Isaiah 48:10: “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.”
Someone on my blog asked me to comment on this verse. The really wonderful thing about writing a blog as opposed to speaking before a live audience is that when someone asks me a question I don’t have to come up with an immediate answer. I can spend a couple days researching the question before I answer. The issue my reader brought up revolved around the words chosen or tested and affliction.
I am particularly fascinated with the word bachar which is rendered in the KJV as chosen. The Living Bible uses the word refined, the ESV says tried, the NIV says test and the ESV says purified. All these words are linked together with the idea of removing something that is bad. When you test or try something you are attempting to expose the flaws or inaccuracies and to leave only the truth or what is correct. When you refine or purify something you are actually removing the flaws. Then you have the a number of translations which render bachar as chosen which suggest that God specifically waits until we have been baked in the oven for a while and then He gets around to choosing us. It is not that the English word chosen is wrong it is just that we have a wider understanding of the word bachar and the English word chosen could steer us away from its root meaning.
Bachar does mean to choose, but it is a choosing of that which is the best. When it comes down to it that is really what making a choice means, to decide what is best and then to choose it over that which is not as good. You put all these words used by our translators together and you get the idea behind bachar. Unfortunately a translator can only choose one word and here no one word can give you a complete understanding of bachar which opens up the door to what we call sermonizing. On Sunday your Pastor, hopefully, reads a portion of Scripture and then he expands on it and goes into detail, he preaches a sermon. In a true sense that is exactly what I do on my blog, I preach little sermons. I really don’t translate Scripture I sermonize Scripture, I tell you what all our translations say and try to put it into a nice little study to help you better understand what a passage of Scripture is saying so you can make a personal application.
Looking further into bachar we find it has an Ancient Canaanite origin and is used in the Old Persian language for examining something or scrutinizing something. That old song, “A hundred men will take the test only three win the Green Beret” is probably the best illustration of the word bachar. A soldier who aspires to be part of an elite group will go through a difficult training period meant to weed out those who do not have the right stuff. Only those who have the right stuff will then be chosen to become a member of the elite corp.
God says that he has purified, refined, tried and tested us then He has chosen us from the furnace of affliction. That word affliction strikes us with a very negative feeling. Yet, affliction is not all that bad. When I was in college I played on the soccer team. To this day I do not understand all the rules of soccer and all I remember is that during practice we were running, running and then some more running. After a particularly hard work out of running, I overheard one of my teammates declare, “Ain’t it wonderful.” I asked him, “What is so wonderful about running yourself to death?” He said, “It feels so good when you stop.” He had a point, after a really rough practice I went back to my dorm and just laid down basking in the joy of just resting. Never had resting felt so good. Sure I was sore, I hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt, you know. The word affliction that is used in this passage is oni which comes from the root word ‘anah which is a good kind of affliction. This word has a wide range of meanings from depression, trouble, misery, affliction and poverty. It also means to be humble or weak. When you trace this word to its Semitic root you discover it has the idea of being downcast. But it is its used in the Old Persian that I believe is applicable here. When one stood before a king he was said to ‘anah or bow down. In other words he was showing his submission to the king or humbling himself before a king.
This passage was written by Solomon during a time when the Old Persian language would have had the strongest influence on the Hebrew language. Solomon himself being a king would likely have had much of this idea of ‘anah when he used the word in this verse. King Solomon had a detachment of twenty warriors surround him as his personal body guards. These were the best warriors, the most dedicated warriors of the land who would not hesitate to take bullet or arrow in this case for his king. When one entered into such direct service of a king he would surrender everything he had, his very life to the king. He would go through a cycle of bachar, where he would be refined, purified of all self, personal agendas and then tried and tested to be sure he had the skills and the right attitude with no self motivations or interest so he could be chosen for the elite service of being the kings personal body guard. I once heard a soldier in one of our elite special forces units respond to a question that asked if he was married. He replied, “Yes, to the constitution of the United States.” This soldier had completed the full cycle of bachar. In ancient times when a soldier completed the full cycle of bachar and was found to have no personal agenda or motivation other than to serve his king he would be given the honor and privilege of standing in the court of his king or by the bed of the king as he slept ready to protect his king or die in the attempt.
I read about the training of our Navy Seals. If they feel they can no longer endure the intense training they can ring a bell, pack up and leave, no questions asked. Many do, many are called, but few make it through the entire training without ringing that bell. Many make it to the final week which is the worst week of the entire training period and it is there after enduring the weeks or intense, painful, agonizing training that the largest portion of those who drop out ring the bell. So close to the finish but their bodies just could not be pushed any further.
God will allow us to go through affliction, but the good kind, the kind that will strip us of all our trust in ourselves, of all our personal agendas so that the world can see that our trust is in God alone. As I sit here and write this I reflect on five of the most painful, most difficult periods of my life. Times when well-meaning Christians would accuse me of not trusting God, that if I really trusted Him I would not have had to endure such affliction. I look back on those times and I thank God for them, no I praise and rejoice in Him for those afflictions. If not for those afflictions I would not be writing this study today. I would not have that love and passion for my God had I not gone through that bekur oni furnace of affliction
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