Hebrew Word Study – Declaration from the Heart – No’em – Nun Aleph Mem

“Hosea 2:16: And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord that You shall me Ishi (my husband)  and shall call me no more Baali (my master).”  

I’ll catch the sun and never give it back again.

I’ll catch the sun and keep it for my own

But in a world where no one understands

I will take my outstretched hand and offer it to anyone

Who comes along and tells me he’s in need of love,

In need of Hope or maybe just a friend,

Perhaps in time, I will even share my sun

With that new anyone to whom I gave me hand.

-Rod McKuen-

On our All Access Learning Channel: https://www.chaimbentorah.com/, I keep reminding my students that Hebrew is an emotional language.  It is the language of poets and artists. Unlike Greek, you just can’t go to Strong’s Concordance and check out other possible words that could be used. Greek is a very precise language, it is the language of scientists and mathematicians.  Hebrew is not so precise.  Take the above poem written by a contemporary poet named Rod McKuen.

It is dark outside right now and with a Greek mindset, I would assume Rod McKuen just caught the sun and he is not going to give it back.   After all the sun is the sun, that ball of fire in the sky. In Greek we would likely assume Rod McKuen is speaking of that ball of fire in the sky. But in the Hebrew it might be a ball of fire, it might be something else. You need to check the emotional context and by doing so you realize you are dealing with a metaphor.  The sun in Rod McKuen’s poem represents some tender emotion, some deep passion. We know it is not hope, friendship, or even love, because Rod McKuen says he will freely give that, but he will still not share his “sun.”  So, what is left, what is the sun? We have no English word for it. There is no word to describe this deep passion. All we have is the word love which covers a wide range of territory to love of a spouse, family member, pet or a Big Mac. Now is Hebrew there is a word that describes what Rod McKuen is talking about but it also has no English equivalent. It is called racham. 

Classical Hebrew has only 7,400 words.  Extra-Biblical literature gives another 680 and the Dead Sea Scrolls gave us about 540 more words.  Yet, that falls far short of the million words in English and a similar number in Modern Hebrew or Israeli as it is known by linguists.  So most of the Old Testament is given to us in poetical form as one word can have a wide range of meanings and you need the mindset of a poet to really be able to translate the Classical Hebrew. 

Hosea 2:16 is a good example.  Many translations will just transliterate the words “ishi and “baali.” These translations usually come from your mainline, high church which would not be comfortable viewing a relationship with God as a “husband.”   Yet, to properly translate this, you must enter into the emotions, the passion, and the heartbreak of Hosea.  He dearly loved this woman who had been unfaithful to him.  He longed for the day of their early romance, the day when she sang in the garden (verse 15) before she ran off with another lover.  English has no such word to describe this depth of passion.   

At this point in the relationship between Hosea and his wife, she is calling him “my master.”  This is a description title. Whatever she does for him it is out of duty and fear.  But note that God says that one day “saith” the Lord,  note that the word “saith” is na’am which means to declare.  But declare falls short of the full meaning of na’am. You need to enter into its passion, its depth of emotion to understand why God especially chose the word na’am.  He could have used the word dabar which are words from the heart, but He chose na’am as not only an expression of the heart, but a declaration or an announcement. When it says “saith” or “declares” the Lord, to use na’am means that he is speaking from the deep passion of His heart.” In that day she will no longer call me my master, but “my husband.”  

God’s heart is that we not call Him my master as if we were a slave serving Him so we don’t go to hell.  To be sure we can call him master in the sense that he is a teacher, but to call him master as a slave master, deeply wounds His heart as it did Hosea’s heart when his wife called him, my master.  For God’s na’am is that we call Him, my husband. We serve Him, not because He has the power of life or death over us, but because we love Him, we love to be with Him, to grow old with Him to share all the joys and sorrows of life with Him as a wife longs to do with her husband. Actually, the word husband is inadequate.  A woman has no problem calling God a husband, but for a guy, that’s a little rough.  Perhaps the word my beloved is better if we can recognize that God is both masculine and feminine. 

Rod McKuen’s verse captures the real spirit of this passage.  God will take His outstretched hand and offer it to anyone who tells Him he is in need of love, or hope, or maybe just a friend and we will call Him my master.  But perhaps in time, God will even share his sun His racham with that new anyone to whom He gave His hand.  And when He shares His sun with us and we share our sun with Him, it is then we can call him my beloved.   

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