Hebrew Word Study – Sorrow/Idol – ‘Otsab – Ayin Sade Beth עצב

Isaiah 14:3-4: “And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. 

I know, God is talking about Israel and not us.  Ok, I get your point but my point is, if this referred only to Israel and not us  then why is it in the Bible which God gave to all of us?  Yesterday I attended a meeting of some believers who were, shall I say, rather expressive in their worship. If there was a chandelier in the room I am sure someone would have been swinging from it.  The meeting ended with the marching song from Les Miserables. Do You Hear the People Sing?  Actually, it is song of anarchy, revolt and revolution.  But here are a bunch of Christians singing this song and marching to it, Onward Christian Soldiers and all that.  The writer of that song had absolutely no intention of putting it into a Christian context, at least from what I understand.  Yet, why not?  Other than copyright issue, who is to say a Christian cannot take a song of revolution and revolt and put it into a Christian context.  I believe there is only one difference between using Do You Hear The People Sing in praise and worship and giving Isaiah 14:3-4 a personal application is that the writer of Do You Hear The People Sing most likely never considered a Christian context where I believe God inspired the writer of  Isaiah and fully intended we seek a personal application. 

So a personal and private application I shall find.   “It shall come to pass in the day the Lord shall give you rest from your sorrow.” There are no if’s in that verse, this is a promise that the Lord will give you rest from your sorrow.  The only thing left me to do is figure out what this rest means and what this sorrow is all about.   I think we all have our sorrows but I don’t need a rest from my sorrows, I need relief.    Rest from my sorrows suggest that they are taking a little breather to come roaring back with increased fury.   No, I do not want my sorrows to rest, I want them stopped in their tracks.

The word sorrow that is used in this passage is ‘otseb.  It is strange that ‘otseb not only means sorrow and travail, but it is also a word used for an idol.  Some linguist will say that the worshiping of idols brings pain and suffering, the example of human sacrifice and the priest of Baal cutting themselves with the hope of winning favor with the gods they believed were behind the idol.  Perhaps, but I think there is another reason ‘otseb is used here.  Our sorrows themselves can become an idol. 

How many times have you had someone disappoint you, break your heart, cause you to travail in sadness?  How long does it last?  For some people they never get over it.  They sit around and nurse it long after the normal period of grieving should have ended. They like to have people feel sorry for them.  “Oh, that poor old boy, he has lost so much and look how sad he is, come we must cheer him up.”  So they come and cheer the person up, “Be thou of good cheer oh broken hearted one.  Yes, be of good cheer.”   A pat on the head and they walk away and the person thinks, “You know, this grieving stuff brings me a lot of attention, I think I will hang on to it for a while and milk it for all its worth.”   That is when grieving, sorrow and travail becomes an idol.   Grief and sorrow always has a point when it lessens and softens.  Sometimes it will completely leave but most of the time it just settles down to the point where you can continue to operate and not let it get in the way of your performance.  Some even find ways to use their grief or sorrow to better perform.  That is why the verse says that God will give you rest from your sorrows, not take them away.  There are some sorrows that will always be there, we just need to be sure we make the sorrow a tribute to the one we sorrow over rather than turn it into an idol. 

The word rest is nucha.  One rendering of this word  is to shut up. That is in a Piel form.  There are some people who get so lost in their sorrow repeating over and over “Like wow is me, like wow is me,”  that the Lord has to comes along and say, “That’s woe is me and shut up.”  I speak from experience, God often has to use a little tough love on me. Note Exodus 14:15 where God used a little tough love on Moses: “Exodus14:15: “And the LORD said to Moses, Why cry you to me? Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward:”  Every translation translates it that way,  “Come on Moses stop belly aching, get off your kester and get moving.”

Well, that is one rendering for nucha.  Another rendering is settle down and be quiet.  I think mothers of young children can relate to nucha quite well.  The little beggar can really be having a rough day and then they fall off to a peaceful sleep.  I mean all that fussing, crying and tantrums can wear the little guy out.  When he falls into that peaceful sleep he looks so innocent and cute you just can’t remember what a terror he was just a few moments ago.  That is another picture of nucha. The Lord sometimes just has to wear us out so we can fall into a nice peaceful sleep so we are no longer such a terror.

So you see, the Lord doesn’t promise to remove your sorrow.  Come on, a loved one  passes away you are going to grieve, you are going to fall into sorrow, it is only natural and only right.  Mark Twain said: “Let us endeavor to live so that when we die even the undertaker will be sorry.” Charles Dickens greatest fear was that he would die and no one would mourn for him. You see this reflected in all his books especially Christmas Carol.  Look at it,  Scrooge was old, he knew he would one day die.  It wasn’t the fear of death that changed him, it was the fact that no one would mourn his passing. The story ended where he wanted to use what little time he did have left to make sure he would be missed.  So God does not promise to remove our sorrow, especially if a loved one passes, he only promises to give us rest so like that little two year old after all his ranting and raving He can turn you into a sleepy, peaceful little angel. 

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