WORD STUDY – CONSIDER – בחר

Matthew 7:3, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Matthew 7:3 relates to a well-known Jewish proverb during the time of Jesus found in Oral Tradition and can today be found in the Babylonian Talmud, Baba Bathra 15.2. Thus, the origins of this proverb is of Hebrew and Aramaic origin rather than Greek. The meaning is, of course very obvious. You go around belly aching about the faults of your brother while totally ignoring your own faults may be worse.

There used to be a television program called Love American Style. In one vignette a middle aged couple were in their bedroom getting ready for bed after having attended a formal function. The couple in the vignette spent the whole time talking about how phony everyone was at the party and started picking at everyone of the guest expressing disgust over their phoniness. At the end they kissed each and remarked how wonderful it was that they were not phony like the others. During the entire vignette, however, we watch the wife remove her makeup, the husband remove his hair piece, then both removing their contact lenses, their dentures, their girdle. Etc. I felt that was an excellent illustration of Matthew 7:3.

The context of Matthew 7:3 indicates that this is a reference to the Pharisees who went to great lengths to live a righteous life and were highly critical of anyone who did not come up to their standards of righteousness yet their sin of pride, arrogance and condemnation was worse than the sins they were accusing of others. What has always bothered me about this is that it seems to suggest degrees of sin. Is not sin sin?

In Aramaic the word for consider in “consider not the beam in their own eye,” is bachar which means to choose, elect, compare and make a choice. When it came time to compare sins the Pharisees choose the lessor sins to hold up as an example. In Luke 18:11 “The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself: “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men [are], extortionist, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” Jesus is referencing an actual event. The Pharisees took great pride in their righteousness such that they would arrogantly stand in the temple and brag about their righteousness and compare themselves to others whose sins they perceived to be greater than theirs. In other words they were willing to admit they were sinners, everyone is a sinner. In fact it was considered a great sin to say you were not a sinner. It is just that their sins were not as great as others. I don’t think Jesus is talking about degrees of sin here.

In the Aramaic the word for mote is gala which means a small chip of wood or straw. I remember getting just an eyelash in my eye. It was very painful and difficult to see out of the eye until that eyelash was removed. Just a speck in your eye can cause great discomfort. It it’s Semitic root however, gala is something that is revealed or exposed. You can barely see that speck but it is revealed and exposed in your eye from the tearing and pain. In other words why do you look that that obvious sin that has been exposed in your brother? When it is obvious you have something in your own eye that you are trying to cover up.

While on Twitter today I ran across a tweet from a former Christian recording artist. He rose to the peak of Christian music many years ago until it was discovered that he had an adulterous relationship. Christian book stores immediately pulled his records from the store, his concerts were cancelled and he crashed and burned. This happened many years ago and yet his tweet still contained Scripture verses of God’s forgiveness and how his life has changed. He never rose to the heights he had before that failure. In fact I had a bigger following on Twitter than he did. We all sin but we like to add degrees to sins and brag to ourselves, “Well, I never did anything like that Christian musician.” Then we stand in condemnation after he has repented and went through a period of accountability even after all these many years and to the best of our knowledge never repeated his sin. People are still saying horrible things about him.

Often, myself included, we like to choose or bachar to focus on that one sin that one mistake of our brother rather than at our own beam our own qarath in the Aramaic. Qarath does mean a board or plank but it is rooted in the word for a foundation, a board or plank or anything used to build a foundation. Tracing back even further we find the word has its origins in a word for a spider’s web, the foundation of the spider’s home is also a trap. A foundation is made up of many different things, stone, dirt, wood etc. It is an accumulation of many little things that form a foundation. In this case it is an accumulation of many little sins that form a foundation of pride and arrogance in you such that you do not even see it. Yet, you will pounce upon a brother who has a weak moment and commits adultery or some other noticeable sin but ignore the many little sins in your own life which end up becoming a trap.

What Jesus is saying in the Aramaic is that you focus on the big and obvious sins while ignoring the subtle little sins in your own life that begin to build a foundation of arrogance in you. No maybe you are not an adulterer, a fornicator, extortionist or an unjust person. You may be a good loving person who always tries to do the right thing and help others while overlooking little white lies, petty jealousies, minor thefts or moments of anger, etc. These are little things, no one gets hurt, not like the drug addict or adulterer, no we are not that bad. Maybe not but all the time we are letting the enemy build his little qarath foundation or spider web in our lives which will eventually trap us.