Jeremiah 29:14: “And I will be found of you saith the Lord and I will turn away your captivity and I will gather you from all nations and from the places whether I have driven you, saith the Lord, and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.”
Romans 6:16: “Do you not know that when you present yourself to someone as slaves for, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.”
While doing some research at the University of Chicago I ran across something very interesting about the words used in this verse for turn away and captive in the Semitic languages. They both come from the same root word which is SB and in Hebrew is shabat. This is as it sounds, which is the same root for Sabbath. The word shabat is rendered two times in the KJV as captivity reflecting the Semitic origins of the word, but the KJV as other versions do not usually translate it two times. In other words the literal rendering would be: “I will restore your captivity of your captivity. That doesn’t make much sense, but if we recognize the numerous meanings behind the word shabat and follow its Semitic origins we could actually be saying: “I will restore (shabat), your Sabbath (shabat) for your captivity (shabat). Note that the word shabat in its Semitic origins means restore and captivity. The idea of a captive is that you will is totally subjected to your captors. You are at their mercy. Putting a positive spin on this word shabat we are saying that when we celebrate the Sabbath, we are totally surrendering ourselves back to God to be restored to His presence. After six days of working our relationship with God can really suffer due to all the cares and stresses of our jobs and circumstances. So one day a week we will surrender to Him and focus all our attention on Him.
I remember as a child our family was looking for some activity on a certain Sunday. We usually visited our grandparents on Sunday, sometimes we would go out to eat, sometimes we would take the grandparents to the Arboretum, zoo, or a museum. One Sunday we tried to talk our father into taking us bowling. He really hesitated as the church frowned on such athletic and competitive activity considering it a violation of the Sabbath. Yet, is that any different than taking grandpa and grandma to the Arboretum and putting their through and endurance test to see how far they could walk before collapsing on a bench?
It was addressing such issues that created Oral Tradition and later the Talmud as rabbis and sages tried to determine what is considered work and what is not on the Sabbath. Yet, Jesus said that the Sabbath was created for man not man for the Sabbath Mark 2:27. In other words, God knew that when we occupy our minds with making a living, caring for family affairs, marriage relationships and all of life’s problems, it would be very easy to lose sight of one’s relationship with God so God created one day where we could SB restore ourselves in that relationship by holding ourselves SB captive to God and giving Him our full attention. Maybe a visit to the zoo or the Arboretum is more in keeping with the Sabbath’s intent as you can view God’s creation and meditate on His beauty and power. Whereas bowling tends to cause one to meditate on oneself and one’s ability which is what causes you to lose sight of God during the week. The church has laid down strict guidelines on what to do on the Sabbath which in one respect is good but in the another respect you fall into the Pharisaical trap of trying to keep the Sabbath for the Sabbath’s sake and not to restore your relationship with God. Some take the word rest literally and say they will physically rest. Actually the word used in Hebrew in Genesis for rest is the word Shabbat. Another use of the word shabat is to cease from all normal activity. When you are taken captive you normal activity ceases. Captives don’t do much resting. But I will grant that resting does have a restorative element to it and would fit its Semitic origins of SB.
Note God is going to turn our Sabbath into our Sabbath. So let’s explore what that original Semitic intent of the word shabat ie., captivity has to do with the Sabbath? Romans 6:16 tells us we are going to be a slaves either to righteousness or sin. Sin brings death but if we belong to Jesus as His bondservant which is a form of captivity, we find rest. In English the word captive has a negative connotation but there is a positive aspect to it in this context. The Sabbath captivity is something quite positive. Our culture treasures freedom so it is hard for us to picture the loss of freedom as something positive, yet if we give our freedom over to a loving and caring God, that is positive, at least for me. This verse is telling us that even the captivity that the Hebrews suffered under the Babylonians and Persians still provided for God’s rest, if they would search for it. The first part of this verse tells us that it can be found.
Now check out the last part of this verse: “I will bring you into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.” For us that place is the place before sin entered, which is a place where there was an intimate fellowship with God. This is just like Adam and Eve who were exiled from the Garden of Eden when sin entered in. We are born into sin and thus we too have been exiled from the Garden of Eden. Yet, through the finished work of Jesus Christ we can now return from exile to that place where we are can enjoy an intimate relationship with God. Hence God has given us one day a week to find that place if we and when we lose it.
The final thing I noticed in this verse is that the KJV uses the word captive at the end of this verse. Some translations use the word exile. Yet, this is not the word shabat. This word for captive or exile is galah which means to be revealed or uncovered. God will cause His people to be carried away to reveal or uncover their sins. You know we can be so busy throughout the week that we spend little time in self-reflection. We get all upset over a boss, co-worker, mate, children, circumstances that we fail to spend time to galah, to allow God to reveal the true cause of our frustrations and the possible sin in our lives causing that frustration. By using our Sabbath day to reflect and draw close to God, His spirit will reveal why we are so frustrated with everything happening the prior week. We can then allow God to clean that sin up in our lives so we can return with a positive, Godly attitude for the following week.
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