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הוּא (Hu): He Himself · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed thinking. This is the place where we try
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  to apply some real linguistic focus and theological rigor to
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  Scripture to help you get past a quick surface read and into the
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  actual depths of what the text is saying.
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  Yeah. And today we are really getting
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  into some fine grain detail. We're going to be looking at 2
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  Hebrew words that I mean, on the surface they seem miles apart.
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  You've got the simplest, most common pronoun oh, or who, And
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  then this really weighty noun oh hood, which means majesty or
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  splendor. And the source material for this
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  is, well, it's pretty dense. We're pulling from scholarly
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  lexicons, grammatical analysis. These are basically linguistic
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  maps. They are.
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  But when you translate all that technical detail into
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  theological insight, you get this incredible shortcut to
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  understanding the God who identifies himself.
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  So that's the goal today. We want to show how this this
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  humble little piece of language, the pronoun who becomes the
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  absolute hinge for the highest statements of divine identity.
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  And once we get that, we'll see how Hood comes in to describe
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  the character, you know, the visible glory of that divine
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  identity. It's a path from the simplest
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  building block of speech to the most majestic description of
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  God's rule. It really is.
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  It shows just how precise the biblical text is.
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  OK, let's unpack this. So we have to start with Hugh.
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  It's a word that's just, it's everywhere.
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  It's basic job is to be the third person singular pronoun.
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  He, she, it. Right.
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  It's the mechanism for identification in any story.
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  It's how you keep track of who's doing what.
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  Exactly. I mean, you can't have a
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  narrative without it. Think about Genesis 13 when
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  Abram goes up out of Egypt. The text has to be crystal clear
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  about who is acting next. So it says he Hulosh he and his
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  wife. It's an immediate, unambiguous
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  identifier. It is and it same goes for the
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  feminine form Highgorf in Genesis 3.
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  It says Eve, she became the mother of all living.
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  It's, you know, it's the linguistic skeleton just holding
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  the whole story together. Now, if we look at the word
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  itself, the morphology that tells its own story, doesn't it?
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  Oh, absolutely. The traditional masculine is
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  hue, the feminine is high. But what's really telling is
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  that this root, this structure, is so incredibly stable across
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  all the related Semitic languages from that period.
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  So not just in Hebrew. Not at all.
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  You see versions of it in Moabite, in Phoenician, Arabic,
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  Ethiopic. There's even a similar form in
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  Akkadian. And what does that stability
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  tell us? It tells us this is an ancient
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  fixed identifier. It's not a word that was
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  shifting around and its meaning. It has been doing the job of he
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  for thousands of years. And that longevity, well, that
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  makes its use in the Bible incredibly reliable for
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  grounding identity. But this simple pronoun has a,
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  well, a pretty big surprise hidden inside it, especially in
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  the first five books of the Bible.
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  Yes, the Pentateuch. Outside of Genesis through
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  Deuteronomy, it's pretty straightforward who is
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  masculine, high as feminine. But inside the Pentateuch,
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  Hughes seems to be doing something different.
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  It is. It's often acting as a common
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  gender pronoun. It stands in for the feminine
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  all the time. Our source material points out
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  that the actual feminine spelling hi only shows up 11
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  times in the entire Pentateuch. 11 times.
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  That's it. That's it.
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  So the spelling, it's doing double duty a huge number of
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  times, even when it's clearly talking about a woman.
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  It's like a snapshot of an older stage of the language.
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  So why is that important for us as readers today?
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  What? What is that signal?
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  It matters because of what the later scribes did with it.
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  The Mesa Reddies especially. These guys were sticklers for
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  clarity and tradition. They wanted to standardize the
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  text and make sure it was read correctly.
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  But they wouldn't just change the letters.
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  Right. Never.
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  That's the key. When they found an instance of
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  oath being used for a feminine subject, they kept the original
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  spelling. That's the K2 what is written,
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  but they added vowel points and a note to tell the reader that
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  it should be read as the feminine form.
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  That's the QA. So they're essentially putting a
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  little note in there. They're saying, look, the
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  ancient texts wrote it this way, but we all know it means she.
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  So when you read it out loud, say.
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  She precisely. It's an incredible act of
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  textual preservation. They're harmonizing an older
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  grammatical rule with the later, clearer 1 without altering the
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  sacred consonants. They pointed it as a, which
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  created something called a Curie perpetuum, a constant
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  instruction to the reader. It just shows this deep
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  conviction that every single letter mattered.
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  It does for us today. It's a lesson that even the
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  tiniest grammatical quirks in the Bible have been noticed,
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  preserved and stewarded with incredible care.
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  That's fascinating. OK, So moving on from just
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  personal ID who can also act like a pointer, linguists call
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  it what de? Exes de exes.
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  Yeah, it acts like this or that. It's a way of pointing something
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  out in the text. And why is that so important for
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  an ancient text? Well, think about it.
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  The author is writing about places or details that a reader
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  maybe centuries later wouldn't know, so they use who to build
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  in a clarification. It's almost like a textual
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  footnote baked right into the sentence.
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  Can you give us an example of that pointer in action?
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  Genesis is full of them, especially for geography.
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  Take Genesis 14.3. The text mentions the Valley of
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  Sidim. Now you and I might not know
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  where that is, right? So right after the text adds
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  Okoye Fiq silk C, Fifi clarifies this is the salt C The hue works
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  like an equal sign. It says Valley of Sidim, salt C
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  It's brilliant. It's clarity built right in.
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  So it's a built in editorial note to make sure the audience,
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  no matter how far removed in time or space, it knows exactly
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  what's being talked about. And it's not just for places.
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  Genesis 2.11 describing the rivers of Eden.
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  It says the first is pish on. Then it adds this is the one
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  which encompasses the whole land of Havila.
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  That hue points right back to pish on.
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  Without it, the sentence would be a bit ambiguous.
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  With it, there's no question which river is being discussed.
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  It makes the text accurate across generations.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting.
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  We've talked about basic identification, but how does
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  this word change its meaning just based on where you put it
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  in a sentence? Now we're moving from just
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  identifying to intensifying. Right when you place who
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  strategically, not just as the simple subject, it takes on this
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  role as an intensifier. It's not just he anymore, it
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  becomes he himself or he personally it.
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  Adds weight. A lot of weight, and it's almost
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  always used to create a contrast in a statement.
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  And I think we have to go to Genesis 3.15 for the most
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  powerful example of this, the first Gospel promise.
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  Absolutely. The whole tension in that verse
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  between the seed of the woman and the serpent, it's all held
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  in place by Hugh. God says he shall bruise thy
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  head. The Hebrew is who's Severad.
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  So what is that little who doing there?
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  It's massively emphasizing that he, the promised seed and no one
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  else, will be the one to deliver that crushing blow to the head.
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  So if the text had just said he will bruise that's one thing,
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  but by adding who it isolates the subject.
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  It's saying he and he alone is the one for this job.
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  It creates this stark, absolute contrast with the Serpent, who
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  only gets to bruise the heel. The theological emphasis
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  couldn't be stronger. It points to the unique agent of
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  salvation. And we see this elsewhere,
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  right? It's not just a one off.
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  Oh yeah, think of Job 1.1. That man.
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  Using both the article the and the pronoun of that Hugh is
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  redundant, but it's intentional. It singles Job out.
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  He is that specific man we're about to talk about the pronoun
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  isolates and elevates. Okay, so beyond intensifying who
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  also has this structural utility, our sources talk about
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  how we can resume a subject. What does that mean?
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  This is a really elegant feature of Hebrew prose.
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  It prevents sentences from getting clunky.
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  Sometimes you have a really long subject, maybe with a few
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  clauses attached to it. By the time you get to the verb,
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  you might have lost track of who's doing the action.
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  So Hugh is inserted to sort of pick up that long subject and
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  carry it forward to the verb. It's a clarifying hook.
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  Genesis 15.4 seems like a good example.
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  Abram is worried about his heir. He is, and God tells him who
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  will inherit. The subject is one that shall
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  come forth out of thine own bowels.
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  That's a mouthful. It is so to make the connection
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  to the verb smooth and absolutely clear, the text
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  inserts the pronoun right before the verb.
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  He shall be thy heir. That who reaches back grabs that
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  whole descriptive phrase and says this guy is the one doing
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  the inheriting. It's just beautiful.
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  Grammar. It's like sentence insurance,
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  you can't lose the subject. And there's another example in
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  Genesis 31.16 with Jacob's wives and the wealth from Laban.
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  Exactly, they say all the wealth taken from their father.
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  Another long subject is ours and our children's.
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  The text then resumes that subject with the pronoun and say
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  it is ours and our children's. Without that who it would feel
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  heavy with it. The sentence flows and the
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  subject is confirmed. All right, let's talk about its
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  restrictive use. This is where Hugh follows A
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  noun, and it limits the meaning to only or on their part.
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  This feels really important, especially when we think about
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  things like jurisdiction or delegated authority from a
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  reformed perspective. It's incredibly powerful for
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  setting boundaries. A great example is Numbers
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  18.23. It's talking about the duties of
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  the Levites. The text says the Levite only
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  shall do the service. The Levite himself.
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  Right. The placement of who there
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  restricts that responsibility exclusively to the Levites.
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  It makes it clear who does not have that right.
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  It draws a line. Which is a boundary around
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  religious office. And we see this prophetically
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  too, right to assert God's soul agency.
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  Isaiah 7.14. Yes, the promise of a sign, the
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  text says the Lord himself will give a sign.
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  The placement of Hugh restricts the agency of this miracle to
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  the Lord alone. It's a statement that this isn't
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  coming from a king or a prophet or human effort.
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  It's coming from the single sovereign will of God.
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  It excludes every other possibility.
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  Absolutely. And finally, a really common
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  role for Hugh is as a copula. For our listeners who haven't
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  done Hebrew grammar, what is a copula and why does Hebrew need
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  this pronoun to do that job? A copula is just a linking verb.
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  The verb to be so is our was. In Hebrew, especially in the
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  present tense, you often just leave that verb out.
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  You might say the man righteous, and it means the man is
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  righteous. So the.
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  Is is just implied? It's implied, but when the
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  biblical writers want to make a formal, definitive statement of
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  identity, they insert who to act as that linking verb.
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  It's the linguistic. Glue.
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  It makes it an official statement of equivalence.
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  Yes, it formalizes the identity in Lamentations 1.1 team.
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  The confession is YHWH is righteous, the huge who cements
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  righteousness as God's definitive nature.
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  It's not just an attribute, it's who He is.
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  Or in Genesis 20 when God warns Abimelech about Abraham, he says
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  for he is a prophet. It establishes his office.
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  It does. It moves it from just an
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  observation to a formal declaration of his status.
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  So this tiny word is doing all this massive linguistic work,
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  defining, pointing, intensifying, clarifying,
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  linking, and all of that work seems to be preparing us for its
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  highest and most important use. That's right, it's the solid,
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  reliable work of Hue in everyday identification that gives it the
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  power it has when it's used for the ultimate identification.
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  Which is the declaration of divine identity itself.
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  Exactly. Now we move from grammar into
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  pure theology. This is where who stops being
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  just a simple pronoun and becomes this ultimate statement
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  of self reference. It's used as an emphatic
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  predicate for God, and it's often translated.
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  I am He. And for a reformed understanding
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  of God, this is absolutely central.
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  Gets right to his acidity, his self existence, the fact that he
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  depends on nothing. And Deuteronomy 32.39 is the key
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  passage here it. Is the text reads you quit Trey.
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  Why is Kuchika esquinoyo I? I am he and beside me there is
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  no God. That doubling of I and then
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  slamming the hue right after it, It's just an incredible level of
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  self assertion. So I am He isn't a proper name
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  like YHWH, it's a statement of being.
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  It's the highest possible statement of being of identity
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  and self existence. When God says I am He, he is
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  saying He is the the only non contingent reality in the
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  universe. Everything else powers, people,
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  idols, The mountains is created and transitory.
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  They aren't ultimately real in the way that he is.
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  So if the everyday job of Hugh is to ground reality by saying
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  this is that man, or this is the salt sea, when God uses it for
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  himself, he's grounding all of reality in his own being.
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  That's it exactly. The commentary in our sources
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  suggests it means I am He who is.
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  It establishes this unchangeable self existent reality.
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  It's a linguistic hammer against polytheism.
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  By saying I, I am he, God just eliminates all other contenders
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  from the field. I'm the real one, There are no
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  others. And this wasn't just a one time
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  thing. In Deuteronomy, this formula
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  becomes a signature of YHWHS speech, especially in the
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  prophets. It becomes a recurring theme,
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  yeah, Isaiah uses it constantly to contrast YHWH with the MP
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  idols of Babylon. Isaiah 414346.
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  It's all over the place and. The context there is the exile,
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  right? Right.
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  The people are surrounded by these impressive Babylonian
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  gods, these powerful historical kings, and God cuts through all
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  that Nora's with this simple pronoun who to declare his
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  absolute uniqueness. So if the people were starting
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  to doubt, wondering if God was still in control, this was his
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  answer. It was Isaiah 46.4.
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  God says even to your old age, I am He.
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  That hue links his past faithfulness to his future care.
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  It's a declaration of His immutability, a key doctrine for
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  us. Song one O2 says it beautifully.
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  Thou art he in my years have no end.
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  The pronoun stabilizes God's identity across all of time.
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  It's incredible how that theological confession then gets
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  embedded right into people's names.
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  Names like a by who and Eli who the pronoun he was right there.
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  It's a wonderful point. A by who means whose father is
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  he? And Eli, who means whose God is
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  he? The hue in the name is a
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  confession of faith. It identifies why HWH is the the
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  definitive singular God for that person.
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  Your whole identity is oriented around the God who defines
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  himself as He who is. And we see that same kind of
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  recognition when people speak to God.
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  David's prayer in Second Samuel 7 Thou art he God.
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  Yes, in that prayer David is saying that the God he's talking
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  to, the Thou, is identical to the one true God, the Elohim.
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  It's this intensified statement of recognition.
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  Some analysis even suggest it's restrictive, meaning you and no
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  one else are God. Either way, the result is the
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  same. The exclusivity and stability of
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  God are cemented by this tiny defining pronoun.
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  OK, so who is the engine of self identification showing God's
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  self-sufficiency and singular authority?
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  Now we can pivot to the word that describes the visible
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  character of that identity. Hoad.
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  And HUD is just a massive word in its scope.
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  It describes something substantial.
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  The lexicons define it as wait, might, splendor, majesty.
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  So if who tells us that God is? Who describes what he is like in
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  his appearance and rule? Let's try to breakdown that
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  semantic range, starting with its most common pairing.
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  It's often found alongside the word hoad hadar, which means
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  honor. That pairing of HUD and Hadar is
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  key. It connects the visible
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  greatness of God, the HUD, His radiance and might, with the
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  reverence that this greatness demands the hadar or honor.
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  Psalm 96.6 says Haud, HUD and Hadar are before him.
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  The intrinsic quality and the appropriate response.
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  Exactly. And it's tied directly to God's
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  actions, which is vital. Psalm O1 11.3 says Haud.
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  Haud and Hadar is his work. This means God's actions
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  themselves, creation, Providence, redemption, are all
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  characterized by the splendid majesty.
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  The very fabric of reality bears the signature of his hood.
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  There's also that incredible metaphorical use in Habakkuk 3
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  where God's hood covered the heavens.
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  That's a stunning image. It suggests God's magnificence
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  is so immense, so radiant, that it's not just a point of light.
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  It becomes a celestial covering. It's visible, overwhelming
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  glory. And that moves us right into the
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  idea of majesty itself, that quality that inspires all.
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  So hood is the characteristic that makes you feel reverence
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  just because of the sheer scale or authority of what you're
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  seeing. And it's applied directly to
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  God, like in Joke 37 where the hood of the Almighty is
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  described as awesome and terrible, but then that majesty
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  is extended to the created order itself.
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  Psalm 148 says his hold is over earth and skies.
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  The whole cosmos is permeated with it, reflecting the identity
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  of the God established by who. But it's not just an abstract
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  idea about God. It's also applied to human
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  rulers, to kings. That's right, and this is where
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  we start to see how it connects to governance.
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  It can be a delegated quality. First Chronicles 29 talks about
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  the great hold given to King Solomon.
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  Daniel 11 uses it for the majesty of a ruler.
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  When a human has hoed, it means they have the visible aura and
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  the public sanction of authority.
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  Which brings us to a really fascinating a kind of unexpected
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  meaning for Hoed. It's not just about abstract
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  glory. It can refer to something very
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  physical, like a person's complexion.
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  How does that work? This just shows how concrete
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  biblical language is. Hode can refer to physical
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  vitality, the color and freshness in someone's face.
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  It's the visible sign of life and well-being.
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  The best example is Daniel 10.8. Right after his terrifying
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  vision. He says so.
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  He says a stricter generici, which is translated my hood, my
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  freshness, my complexion was changed upon me to corruption.
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  The life literally drained from his face.
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  That's exactly what it's describing, the visible loss of
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  health and strength. Strength because of extreme
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  terror is the loss of Hoad. It shows that even on a human
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  level, majesty and splendor are tied to vitality.
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  And we see it in the natural world too, Hosea 14, where
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  Israel's freshness is compared to an olive tree.
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  Who's who's a whose hoad shall be Like an olive tree.
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  An olive tree is a symbol of life, health, vibrancy.
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  That visible healthiness is its hoad.
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  So the words meaning stretches from the light covering the
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  heavens all the way down to the color on a man's face.
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  But the core idea is always magnificence and recognize
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  status. But maybe the most significant
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  use of Hoad when it's not about God is its connection to
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  delegated authority. This brings us right back to
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  governance. This is where who and hoad
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  really intersect in a practical way.
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  If God is he who is, then any legitimate earthly authority has
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  to get its hoad from him. And the key passage, the one
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  that spells this out, is Numbers 27.20.
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  Moses is about to hand over leadership to Joshua.
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  And God gives him a very specific instruction about how
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  to do that. What is it?
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  The instruction is Ko Kvuo. You shall confer some of your
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  hold upon him. Some of it that detail seems
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  important. It's critical ho here isn't
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  Moses's personal holiness or his faith.
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  It's presented as a transferable, official measure
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  of authority. It's the governmental sanction
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  he possesses. So Moses isn't giving Joshua his
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  personal relationship with God, he's giving him the official
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  capacity, capacity to govern. Precisely.
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  It's the difference between piety and public office, and the
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  text says to give some of it. Moses, as the unique mediator of
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  the covenant, keeps his ultimate status, but he passes on the
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  visible, awe inspiring authority that Joshua needs to command the
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  nation. This links the word Hoad
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  directly to the mechanics of human sovereignty under God's
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  oversight. It does.
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  Our source material really stresses that this HOAD is a
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  measure of jurisdiction. If you have it, the people are
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  bound to obey you in your official role.
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  This lays the groundwork for ideas that are so important and
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  Reformed thought about God establishing different spheres
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  of authority. Authority isn't just in the man,
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  it's delegated through an official transfer of God
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  sanctioned herd. So after this really detailed
• 19:35
  look, let's try to bring it all together.
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  We've covered a lot of ground. We have we started with the
• 19:39
  simple pronoun who and saw its critical function in just
• 19:42
  establishing identity. It's a pointer structural guide,
• 19:45
  a powerful intensifier. And then we saw its ultimate
• 19:48
  function, the theological declaration.
• 19:51
  I am he, God's self existence. And from there we moved to hode
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  the visible and communicable expression of that very
• 19:58
  identity. We saw it could mean everything
• 20:00
  from physical vitality to the overwhelming majesty covering
• 20:03
  the heavens. And we saw it's the language of
• 20:04
  God's rule, both his own and the rule he delegates to human
• 20:08
  leaders. So what does this all mean for
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  you as a reader of Scripture? It means that this seemingly
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  tiny, insignificant pronoun is absolutely central to
• 20:18
  understanding the unique, self defining God of the Bible.
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  He uses the very building block of language meant for grounding
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  reality to assert his own absolute, singular reality.
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  And this God, the one who declares I am, He is the source
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  of all majesty, all hold, and the only legitimate source of
• 20:37
  all human role. The take away for you, the
• 20:39
  listener, is just to appreciate the incredible precision of the
• 20:42
  text down to the smallest grammatical choice.
• 20:45
  The job of Hugh is always about grounding reality.
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  When that's applied to God, that reality becomes his very self
• 20:51
  existence, his immutability. It turns a grammar lesson into a
• 20:54
  confession of faith. And this brings us full circle
• 20:56
  back to that idea of governance we saw in Numbers 27.
• 20:59
  It does. So here's a final thought to
• 21:01
  Mull over. Consider that delegated Hoad
• 21:04
  from Moses to Joshua. That transfer of governmental
• 21:07
  authority. This provides A framework for
• 21:10
  how God structures earthly life. If God's hode defines both his
• 21:14
  own heavenly rule and the authority he delegates to
• 21:17
  earthly offices, what limits does that place on the nature of
• 21:21
  human government? And what does the very fact that
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  hode can be transferred tell us about the ultimate source of all
• 21:27
  true might, whether it's heavenly or temporal?
• 21:30
  That is a challenging and very compelling question to think
• 21:34
  about as you reflect on God's sovereignty in all spheres.
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  Thank you for joining us today and for sharing your source
• 21:39
  material for this deep dive. Yeah, we'd invite you to keep
• 21:41
  thinking about these connections between identity and authority
• 21:44
  as you read. Until next time on reformed
• 21:46
  thinking, keep searching the scriptures.