HEBREW WORD STUDY – (HEARING GOD’S) VOICE – QAVAL קול
Exodus 19:5: Now therefore if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my commandments, Then you will be a peculiar treasure unto me above all the people, for all the earth is mine.”
What caught my attention in this verse is the thought that God loves us, He loves every body but there are apparently those who He not only loves but He treasures.
With that thought I decided to take a closer look at this verse. We become this treasure if we obey His voice. That is really tricky. If you actually heard God’s voice, knew without a doubt it was God’s voice, would you really do anything else but obey? I hear people all the time saying: “Well God spoke to me and said…” “God told me the other day…” Hey, I even say it. But like most people, most Christians for that matter, I do have a bit of hesitation. Was it really God’s voice I heard? I mean if I felt a strong impression to throw $10.00 in an offering plate, well, I would do it, just to be on the safe side of obeying what I felt was God’s voice. But if I felt a strong impression to stand on a street corner and begin to preach, I think I would need more than a strong impression. Even if I heard an actual voice, I would most likely question my sanity before doing something insane like standing on a street corner and preaching.
The word for voice is qaval which is speaking, calling, voice etc., but it is also used for nonverbal communication as well. Three elements make of the word for voice in qatal. The first letter Qop represents God speaking through a natural or human instrument like a preacher or teacher. The second letter Vav is God speaking through an inward connection, that strong impulse, impression or feeling and the last letter Lamed is God speaking through the Word of God, the Bible.
Rabbi Samson Hirsch gives one definition of qaval as an outward expression of one’s thoughts. It is closely associated with the word qalah or restraining and qalal to diminish. I believe what Rabbi Hirsch is saying is that as we restrain our wants and desires and as we diminish our outward concerns the voice of God becomes clearer.
I remember when I was living in silence before God a couple years ago. It was like my third or fourth day of silence, of living in the presence of God 24/7 and spending each day diminishing my personal desires and restraining my impulses that I really began to hear God’s qaval. It was not audible but I heard it all around me, in Scripture, in my thoughts and even as I walked among His creation. I heard a woodpecker tapping away at a tree. I felt this inward urging to listen to the tapping. As a child I was interested in Morse code. By the third or fourth day I thought it not strange to consider that God might be sending me a message through this wood pecker. I know some would say it was just my imagination and after three days in silence I probably really believed God’s qaval was in that woodpecker’s tapping and my desire for it to be so made it so. But I know deep within my own heart it was a message from God .. .-.. ..- …- -.– — ..-
God has many ways of speaking to us and when you diminish yourself, restrain your impulses, you will hear His qaval in more ways than you can imagine.
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