Latest / Reformed Thinking / אִישׁ (Ish): The Blessed Man Who Walks in God’s Ways

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אִישׁ (Ish): The Blessed Man Who Walks in God’s Ways · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reform thinking. So imagine stepping onto a
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  battlefield where the fate of 100,000 people rests totally on
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  whether one single guy can win a fistfight in the dirt.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  In ancient Israel, they had a very specific, terrifying word
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  for that guy, and believe it or not, it's the very same word
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  they used to describe the pupil of your eye.
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  Which, I mean, that sounds absurd on the surface.
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  You have brutal physical combat on one hand, and then the most
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  sensitive, delicate part of human anatomy on the other.
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  Yeah, it makes no sense to us. But in the ancient Hebrew mine,
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  those two concepts are completely tied together by a
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  single grammatical root. And that is the focal point for
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  us today. Usually when we think about
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  translating an ancient text, we assume there's a, well, a
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  mathematical precision to it, like engineering or something
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  like. A1 to 1 swap.
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  Yeah, precisely. Take a word in English, find its
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  equivalent in Hebrew, and the dictionary points and says you
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  know, there it is. Dog equals perot.
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  Clean, binary, comforting. We like our language to be
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  visible and neatly categorized. We really do.
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  But then you look at a massive stack of lexical data, ancient
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  dictionaries, linguistic studies, historical grammar, and
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  suddenly that dictionary is broken.
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  It falls apart pretty fast. So today for our deep dive we
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  are looking at a single ancient Hebrew word which is ish
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  Pronounce ish ish. While this translates to man in
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  your English bibles, this single word encapsulates ancient
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  Israel's views on biology, marriage, society, warfare, and
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  the nature of God himself. When you see this word, you are
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  looking at an entire worldview compressed into 3 little
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  letters. And looking at the sheer volume
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  of data we have here from the lexicons, I mean the Brown
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  driver Briggs, the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament,
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  the Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament, you
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  realize very quickly that ancient Hebrew did not function
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  like modern. English.
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  Not even close, right? No, they categorize reality
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  differently. To understand Tish, we have to
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  strip away our modern Western assumptions about individual
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  identity. We have to look at how the
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  ancient Near Eastern mind constructed the world.
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  So before we go further, you just threw out a bunch of
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  academic titles, lexicons, the theological dictionary.
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  For anyone who didn't spend three years in seminary, what is
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  lexicography? That's a really helpful
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  clarification to make. Are we just looking at an
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  ancient Webster's dictionary here?
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  No, it's not like a modern dictionary that just gives you a
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  brief definition and a pronunciation guide.
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  Ancient Hebrew lexicography is the study of how a word behaves
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  across centuries of literature. OK.
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  So it's more historical. Yeah, you are tracking a word as
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  it moves through legal codes, Royal Court records, ancient
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  poetry and apocalyptic visions. You are looking at its
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  etymology, its root, and how the surrounding culture shaped its
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  meaning over time. I see.
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  A theological lexicon doesn't just tell you what a word
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  translates to, it tells you how the people using that word
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  understood the universe. So we're not just defining
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  vocabulary, we are trying to map out the psychology of an ancient
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  civilization. If this word establishes A
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  framework for how they view the universe, we should probably
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  start with a sheer scale of its usage.
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  According to the data, this word appears over 2160 times in the
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  Old Testament. That's correct.
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  It is the 6th most frequent substantive noun in the entire
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  Hebrew Bible. Just to clarify, a substantive
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  noun is what? A substantive noun is simply a
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  word that stands in for a distinct tangible reality, so a
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  person, a place, or a physical object, and you will find it
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  predominantly clustered in the narrative books like Genesis,
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  Judges, and Samuel. It's also heavily featured in
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  the legal codes of Leviticus and Numbers.
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  Because it's so ubiquitous, it becomes the architectural
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  framework for how the biblical authors describe human
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  relationships. Yeah, it sets the baseline, but
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  the architecture of the word itself presents a mystery right
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  out of the gate. The etymology, right?
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  Where does it come from? Because if a word is used 2160
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  times, you would assume scholars know its origins.
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  You would assume so, yeah, but the root is actually heavily
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  debated. However, a very compelling line
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  of linguistic study links to the root just.
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  And what does that root imply? This root means to be solid, to
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  be compact, or to shoot up. It implies A firmness, A
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  structural integrity. OK, structural integrity.
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  So at its most basic biological level, it denotes the solid
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  individual male, distinct from the female, which is Isha.
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  So the root suggests a pillar. Something firm, standing
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  upright, A singular solid entity.
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  When you picture a pillar in an ancient stone building, it's
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  independent, it bears weight, and it's highly visible.
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  That conveys the precise image the ancient mind would have
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  grasped. IT projects strength and
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  solidity in its singular form. It's a very physical, robust
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  concept. It really is.
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  As an individual, a man is viewed as a structural load
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  bearer in the community, but the linguistic anomalies begin to
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  pile up when you try to pluralize it.
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  I notice this in the notes and it's strange.
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  In Hebrew, you typically just add IM to make a masculine word
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  plural. That's the standard rule, yes.
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  So you would logically expect the plural of ish to be ishem.
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  Which makes perfect sense. The solid man becomes solid men.
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  The solitary pillar becomes a colonnade.
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  Right, but that literal plural cesium is extremely rare.
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  It only occurs 3 or 4 times in the entire Old Testament.
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  Wow, Only three or four times out of over 2000 uses.
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  Yeah, it's almost nonexistent. You see it in places like Isaiah
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  53.3 describing the Suffering Servant as a man of sorrows, or
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  literally a man of pains among men.
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  Siege. But for daily standard usage,
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  the Hebrew language borrows from an entirely different route to
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  form the plural. I am so confused by this.
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  The data says they pull from the root caesia to create the common
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  plural lanachem. Why shift roots?
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  What does it mean? Well, they completely abandoned
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  the root that means solid and adopt A root that carries a very
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  different semantic weight. The root Nisha is associated
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  with the word in nosh. And what does inosh mean?
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  It explicitly implies weakness, frailty or mortality.
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  Wait, really? It's like the English word
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  person becoming people pulling from a completely different
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  linguistic family to describe a group.
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  It's a very similar grammatical move, yes.
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  But the semantic shift here is staggering.
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  It feel like a total contradiction.
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  Why would they move from a singular root implying solid and
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  strong to a plural root implying weakness or mortality?
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  It's a fantastic question. Does this say something about
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  the human condition when viewed corporately?
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  It reflects a highly specific theological reality.
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  As an individual, a man might present himself as solid, strong
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  and ege. He might project an image of
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  autonomy and strength. Right, the unbroken pillar.
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  Yeah, but when you gather humanity together corporately,
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  what defines the group is not their collective strength.
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  What defines them is their collective frailty, their
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  mortality and their shared falling condition.
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  Oh wow, so the grammar itself is making a theological statement.
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  Absolutely. The plural nasham strips away
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  the illusion of absolute human solidity.
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  It points to a post fall reality where the human race in its
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  aggregate is weak and utterly dependent upon their creator.
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  That is a staggering detail, hidden right in the grammar.
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  The language itself possesses A theological memory of human
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  frailty. It's unavoidable when you read
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  it in Hebrew. You can pretend to be a pillar
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  on your own, but the moment you are grouped with the rest of
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  humanity, the language reminds you that you are made of dust.
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  The grammar forces the reader to confront the reality of human
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  limitation. You cannot read the text without
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  bumping into the reality of mortality.
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  So if this word establishes a man as a solid pillar
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  biologically, what happens when that pillar is placed in the
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  center of a community? Well, it becomes the load
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  bearing wall of the ancient household.
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  And that completely changes how we view marital law.
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  Let's move from biology to sociology.
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  The second primary definition of age in the lexicons is husband.
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  When you read the ancient legal texts, this term is the standard
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  vocabulary for marital law. OK, so it transitions from just
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  a male to a formal role, right? If you look at the laws
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  regarding suspected of military in numbers 5 or the laws
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  regulating a woman's vows in numbers 30, the text constantly
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  uses ish to define the man in his role.
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  It defines him as the covenantal head of the home, essentially.
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  Yes, precisely. He is not just a male residing
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  in a house. He is the structural head of
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  that covenant unit. He is the representative.
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  Which means his actions carry a lot of weight.
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  The legal codes view the household through his headship.
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  Whatever the Z's does, or whatever legal obligations he
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  assumes, bind the household. So he acts as a proxy.
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  He is the legal and spiritual proxy for the family before the
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  judges and before God. But the absolute shock for the
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  ancient reader is how the prophets take this domestic
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  legal term and apply it to the absolute sovereign of the
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  universe. This brings us to Hosea chapter
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  2. For anyone reading this passage
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  today, it might just sound like a nice poetic metaphor.
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  Yeah, we read it and think, oh, that's beautiful.
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  But you mentioned the historical context makes this radical.
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  To understand the weight of Hosea 2 point O 8, you have to
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  understand the religious climate of ancient Israel at the time.
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  They were constantly tempted by the fertility cults of Canaan.
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  Specifically, the worship of Ball.
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  Right. And the word ball literally
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  means master, owner or Lord. So it's a title of dominance.
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  Very much so. The Canaanite religion was
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  highly transactional. You appease the Master the by
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  all through sacrifices, sometimes horrifying human
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  sacrifices, and in return he gives you rain and crops.
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  That sounds like a mafia shakedown.
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  It was a religion of dominance, manipulation and sheer terror.
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  It's a master slave dynamic applied to the weather.
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  You are not trying to know the deity, you're just trying to
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  bribe him so he doesn't starve your family.
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  The worshipper had no assurance, no security, and certainly no
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  affection for the deity. You just hoped you gave enough
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  to keep him happy. OK, so that's the backdrop.
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  That's what Israel is surrounded by.
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  Yes, but in Hosea 2.18, Yahweh speaks of his future
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  relationship with his rebellious people, Israel, and he issues
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  this incredible declaration. In that day you will call me is
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  she my husband, and you will no longer call me Bali, my master.
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  Wow, we are so used to thinking of God as a king or a judge.
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  What changes in the mind of an ancient Israelite when the
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  creator of the universe asks to be called Ishi?
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  It's a massive shift. I mean this is a term they used
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  everyday in their own kitchens and living rooms.
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  It shatters their Pagan assumptions about how the divine
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  interacts with the created order.
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  God is sovereignly declaring an end to the transactional
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  dominance based religion of Bell.
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  Because a husband isn't just an owner.
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  Right. He is establishing a
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  relationship defined by covenantal intimacy.
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  By taking the title Duche, Yahweh is saying I am not just a
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  distant owner demanding tribute. I am the faithful covenantal
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  Head who binds myself to you in steadfast love.
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  It's a radical condescension. The Infinite Creator uses the
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  vocabulary of human marriage to reveal his posture toward his
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  people. It truly.
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  Is you think about the difference between a tyrant and
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  a husband? Yeah.
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  You obey a bow out of terror, hoping he doesn't destroy your
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  crops. Yeah, it's fear based.
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  But you respond to AG out of the security of a permanent
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  covenant. It completely redefines the
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  motivation for obedience. It's the difference between
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  groveling to survive and resting in the care of a faithful head.
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  The use of Asia here moves the relationship from a legal
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  transaction to a binding personal covenant.
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  Which is incredible when you consider Israel was rebelling at
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  the time. It's a stunning display of God's
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  grace to a people who are actively pursuing other gods.
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  He offers them covenantal headship instead of destruction.
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  This intimate relational title defines a man in the home.
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  But how did the ancient language define a man in the public
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  square? That's where things get really
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  linguistically interesting. Because the lexicon show this
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  word acting like linguistic glue for almost every vocation in the
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  ancient world. Scholars refer to this as the
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  man of idiom in Hebrew syntax. Instead of having a unique
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  standalone noun for every possible profession, Hebrew
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  often takes the word yuge and attaches it to another noun.
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  So we just glue words together, yeah.
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  To create a title, a vocation or a description of character, it
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  constructs identity. Why didn't they just invent a
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  word for a sailor? Why go through the linguistic
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  trouble of calling him a man of ships?
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  Because in their psychology, a job wasn't just something you
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  did from dawn until dusk, it was an ontological reality.
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  Ontological meaning it's about being.
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  Oh yes, it defined your essence. Let's look at the data.
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  We have Ishahadama, literally man of the soil, which is used
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  for Noah in Genesis 9.20 to describe him as a farmer.
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  OK, man of the soil. We have Ishoniolt man of ships
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  describing a sailor in First Kings 9.27.
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  There is Ishadaya Ayyad, man knowing hunting for Esau in
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  Genesis 25. South Esau is the man of
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  hunting. And one of the most vivid visual
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  descriptions is Shish Balashore, Man of hair, which was the
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  physical description of the prophet Elijah in 2 Kings 1.8.
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  A man of hair, that's quite a visual.
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  But when you call someone a man of ships, you were saying that
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  the sea, the ships, the maritime life, that is what animates his
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  core being. Right, he isn't just clocking in
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  for a shift. Today we might say someone is a
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  company man or they are made of money.
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  You are identifying them entirely by what consumes them.
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  That's a great modern parallel. You are collapsing their
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  identity into the object of their pursuit.
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  The noun attached to ege is the defining characteristic of their
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  existence. It's what they are bound to, and
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  this grammatical rule applies not just to jobs, but to intense
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  moral evaluations. Moral evaluations?
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  How so? The biblical authors use this
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  construction to deliver devastating assessments of human
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  nature. Looking at the lexicons, they
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  list several moral categories. You have an Ishto, an Evildoer.
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  You have an ishtuk and oppressor.
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  Yes, those are very common. But the most severe, the most
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  absolute condemnation in this category is the phrase
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  ishbiliya. That is a very heavy term.
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  It's often translated as a scoundrel or a man of
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  worthlessness. How does this phrase reflect the
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  biblical view of human corruption?
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  It reveals a lot. Are we talking about a few bad
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  choices or a fundamentally corrupted nature?
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  We are talking about the total corruption of the human will.
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  Total corruption. The term baliya implies
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  something that is utterly without profits, something
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  ruinous and devoid of any redeeming quality.
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  Wow. Devoid of any redeeming quality.
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  When the text calls someone an Izbaliya, it's not saying they
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  are a generally good person who occasionally makes a mistake due
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  to bad circumstances. It's not just a lapse in
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  judgment. No, it is an indictment of their
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  core nature. It's the man of idiom again.
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  They're consumed by, animated by, entirely defined by
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  worthlessness. That's right.
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  The Rebellion is the load bearing pillar of their
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  identity. If we connect this to the
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  theological reality of human depravity, this idiom perfectly
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  captures the reality of our condition outside of divine
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  grace. The corruption isn't
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  superficial. No, it goes down to the root,
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  and Ezbilia is fundamentally unable to produce anything a
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  spiritual value because his very identity is married to
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  rebellion. So his essence is tied to the
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  rebellion. Every inclination, every
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  motivation is tainted by this inherent worthlessness.
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  Think about how countercultural that is it really?
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  Clashes with modern sensibilities.
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  Modern culture tells us that humans are essentially a blank
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  slate, fundamentally good and only corrupted by outside
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  influences or bad systems. Yeah, the noble Savage idea.
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  But the Hebrew grammar refuses to allow that kind of optimism.
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  It locks a person's identity directly to their rebellion.
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  It leaves no room for inherent human goodness.
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  It's a stark diagnosis of total corruption.
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  The grammar itself preaches total depravity.
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  You are what you are bound to. You are a man of the soil, a man
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  of ships, or a man of total rebellion.
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  And you can't just easily swap those identities out.
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  There is no way for the Ege Belial to simply choose to
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  become something else, any more than a man of ships can suddenly
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  decide to be a man of the soil without a complete dismantling
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  of his life. You would need a new nature
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  entirely. Yes, a complete recreation.
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  That is a heavy linguistic reality.
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  Now, of all these men of descriptions, it is one specific
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  vocation that carries the highest stakes in the ancient
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  Near East. It's a vocation that changes the
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  scope of the word completely. It pulls the EGE out of the
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  home, out of the field and into life or death conflict.
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  We are looking at the Ege Maloma, the man of war or the
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  warrior. Looking at the data, this phrase
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  is used constantly to describe soldiers.
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  Yes, standard military terminology.
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  But the most astonishing usage is in Exodus 15.3.
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  Israel has just crossed the Red Sea, the Egyptian army has been
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  crushed under the waters, and Moses leads the people in a song
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  of praise. Song of the Sea.
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  And the descriptive praise they use for Yahweh Himself is Yahweh
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  is a man of war. Yes, Yahweh.
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  For a listener trying to understand how the ancients
• 17:21
  viewed God, that feels like a massive leap.
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  You called this an anthropomorphism earlier.
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  What does that mean? It's a crucial term to
• 17:29
  understand here. And why attribute this brutal
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  human title to God? An anthropomorphism is when you
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  assign human characteristics, emotions, or titles to God in
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  order to make His actions comprehensible to us.
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  So it's an analogy. Right, God does not literally
• 17:44
  possess a physical body with a sword and shield.
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  The Hebrew text literally reads Yahweh Ishmaelima.
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  Why use that specific phrase then?
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  They use this title because they have just witnessed the
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  absolute, unrivaled authority of God over the greatest military
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  superpower of their day. The Egyptian chariot force was
• 18:01
  the apex predator of the ancient world.
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  They were an unstoppable machine.
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  And God dismantles them using the sea itself.
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  By calling God a man of war, Israel is confessing that God
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  fights for his people. He's not passive.
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  No, He intervenes in history to execute justice and secure
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  salvation. He is not a passive deity
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  watching from a distance. He actively crushes the enemies
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  of his covenant people. But the lexicons also point out
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  a highly specific subcategory of the warrior, and this is where
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  the theological implications get massive.
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  This is probably my favorite use of the word in the entire Hebrew
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  Bible. The term is izhabenayim.
• 18:41
  In our English Bibles, this is usually translated as champion.
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  Yes, like in First Samuel 17. The most famous occurrence is
• 18:48
  describing Goliath of Gath the Giant stepping out to taunt
• 18:51
  Israel. Right, Everyone knows the story
• 18:53
  of David and Goliath. But the literal translation is
• 18:56
  not champion or giant, is it? No, it's not.
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  The literal translation is the man of the space between.
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  The man of the space between that paints such a vivid
• 19:04
  picture. It does.
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  To grasp the terror of this term, you have to visualize the
• 19:09
  physical geography of ancient warfare.
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  OK, set the scene for us. You have two armies encamped on
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  opposing hillsides. Between them is a valley floor.
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  That valley floor, the space between, is the no man's land.
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  The Killing Floor, yeah. When two nations were
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  deadlocked, rather than risk the slaughter of their entire
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  populations in a chaotic melee, they would engage in
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  representative combat. So 1 nation sends their absolute
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  best, the other sends their absolute best.
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  Barisha have an I am steps into the gap.
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  He leaves the ranks of his people, walks down the hill into
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  the space between the two armies, and fights the battle
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  that the people cannot fight for themselves.
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  Think about how we process failure or fear today.
• 19:50
  When we face an insurmountable obstacle, our culture tells us
• 19:54
  to look inward. Right.
• 19:55
  Try harder. Believe in yourself.
• 19:57
  To dig deep and find our inner strength.
• 20:00
  But if you are an ancient Israelite, standing on that hill
• 20:03
  watching Goliath down the valley, trying harder is a death
• 20:06
  sentence. You are paralyzed.
• 20:07
  You can't just hike yourself up to fight a nine foot tall
• 20:10
  trained killer. You must look outside yourself
• 20:12
  to a representative substitute. Isn't this the essence of a
• 20:16
  representative head? It is the absolute core of it.
• 20:19
  One man stands in the space between and his victory at her
• 20:23
  feet is entirely credited to the people standing behind him on
• 20:26
  the Ridge. The principle of federal
• 20:29
  headship is baked right into the vocabulary of ancient combat.
• 20:33
  The destiny of the Many rests entirely on the shoulders of the
• 20:36
  One. So they're legally tied to his
• 20:38
  performance. Yes, if the Ijahabanayam falls,
• 20:42
  the entire nation behind him is considered defeated and they
• 20:44
  become slaves. They are legally bound to the
• 20:47
  outcome of his performance. And if he wins?
• 20:49
  If he wins, the entire nation shares in his triumph, even
• 20:53
  though they never swung a sword, never shed a drop of blood, and
• 20:56
  never risked their own lives. It is the absolute imputation of
• 20:59
  his performance to his people. His victory is legally
• 21:02
  transferred to their account. The text in First Samuel 17 is
• 21:06
  setting up a staggering theological paradigm.
• 21:09
  Israel is cowering on the hillside.
• 21:11
  They cannot save themselves. They are entirely paralyzed by
• 21:14
  their own inadequacy. They are completely helpless.
• 21:17
  They need an Ishabanayam to step into the gap as their covenantal
• 21:20
  head. They need him to secure a
• 21:22
  victory they could never achieve and to credit that victory to
• 21:26
  their account. It's the perfect historical
• 21:28
  shadow of how salvation operates.
• 21:30
  It truly is. That changes how you read the
• 21:32
  David and Goliath story. It completely reframes it.
• 21:35
  We have. Turned it into a motivational
• 21:36
  speech about overcoming the giants in our lives by finding 5
• 21:40
  smooth stones of courage or discipline.
• 21:43
  Yeah, the be a David Sunday School lesson.
• 21:45
  But it's not an underdog story about trying harder.
• 21:48
  It's a story about relying completely on a representative
• 21:51
  substitute. Exact.
• 21:52
  Well, precisely. You are not David in that story.
• 21:55
  You are the terrified Israelite shivering on the hill, waiting
• 22:00
  for a champion to win your salvation for you.
• 22:02
  When you understand the word eshab and I am moralism dies,
• 22:07
  you realize that you're standing before the enemy.
• 22:09
  Depends entirely on the perfection of your substitute.
• 22:11
  Your own effort contributes absolutely nothing to the
• 22:14
  victory. While the physical warrior
• 22:16
  fights in the valley, Israel relied on a different kind of
• 22:19
  mediator to bridge the gap between heaven and earth.
• 22:22
  Yes, moving from the battlefield to the spiritual realm.
• 22:25
  Let's look at another title, Ish Hashim.
• 22:29
  The man of God. This is an incredible phrase,
• 22:32
  and the lexical data provides a very clear map of how it
• 22:35
  functions. How often does it pop up?
• 22:37
  It occurs 76 times in the Hebrew text.
• 22:40
  Who actually gets this title? Because we use Man of God today
• 22:44
  to describe any pastor or person who goes to church on Sunday.
• 22:48
  Yeah, it's become a very generic compliment today, but.
• 22:51
  The biblical text is much more restrictive, right?
• 22:53
  It is an exclusive, highly restricted list.
• 22:55
  Moses receives it. David receives it, but the
• 22:58
  primary recipients are Elijah, Elijah, Samuel, and various
• 23:02
  anonymous messengers. I am looking at the data and
• 23:05
  there is a fascinating anomaly here.
• 23:07
  This term is heavily clustered in the historical book.
• 23:10
  Extremely clustered. It occurs 55 times in the Books
• 23:13
  of Kings alone, but it is practically never used for the
• 23:17
  later writing prophets. No, it almost disappears.
• 23:20
  So if Isaiah wrote one of the longest, most majestic books in
• 23:24
  the Bible, why isn't he a man of God while an anonymous, unnamed
• 23:28
  messenger in Judges 13 is? This requires us to trace the
• 23:32
  historical progression of how God administered his covenant.
• 23:36
  OK, walk us through that timeline.
• 23:38
  In the earlier periods of Israel's history, during the
• 23:40
  time of the Judges and the early monarchy with Elijah and Elijah,
• 23:44
  Vajish Halosham denoted a possessor of the Spirit.
• 23:48
  A possessor of the Spirit. This was a person uniquely near
• 23:51
  to God, who performed undeniable physical signs and wonders.
• 23:55
  They raised the dead. They called down fire from
• 23:58
  heaven. They multiplied oil.
• 23:59
  Their ministry was highly visible, highly miraculous.
• 24:02
  What were the signs actually doing?
• 24:03
  Were they just flexing spiritual muscle?
• 24:05
  No, it wasn't a magic show. The signs were validating the
• 24:08
  covenant in a time of extreme national apostasy.
• 24:12
  When the nation had gone completely off the rails.
• 24:14
  When the nation had abandoned the written law and turned to
• 24:16
  idols, God raised up these men with raw, miraculous validation
• 24:20
  to prove that Yahweh was still sovereign.
• 24:23
  So the miracles prove their credentials.
• 24:25
  The miracles authenticated their as the Hijas Elsheim.
• 24:29
  However, as redemptive history progressed into the era of the
• 24:33
  great writing prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the
• 24:37
  function shifted. The emphasis moved away from
• 24:40
  calling down fire. The emphasis shifted from the
• 24:43
  sign working man of God to the covenant prosecuting Word
• 24:48
  Bearer. And the Hebrew word for that is?
• 24:49
  Which the Hebrew calls unobaya a prophet.
• 24:53
  Isaiah and Jeremiah did not primarily perform physical
• 24:56
  miracles. They brought the written law of
• 24:58
  God to bear upon the nation. Right.
• 25:00
  They operated like prosecuting attorneys reading the terms of
• 25:03
  the broken covenant to a guilty people.
• 25:05
  That makes a lot of sense. The title Man of God is reserved
• 25:09
  for those unique early figures who bridge the gap through
• 25:11
  miraculous validation, whereas the later prophets relied
• 25:15
  entirely on the authority of the revealed word.
• 25:18
  The Azohalishim was the closest an Israelite could get to the
• 25:22
  immediate presence of the divine during those chaotic early
• 25:25
  centuries. He was the authorized
• 25:26
  ambassador. He was the mouthpiece of the
• 25:28
  king, standing in the courts of corrupt human rulers.
• 25:31
  But the text is fiercely protective of the boundary
• 25:34
  between the human and the divine.
• 25:36
  It never blurs those lines. Which brings us to a massive
• 25:38
  theological chasm in our sources.
• 25:41
  Let's look at 2 texts that seem on the surface to be in complete
• 25:45
  contradiction. The tension here is central to
• 25:47
  understanding the Hebrew mind. 1st we have numbers 23.19.
• 25:52
  The text reads God is not a man and see that he should lie, nor
• 25:58
  a son of man that he should change his mind.
• 26:01
  That is a definitive statement. The boundary is drawn in
• 26:04
  permanent ink. God is absolutely not an A.
• 26:07
  It is the absolute creator creature distinction.
• 26:10
  The text uses the word A specifically in contrast to God
• 26:13
  to highlight human frailty, mortality, and our capacity for
• 26:17
  moral failure. So in this context, ease is a
• 26:19
  negative comparison. Yes, what is an E?
• 26:21
  An E is just changeable and E is just deceptive, and ease is
• 26:25
  bound by time, weakness, and limited knowledge.
• 26:28
  God is entirely distinct from all of that.
• 26:30
  He doesn't share any of those traits.
• 26:31
  He does not lie, He does not repent of His eternal decrees,
• 26:34
  and His absolute sovereignty is not subject to human limitations
• 26:38
  or fluctuations. The data gives a few other
• 26:40
  verses too. Right Job 9.32 says he is not a
• 26:43
  man like me that I might answer him.
• 26:45
  Hosea 11.9 says I am God and not man.
• 26:49
  The infinite creator is on one side and the finite flawed age
• 26:52
  is on the other. There is no overlapping
• 26:55
  territory in their essence. None whatsoever.
• 26:58
  But then we turn to Genesis 18. Genesis 18 presents a startling
• 27:01
  narrative that forces the reader to pause.
• 27:04
  Set the scene for us. Yahweh appears to Abraham by the
• 27:07
  oaks of Mamre, and the text says Abraham looked up and saw three
• 27:11
  men. And the Hebrew word there is.
• 27:14
  Sanosh, the plural of the youth standing nearby.
• 27:16
  Wait, pause right there. Numbers says God is not a man.
• 27:21
  Genesis says Yahweh appeared as a man.
• 27:23
  How do we synthesize this? It creates a lot of tension for
• 27:26
  the reader. If God is utterly distinct from
• 27:28
  a man, why do heavenly beings, apocalyptic messengers in Daniel
• 27:32
  and Zechariah, and Yahweh himself in Genesis 18 cross the
• 27:36
  boundary and take the visual form of an age?
• 27:38
  It's a heavy question. You mentioned the word theophany
• 27:41
  in your notes. What exactly is a theophany?
• 27:43
  Are we just talking about a vision or a dream?
• 27:46
  Or is this something more tangible?
• 27:48
  A theophany is a visible, tangible manifestation of God to
• 27:52
  humanity. It is not merely a dream.
• 27:55
  I mean Abraham prepares a meal and the men physically eat it.
• 27:59
  So it's real physical interaction in time and space,
• 28:02
  yes. The tension exists to protect 2
• 28:06
  simultaneous truths. The first truth is God's
• 28:09
  absolute transcendence in His divine essence.
• 28:12
  He is entirely separate from the created order.
• 28:15
  He's totally other. The second truth is His
• 28:18
  sovereign imminence, His ability to draw near, to condescend, and
• 28:22
  to interact with His creation in a way we can comprehend.
• 28:25
  It makes me think of an author writing themselves into a play.
• 28:28
  Oh, that's a good way to picture it.
• 28:30
  The playwright is absolutely not the characters on the stage.
• 28:33
  The playwright exists in an entirely different dimension, a
• 28:35
  different order of reality. Right, the author isn't bound by
• 28:38
  the physics of the stage. Well, yeah, the characters are
• 28:41
  bound to the script, the stage, and the timeline of the play,
• 28:44
  but the author is completely free from those constraints.
• 28:47
  They are outside the system. Yet the playwright can write a
• 28:50
  character into the story that represents himself.
• 28:53
  He can step onto the stage to deliver a message to interact
• 28:55
  with the characters without ever losing his identity as the
• 28:58
  transcendent author outside the play.
• 29:00
  That is a highly accurate analogy.
• 29:02
  When Yahweh takes the form of an amjem in Genesis 18 to eat with
• 29:07
  Abraham, he is not abandoning his divine nature.
• 29:10
  He doesn't stop being God. Nor is he admitting to the moral
• 29:14
  frailty or limitation of a biological sea.
• 29:17
  He is sovereignly bridging the chasm.
• 29:20
  He assumes a form that Abraham can interact with without
• 29:23
  incinerating Abraham with his unshielded glory.
• 29:26
  He accommodates our weakness. If he showed up in the fullness
• 29:29
  of his uncreated glory, Abraham would be consumed.
• 29:32
  It would be fatal, yeah. So he puts on the visual form of
• 29:34
  an ege to sit in the shade of a tree and talk to his friend.
• 29:37
  The visual form of the tease is a vessel, A gracious
• 29:40
  accommodation so that the infinite can commune with the
• 29:43
  finite. It preserves the creator
• 29:45
  creature distinction while allowing for immense.
• 29:47
  It's a beautiful theological balance.
• 29:50
  This bridging of the gap between the individual human and the
• 29:54
  vastness of God leads us to how the word ish represents
• 29:58
  collective humanity, and specifically one of the most
• 30:02
  beautiful idioms in the entire Hebrew language.
• 30:04
  Let's start with the concept of absolute corporate solidarity.
• 30:07
  OK, corporate solidarity. To phrases KS Ed which
• 30:11
  translates to as one man. We use that phrase in English
• 30:14
  sometimes they rose up as one man.
• 30:16
  Yeah, it's survived into modern usage.
• 30:18
  In Hebrew it denotes A terrifying or awe inspiring
• 30:22
  unity. Where we see that in the text?
• 30:24
  You see it when the entire community assembles for
• 30:26
  judgement and Judges 20 or when an army marches out in complete
• 30:30
  synchronization. Thousands of individuals operate
• 30:33
  with a single mind, a single will KC.
• 30:35
  The individual ish is subsumed into the collective whole.
• 30:38
  The many function as the one. The language takes this massive
• 30:42
  collective concept, thousands of soldiers moving like of a single
• 30:45
  machine, and shrinks it down to the most microscopic, intimate
• 30:49
  level imaginable. This is where the vocabulary
• 30:51
  gets incredibly poetic. Introduce us to this linguistic
• 30:55
  gem. Ishon is a diminutive form of
• 30:58
  ish. When you add the on suffix in
• 31:00
  Hebrew, it makes the noun small. So literally Yujin translates to
• 31:04
  the little man. Where does this little man live
• 31:07
  in the biblical text? It is the ancient Hebrew idiom
• 31:10
  for the people of the eye. The pupil of the eye is little
• 31:13
  man. You find it in places like
• 31:14
  Deuteronomy 32.0 and Proverbs 7.2.
• 31:19
  The text says that God kept Israel as the Jun, the pupil of
• 31:23
  his eye. The little man of the eye that
• 31:26
  is stunning poetry, but what is the rationale behind it?
• 31:29
  Why associate a tiny man with the center of the human eye?
• 31:33
  The rationale is actually based on basic human anatomy and the
• 31:36
  physics of light reflection. When you look very, very closely
• 31:40
  into someone's pupil, what do you see?
• 31:42
  You see a tiny reflection of yourself.
• 31:44
  You see a little man, a tiny image of yourself reflected in
• 31:47
  the dark center of their eye. Think about the intimacy
• 31:50
  required for that. You can only see the little man
• 31:52
  if you are inches away from someone's face.
• 31:54
  You have to be incredibly close. You cannot see the reflection
• 31:58
  from across a room, or from a hilltop, or even from a few feet
• 32:01
  away. You had to be face to face
• 32:03
  breathing the very same air. It requires extreme proximity.
• 32:08
  When the text says God protects his people as the Yujon of his
• 32:11
  eye, what does that say about his proximity to us?
• 32:15
  It speaks to a sovereign care that is astoundingly intimate.
• 32:19
  God is not observing His people through a telescope from the
• 32:23
  distant heavens. He's not detached.
• 32:25
  He is not managing them on a spreadsheet from afar.
• 32:27
  In Deuteronomy 32, the context is Israel wandering in the
• 32:31
  howling wasteland of the desert. They are vulnerable, exposed to
• 32:34
  predators, and entirely helpless.
• 32:37
  And the text declares that God surrounds them, he cares for
• 32:40
  them, and he guards them as the Zune of his eye.
• 32:42
  His gaze is so close, so attentive, that the reflection
• 32:46
  is captured in his vision. They are the center of his
• 32:48
  focus. The absolute ruler of history
• 32:51
  leans in close enough that his people become the little man in
• 32:55
  his eye. It is the ultimate expression of
• 32:57
  covenantal security. You are held in the direct,
• 32:59
  unbroken line of His sight. Nothing can approach you without
• 33:02
  first crossing through His vision.
• 33:04
  That is just incredible. Let's take a step back and recap
• 33:08
  the progression we have tracked today.
• 33:09
  We covered a lot of ground. We started with a solid
• 33:12
  biological route, the upright pillar of the individual male.
• 33:16
  We saw that solidity applied to the home through the intimacy of
• 33:19
  the Divine husband, the CG who replaced the tyrannical master
• 33:23
  of the Pagan cults. Right, moving from fear to
• 33:26
  covenant. Then we walked into the public
• 33:28
  square and saw men defined entirely by their vocations or
• 33:31
  trapped entirely by their own total depravity as the
• 33:34
  Izbaliyal. The man of worthlessness.
• 33:37
  We watched the representative champion, the Izhabi Naeem,
• 33:40
  stand in the space between two armies to secure a victory for
• 33:43
  his people, legally transferring his triumph to their account.
• 33:47
  The federal head. We identify the man of God who
• 33:50
  bridged the chasm between heaven and earth as an authorized
• 33:53
  ambassador. And finally we zoomed all the
• 33:56
  way in to see the tiny reflection, the little man and
• 33:59
  the pupil of an eye held securely in the sovereign gaze
• 34:02
  of God. It is a remarkable linguistic
• 34:05
  framework that completely reorders how you read the Old
• 34:08
  Testament, and it's worth noting a final fact from the source
• 34:11
  text as we wrap up today's deep dive.
• 34:13
  What's the final piece of the puzzle?
• 34:14
  When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek, and when
• 34:17
  the writers of the New Testament took up their pens, they made a
• 34:20
  sharp division that the Hebrew language held together.
• 34:23
  What kind of division? The Greek language splits the
• 34:26
  Hebrew concept of yege into two distinct words.
• 34:29
  They use an Adair to specify a male or a husband, and they use
• 34:33
  anthrupos to describe general humanity or a person.
• 34:37
  Oh, so they separate the biology from the humanity?
• 34:40
  The New Testament writers maintain this strict boundary,
• 34:43
  but the ancient Hebrew mind, through the single word siege,
• 34:46
  forced the reader to hold the specific individual and the
• 34:49
  corporate representative together in one breath.
• 34:52
  It forced them to see the pillar and the frail aggregate at the
• 34:55
  same time. It's a much more holistic way of
• 34:57
  viewing identity. Every time you read the simple
• 34:59
  word man in an English Bible, you're walking over a massive
• 35:03
  underground linguistic city. The text is asking you a
• 35:06
  question. Are you reading about a
• 35:08
  biological entity? A scoundrel completely consumed
• 35:11
  by his own rebellion? A champion standing in the space
• 35:14
  between to win your salvation, or the very reflection of God in
• 35:17
  the pupil of an eye? Keep looking for the little man
• 35:19
  in the text.