Jeremiah 3:14: “Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:”
There is a very interesting play on words in this verse with regard to the backslider. This verse says turn backsliding children. The word turn is shuv and the word for backsliding is shuvav. The word for turn is spelled Shin Vav Beth and the word for backslider is spelled Shin Vav Beth Beth. The word for turn or return has only one Beth at the end of the word and the word for backslider has two Beth’s at the end. My study partner pointed out that the Beth represents the heart. This particular word for backsliding is a backsliding into idolatry.
The Shin represents you passion that you use to connect you to heaven – Vav. This passion is an expression of your heart – Beth. However, in backsliding when you use your passion Shin to connect to heaven – Vav, your heart and passion are with two hearts or two Beths. One part of your heart is directed to God but another part of your heart is tied to some idol, be it money, security, recognition or the many other idols are there calling for you attention and devotion which belongs to God. To return to God you must change the shuvav (two Beths – backslidden) to shuv (just one Beth for restore or return). You must connect your passions to heaven with all your heart, not a heart with split loyalties. God wants all you heart, He will not accept a heart that is loyal to another God no more than a woman will accept her husband’s heart if part of his heart is loyal to her and another part is loyal to another woman.
Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 that no man can serve two masters. When you backslide you are trying to serve two masters, You want God in your life, but you also want you carnal desires. We live in exciting times. With the internet we can do more things than ever. For instance a person can enjoy all the pornography he wants without leaving his house and in the privacy of his own room with the internet. He can cheat on his spouse with a website called Ashley Madison as apparently 35 million have signed up to do. And thanks to some enterprising hackers we have new meaning to the verse “Be sure your sins will find you out.” Numbers 32:23. Journalist around the world are now eagerly searching the hacked list of users on Ashley Madison’s website and are finding out all the Christians leaders and pious people who have paid to use the site. As names are being revealed many of these shavav (backsliders) are shuv (returning) to the Lord.
Look at the rest of this verse. God is saying I am married to you. God is married to the backslider and he will take you back when you return to Him . When you forsake that second Beth and return to Him with just one Beth, that is with all your heart, He will take you back because He is your husband. The word in Hebrew used here for married or husband as some translations render it is ba’al. There are two words in Hebrew that are rendered as husband. One is ba’al and the other is ishi. Ba’al is a spouse who is a master. A lot of men and women who have or will be exposed as users of Ashley Madison are going to sudden find their mates to be ba’al. A mate who is a master, if they have any marriage left. That mate will hold Ashley Madison over their heads and say, you toe the line fellow or I am out of here with half your fortune and your kids
The other word for husband is ishi which is a husband that you serve out of love and not duty. This mate is not a master. Appearances may seem the same. One who is married to a ba’al may bring flowers home to his spouse, may fix things around the house, may be at her beck and call but he is doing it all out of fear that she will use whatever leverage she has to make him do these things. One who is married to an ishi will do all these things in order to express their love, they do it out of love and not duty.
It is interesting that when the Lord says to the backslider to return and he will receive them, that word for the spouse is a ba’al and not an ishi. Restoration is not instantaneous but it will require some time to restore that relationship. For a while the backslider will be serving God as a master but eventually, they will find they are serving God out of love, God will then become an ishi a husband, a loving spouse to them.
Hosea:14-16 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, [that] thou shalt call me Ishi (my husband); and shalt call me no more Baali (my master).”
In that day, that day that she responds to him she will call him Ishi and not Ba’ali, that is she will call Him my husband and not my master. Note that God says he will allure her. In the Hebrew that word means He will seduce her, he will take her to the wilderness, a quiet place, a place where they are alone and speak comfortably to her. Speak comfortably? Really? I am convinced some translators haven’t a romantic bone in their body. That word comfortably does not come close to what is expressed in the Hebrew. What it literally says is that He will speak to her heart. When he does she will sing as in the days of her youth, when they were first in love. Then when she has fallen in love with Him all over again then will she call him my husband and not my master.
Oh yeah, God will receive the backslider when you return to Him. But hold on, there is a lot work ahead just as those Ashley Madison mates who want to hold on to their marriage. It is going to take a lot of flowers, attention, talking, forgiveness, rebuilding and restoration before they can call their spouse Ishi. In the meantime, they will be calling their spouse ba’al. For even if you were a spiritual Ashley Madison user seeking to cheat on God with another god, God will not divorce you , he will remain married to you but you have a lot of work ahead of you to fall in love with Him all over again. Until that time He will be ba’al to you, your master, but when you fall in love with Him again and accept His total forgiveness, then you will be able to call Him Ishi. If you are a returning shuv backslider (shuvav) let Him take you out to the wilderness, speak to your heart, confess your sin to Him and let Him forgive and then when you are able to respond to him and love Him you will once again call him Ishi.
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