{Word Study} Thirsty “Yisemah”

WORD STUDY – THIRSTY
Exodus 17:13; “And the people thirsted there for water and the people murmured there for water.”
Thirst – Hebrew: Yisemah – thirsty, overwhelming desire for either the natural, or for the hidden knowledge of God.
This verse follows the story of Israel crossing through the desert on their way to the promised land. In Exodus 17:1 God commands the children of Israel to stop and make camp at Raphidim.  It is a wonder that God asked them to camp in this area.   Not only was there no water but they were later attacked by the Amalekites at Raphidim.  From all human reasoning, this was not the place to set up camp.  Now the Bible only says that there was no water at Raphidim, it does not say Israel was without water.  Obviously they carried water with them and one reason to stop and setup camp would be to replenish your supply of water.  But here God had them camp at a place where there was no water.   They were to stay until God said it was ok to move on.  When the cloud started to move they moved.  But the cloud did not move.  As each day passed the water they brought into camp with them was  slowly being used up.
The Bible say in Exodus 17:3 that the people thirsted there.  The word “thirst” in Hebrew is “Yisemah” which comes from the root word “tsamah” and means thirsty but it also means an overwhelming desire for things either of the natural world or of God.  Here’s what caught my attention.  Every English translation says the “people were thirsty”  past tense.  One version even says they were tormented by thirst.    The word in the Hebrew is “yisemah.” That “yod” in front of the word, that little “tittle” that we are commanded not to remove gives some very important insight into this story.  That “yod” puts this word into a simple qal imperfect form.   Qal (simple), not piel (intensive).  Imperfect (incompleted action often rendered as a future tense).  They were not tormented by thirst, they were not dying of thirst, and in fact they were not thirsty at all.  But they were filled with desire, desire for the flesh.  Being in an imperfect or future tense suggest that they were going to be thirsty.  The question was, what were they going to be thirsty for?  They had enough water for the day, maybe the next day or maybe longer.  They were not thirsty yet, they had not reached the crisis stage yet, but it was looming out there in front of them.  I can imagine them sitting around the camp fire at night belly aching: “That crazy Moses, why does he make us camp at a place where there is not water.   If we don’t leave now we will never have a enough water to make it to the next oasis.”  “Not only that, Bunkie, Moses will probably make us stay here until the water is gone and we will die of thirst right here.”
Moses was not worried about water. Oh he was thirsty just like the rest, only his thirst was for the hidden knowledge of God where the others thirsted for natural things, like security for your own fleshly gizzard. Moses was just focused on obedience to God. If God wanted them to camp at Raphidim, then by golly they were camping at Raphidim water or no water. But the people were focused on the natural world and not on eternal things and they began to murmur out of fear.
Are you camped at Raphidim?  Maybe you just received a layoff notice, a medical report, an unexpected bill, a failing relationship?  Are you like Israel, fretting over the fear of funds drying up, health failing, relationships falling apart, even before they do?  Are you fretting over no water even before you get thirsty? Yet you are thirsty in the sense of  yisemah, you are filled with desire.  What do you desire or thirst for?  Are you yisemah (thirsting, desiring) natural security or do you seek to use this experience to for the flip side of yiseman, to discover the hidden secrets of the God you love?