Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar:
Genesis 29:30: “So Jacob went into Rachel and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years.”
There are two words in the Hebrew for love. One is hiybah which is related to the word hovah which means obligation. The other is ahavah which in it’s root means “I will give.” Jacob ahavah Rachel but he hovah Leah. The test for ahavah is simple, “Do you want to do more for him/her than you want her/him to do for you?” In it’s Gematria ahavah is 13, aleph = 1, he = 5, beth = 2, he = 5 which equal 13. When a man and woman ahavah each other that is 13 + 13 which equals 26. As I mentioned in my earlier devotionals 26 is the number equivalent of YHWH. True love between a man and woman joins them with God.
Also note that God ahavah us but we must return ahavah to add our 13 to make 26. Love is not complete until it is returned. God demonstrates ahavah in that He wants to do more for us than He wants us to do for Him. The issue then comes down to whether we want to do more for him than we want him to do for us. Far too often we return his ahavah with hiybah, obligation. The result is an incomplete love.
Do we give tithes out of ahavah or hiybah? Do we attend church out of ahvah or hiybah? Do we study the Word of God out of ahavah or hiybah? We say we love God but is it ahavah or hiybah. Do we love God as Jacob loved Rachel or as Jacob loved Leah. Jacob did his duty with Leah. He laid with her, he gave her children, he provided for her, took care of her, but he never felt ahavah for her only hiybah. He loved Leah, but that love did not bring him to God. He loved (ahavah) Rachel and thus he was far more endeared to the children of Rachel (Joseph and Benjamin) and indeed gave Joseph his coat signifying that he was giving him the position of the eldest. This made his brothers jealous, yet it was proper for Joseph was the eldest of the woman who was Jacobs 13 to his 13 to join him to God (26).
You hear in the media all the time people saying they divorced because that person did not satisfy them, did not meet their needs, they were being held back by that person, they were not able to be all that “God” intended for them to be. Or they found someone who could meet their needs better than their present mate or do it better than their mate. Such comments are applauded in our culture, encouraged even. Love in our culture is hiybah not ahavah. Yet, in the relationship between a man and woman God has given us you His greatest opportunity to join yourselves with Him in a complete worship experience.
Jacob had two wives, David and Solomon had many wives. Are we not to have only one mate, what gives? In God’s eyes, Jacob, David and Solomon only had one mate. Each had only one wife they really ahavah. The others they merely hiybah. Only one woman would they sleep with on the Sabbath, only one woman would they enter into that complete worship of God, only one woman would God recognize as the true marriage.
Do you really ahavah your mate or just hiybah. You may have gone through an earthly wedding ceremony, you may have a signed earthly contract that obligates (hiybah) you to your mate, but in God’s eyes, you are not married. Not until you ahavah your mate, desire to do more for him/her than you want him/her to do for you. There is an old Jewish saying to young couples whose marriages were arranged. Many never even met until their wedding day. They did not ahavah each other but only hiybah. Yet their parents would tell them, “you will learn to “ahavah” each other.” If you have a mate, and you don’t feel you ahavah your mate, you can learn to ahavah. God has blessed you with a tremendous opportunity to learn ahavah and to enter a complete worship of Him. Don’t blow it.
Recent Comments