. They had a hidden agenda, be it pride or whatever they were not giving with no personal agenda.

Nothing gets by God, He knows your true motives, and as noble as your motives may seem, He will see through even that and hold you accountable and when you get to heaven your name will be missing that Yod.

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