Sonnets-from-the-Portuguese-2

 

Jeremiah 31:3: “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me saying: ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.’”

 

Neither love me for thine own pity, wiping my cheeks dry,

A creature might forget to weep, who bore thy comfort long,

And lose thy love thereby,

But love me for love’s sake, that evermore thou mayest love on through

Love’s eternity.

– Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sonnets From a Portuguese.

 

Once you have translated something out of the Hebrew, you are sometimes left scratching your head, more confused than ever as to what a passage means.  That is where you need to apply the principles of exegesis. This involves looking at the context, usages throughout Scripture and in extra Biblical passages.  You consider grammar, tradition, the opinion of others etc. In a few words, an educated guess.  That is why we have so many different translations, each with their own exegetical twist.

 

This phrase The Lord hath appeared of old unto me saying is one such expression that is open to debate.  The literal rendering would be: The Lord has appeared from afar to me. The word appear and afar both have a broad range of meanings.  The word appear is ra’ah which is often used to express the idea of spiritual insights. Sometimes it is translated as visions.   The word from afar is rachak which means to be far off, or far away. The word saying is not in the text, it is just put in there so the translation will make sense.  However, the implication is the prophet is seeing a vision of the everlasting love of God.  How can you see everlasting love in a vision?

 

I remember reading in Jewish literature where certain rabbis attempted to resolve this issue. They presented the idea that in the spirit our four senses are all combined into one sense. The prophet therefore is not only hearing these words, he is seeing them and experiencing them. From afar would create a picture of  taking a journey through God’s everlasting love.  Love can be very hard to understand, especially everlasting love. In this passage you have people going through some very difficult times.  Just saying God loves you isn’t going to cut it.  So he gives Jeremiah a vision and takes him on a spiritual journey where he sees, hears, and experiences the love of God.

 

This, however, is not your every day, off the shelf, love that comes walking down the church aisle.  This is everlasting love.  It is ahaveth ‘olam ‘ahavethik or love eternal love. How do you explain that?  Everlasting love is a good way to explain it, but it falls short.  I think Elizabeth Barrett Browning touched upon it, love me for love sake.  God loves us just for the sake of love.  He does not love us out of pity, and lose thy love thereby,  nor does he love us because we serve Him, pay our tithes, go to church, pray, read the Bible etc.   Everlasting love or love eternal love  is not built upon what we do.  He will not love us one ounce more if we pray, fast, pay tithes, etc.   If that is the case then he loves us because.  Everlasting love has only one because and that is because He is love and therefore we love him because he first loved us. You can not help love that which is perfect in love.  That is why the enemy encourages abortion.  A baby is as perfect in love as a human can get, the enemy certainly doesn’t want that influencing someone.  Marriage is the closest picture in the natural that we can get for our love relationship with God, so the enemy makes an all out assault against marriage.  Pornography perverts love, calls it making love. Then when we say: God loves you to someone they respond with a That’s nice, so what’s the big deal, what’s in it for me.

 

That is why we must really meditate on this everlasting love. Maybe God won’t give us a vision or take us on a journey like Jeremiah, but God has given all us some artistic ability. Some like Browning can write about love, some can paint love, some sing love, but in some way we need to really explore what this everlasting love really means, so that next time you hear God loves you, you begin to see just how special it really is so we can learn to love him purely for the love’s sake.

 

 

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