Have You Considered God's Heart?

Have You Considered God's Heart?

Hebrew Teacher's Search For The Heart Of God

Chaim Bentorah

“Ephraim is a name for Israel that God uses to express a broken heart. The picture we have here is one of a spouse, tearfully forced to sign divorce papers. “How shall I deliver you, O Israel?” Israel (לארׁשי) means “prince of God,” the name God uses when He wants to express His affection, as a husband would call his wife “my dear.” Deliver in Hebrew is mogan (ןגמ), which possesses the idea of setting up to examine and regard. This is a picture of a woman who has placed her husband on this high pedestal and then learns he has been unfaithful. How will she regard him now that her whole image of him is shattered? “How shall I make (again the Hebrew word nathan, “to give”) thee as Adman and Zebiom?” Contrary to popular opinion, it was not just Sodom and Gomorrah that were destroyed; about five other cities went down with them. Adman and Zebiom were like the wealthy, privileged, upper-crust suburb of Sodom and Gomorrah. God realizes that Israel has set itself up for destruction. “My heart turns within me.” The word turn in Hebrew is hafak (ךפה). This word gives the impression of ruin, being overthrown, destroyed. It is the word for an imprisonment or putting in stocks. It also is used to express a tumbling or churning. I have heard the same words used by someone who was suffering a broken heart. They declare that their lives are ruined or destroyed. They feel imprisoned in their love for the person who broke their heart. Physically, they say their stomach is churning. When God says that His heart is turned within Him, He is saying that Israel has broken His heart. Then God says a curious thing: “His repenting is kindled.” Repenting is nakam (םחנ), a word expressing sorrow or grief, and the word kindled is kamar (רמכ), which means “kindling” like “making a fire” or “smoldering.” Many with a wounded heart talk of a burning grief or sorrow, similar to what God is expressing as He speaks of His burning grief. When we choose to love someone and give that person our heart, we make ourselves vulnerable to that person. We give that person the ability to deeply wound us, the ability to break our heart. When God chooses to love us, is He not making Himself just vulnerable to us? When we give Him our hearts, He gives us His heart in return. We make ourselves vulnerable to each other. Of course, we run no risk when we give our hearts to God, for He will not abuse our feelings; He will accept our hearts as a sacred gift and protect us. We, on the other hand, take His heart, toss it into a corner, and then go chasing after other gods to fulfill our needs, paying little attention to the heartbroken lover who has been so faithful and loving to us. Read Hosea 11:8 again. Do you not see a lover watching his beloved self-destruct without being able to do anything about it? Do you hear Him weeping over the unfaithfulness of His loved ones who are about to destroy themselves? Do you not hear Him weeping for His heart being broken over the ones He loves?

We need to understand first just what the heart is. The word used here is levav (בבל), which is the most common Hebrew word for heart and can mean your physical heart or many other things, such as thought, reasoning, judgment, will, design, affection, love, anger, hatred, courage, fear, joy, sorrow, and life. What do all these have in common? They all determine our behavior, the direction we go, and the choices we make. If we give our hearts to God, what are we doing? We are giving Him complete control over all our decisions and directions we take in life. His thoughts become our thoughts, His reasoning becomes our reasoning, His judgments our judgments, His will, our will, etc. To truly give God our hearts means we must know and understand His heart. This is why Solomon exhorts us to keep our hearts with all diligence, for if our hearts belong to God, to abuse our hearts would be to abuse something that belongs to God! So Solomon is telling us that the part of us that reasons, make choices, feels love, fear, hatred, passion, etc. is to be carefully watched over so as to keep us from making foolish choices. And how do we keep from making foolish choices? By scrutinizing our heart. How do we scrutinize our hearts? The word itself will tell us. The Hebrew word for diligence (nesor רצנ) is spelled Nun (נ), Sade (צ), Resh (ר). The Nun (נ) represents faith, the Sade (צ) speaks of humility, and the Resh (ר) is the Holy Spirit. By faith, we humble ourselves to the will of the Holy Spirit. When we give our heart to God, He unites it with His. A husband seeks to scrutinize his wife’s heart because if he breaks her heart, his heart will also break. If he brings her sadness, he will be sad; if he brings her joy, he will be joyful. Yes, there is self-interest in pleasing the one we love, but that does not define selfishness, for we have joined our hearts with that person. Thus, in the process of scrutinizing her heart, we are protecting our heart as well as hers. Selfishness involves a heart separated from that of another. Hence, when a husband joins his heart with his wife’s, he will feel her joy and her sorrow. So too when we join our heart with God’s heart, we will feel His joy and His sorrow. To scrutinize our heart is to scrutinize God’s heart. To protect God’s heart is to protect our heart.”