Hebrew Word Study – Tearing Bark From A Tree – Livabethini – לִבַּבְתִּ֖נִי Lamed Beth Beth Taw Nun Yod

Song 4:9 Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

Practically every modern translation you read of this verse will put a different spin on it.  There is no literal translation, and no direct link to the English language.  The French or Italian language, which has a poetic nature to it, can do a much better job of rendering this passage than we can do in the scientific and precise English language.  

“Thou hast ravished my heart”  in the Hebrew, for me is one of the most beautiful and at the same time heartbreaking words that I have ever run across in my 50 years of studying Biblical Hebrew.  You see it is only one word in Hebrew – livabethini.    This comes from the root word levav which means heart and this verb is in a Piel form that is it is in an intensive form.  Some translations render this as stolen my heart, captured my heart, captivated my heart, enchanted my heart, made my heart beat faster, you have wounded my heart, you have given me my heart or you have emboldened my heart. All of these renderings are an attempt to describe livabethini, yet not one in itself really describes this word.  

Do you want to understand God’s heart?  Look at your own for it was created in His image. Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”  The word for image in Hebrew is tselem which means to be obscure, dark, shade, shadow, illusion, or image. We were made to be a shadow of God. You can rarely identify a person by their shadow.  But it is a likeness. What is important is that this does not necessarily refer to our physical appearance. God does not have arms, legs, a mouth, eyes, ears, etc. But we bear His characteristics, which include a heart like he has.  The word likeness is damah which is a similitude, that is a model that has similar features. Again, this does not have to mean a physical feature but a spiritual feature or a substance feature like your heart.  When we enter God’s heart, we will not find anything out of the ordinary because our hearts are a similitude of His. 

Is not your heart wounded when someone you care about just ignores you?  Do you not grieve when someone you look forward to being with calls five minutes before your time together and says: “Oh, sorry, I am too busy for you right now?”  What do we do to God’s heart when we ignore Him or are too busy to spend a moment in prayer?

I have found this word livabethini  in extra-Biblical literature to be used for pulling bark from a tree.  I really did not understand this connection until I looked up what it means to pull bark from a tree.I found this quote from a professional arborist Heather Rhoades: “Trees are often thought of as towering giants who are difficult to kill.  Many people are often surprised to find out that removing tree bark can actually harm a tree.  Tree bark damage is not only unsightly but can be deadly to the tree.

For all intents and purposes, tree bark is the skin of the tree.  The main tree bark function is to protect the phloem layer.  The phloem layer is like our own circulatory system.  It brings the energy produced by leaves to the rest of the tree.”  

I remember as a child how we used to go to the forest preserve and strip the bark off of trees and playfully throw it at each other, never realizing that we were hurting that tree, wounding it and possibly killing it.

So, what is Solomon saying when he says that his beloved has “ravished his heart” or livabethini?”  He is saying that just one glance from his beloved and he has hopelessly fallen in love with her.  She has stripped him of that hard shell that he built around his heart to protect it and he has made himself vulnerable to her.   He is a king with the most powerful security force in the world surrounding him to protect him, yet one little peasant woman, with a mere look at him causes him to open his heart and say: “I am giving you the ability to break this heart, you have my heart in your hands, please be careful with it. There is no one to protect my heart from you, only you can protect it.” 

If we are the bride of Christ and He is our bridegroom, does it not follow that He is also saying to us: “You have ravished my heart?”  If He is saying that he is saying: “I may be God, a towering giant to you that seems invulnerable, but I am stripping my bark off the tree, I am exposing myself to you, I am making myself vulnerable to you, I am giving you my heart.  You have the ability to deeply wound my heart, no one but you can protect it, please be gentle with my heart.”

God has made himself vulnerable to us. By just loving us he has opened Himself to the possibility of suffering a broken heart. A popular actress once said, “The greater your capacity to love the greater your capacity to feel pain.”  God is capable of love beyond our imagination and thus we cannot begin to imagine the pain we bring to His heart. 

This is one of our favorite studies that Laura and I worked out together. The full teaching is up on The All Access Learning Channel as well as my new series on better understanding God’s heart. We sure hope you can join us there:  https://www.hebrewwordstudy.com/

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