Deuteronomy 7:21: Thou shalt not be affrighted at them, for the Lord thy God is among you , a mighty God and terrible.”
“The Lord said to me: ‘I know.’” Heavenly Man when asked how he endured his suffering.
Lately as the cares of this world have been closing in on me, I find myself calling upon God to be in my midst. Practically every modern translation will render Deuteronomy 7:21 as saying that we need not be afraid because the Lord your God is among you or in the midst of you. There are plenty of words in the Hebrew to express the idea of being among or in the midst of. You could use the word tavek, tabbur, labab, qerb, beyn, or cheyq. All these words would express the idea that God is in your midst. Yet, the writer chose the karav which only means to be near or in close proximity. Somehow that is not as comforting as God being in our midst. It is sort of like we are left to slug it out and God is in the back ground. He is there, all you have to do is whistle and He’ll come a runnin. Well having Him in close proximity is comforting.
However, the next phrase makes up for it and provides an even greater measure of comfort where he says that He is a mighty God and terrible. The word for mighty is gadol which means to be great or mighty. That leaves open a lot of possibilities. To be great or mighty might mean a picture of a muscle bound giant ready to bop your enemy over the head. The question we need to ask is what He is great or mighty in? Perhaps this word has a built in commentary. The word is spelled Gimmel – lovingkindness, Daleth – accessibility, and Lamed – knowledge and wisdom. This greatness is a greatness of lovingkindness, accessibility, and in giving knowledge and wisdom. Having God in close proximity with these little things adds up to whole bunches of comfort.
He is also a terrible and fearful God. The word fearful is yara’ which has a variety of meanings but the idea of fear here is a sense of respect and awe. Some translations will say an awesome God. I think that word hits more to the point. He is a God that you respect or stand in awe before. There is a little grammatical twist to the word yara’ when it is used here. It is found in a Niphal form. There has been some recent discovery in the classical Hebrew that suggest that the Niphal can make a word reflexive. I like that. This would then suggest that God makes himself respected. In other words, God is not just respected because He is God, but also because He has earned that respect.
There was an episode from the old Happy Days TV show where Richie wanted the Fonzie to teach him how to be a tough guy and stand up to the local bullies. Fonzie showed Richie how to dress, how to comb his hair, how to talk and all the other things he needed to know. Then Richie came face to face with the bullies, they started to approach and Richie was doing everything Fonzie told him to do but the bullies would not back off. Finally the Fonze stepped in and said: “I forgot to tell you need one more thing. You need a reputation.” With that the Fonze snapped his fingers and all the bullies ran away.
God has given us a lot to work with. We know how to walk, how to talk, how to dress but ultimately it is God standing right behind us (karav in close proximity) who snaps His fingers and makes all that threatens us to disappear.
There is something else in this verse I need to point out. The first part of the verse says: Thou shalt not be affrightened at them. The word used for affrightened is arots. We often make the mistake of assuming this is the type of fear we are to have before God, but ‘arots is never used in association with God. ‘Arots means to be terrified or horrified. The words at them is mipenihem which literally means from before them. We will not be terrified when we stand before them or face to face with them.
There is the story told from the Six Day War where a small group of Israeli scouts were trying to make it back to their lines with vital information. They suddenly came face to face with a battalion of Arab soldiers. They knew they were as good as dead and agreed to fight to the last to prevent the vital information from falling into the hands of the Arabs. As the Arabs approached, they suddenly looked up and became terrified. They yelled: Abraham then dropped their weapons and fled. The Israeli soldiers were dumb founded and could not figure out what happened. Later, an officer from that battalion was captured and interrogated. They asked him about that incident and he said that as they approached the Israeli soldiers, suddenly they looked up and saw Father Abraham standing behind them and they knew they had to flee.
This is a perfect picture of Deuteronomy 7:21. Perhaps we do not see God standing behind us or near us (karav) but when the enemy approaches God will simply stand up at the right moment and snap his fingers and send the enemy off on their way.
When Brother Yun, the Heavenly Man was asked how he was able to endure the tortures that the Chinese government put him through for his faith he said he asked the Lord about his sufferings and the Lord simply said: “I know.” That was all Brother Yun needed, just the knowledge that the Lord knew that he was suffering. Brother Yun knew he had a mighty and awesome God who was near who knew everything that was taking place. He was confident that when the time was right, His God would stand up, snap his fingers and his enemies would flee.
So Deuteronomy 7:21 is the verse I am clinging to today. As I face the onslaught of the cares of this world I know God is near, He doesn’t have to be in my midst just so long as He is near enough to know what I am going through. I am confident at the time He will stand up and snap His fingers.
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