BEYOND THE DALETH – MIRACLE INSIDE OF YOU
Judges 3:5; And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
Every modern translation renders this: “For tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” A few translations will say: “I will do wonders in our midst.” I render this as: “I will do wonders deep with inside of you.” Ok, I know the context clearly shows that God is going to do a wonderful miracle for the people the next day and exegetically you would render this as among you as this miracle is not within the people but among the people, ie., the crossing and drying up the Jordan River.
The reason I buck up against the traditional rendering is that the word used for among you is beqirebekem which literally means inside of you. Of course the context clearly shows that there will be a miracle that will take place on the outside. So no, I am not going to go in lock step with our Christian translators but I am going to follow the way of the Jewish sages who see the Bible and the Hebrew language as spiritual, God given and distinct from other languages and therefore you can do things with Hebrew that you cannot do with other languages, like take a literal rendering even if it does not seem to fit the context and see if maybe God has a secondary context that will fit the literal meaning. I believe He does which is way the word beqirebekem is used. It can mean among you but as I said it really means inside of you. I believe God is really talking about a miracle that will take place within the people themselves when this outside miracle does takes place.
God is telling the people to hithekadashu or to sanctify themselves. This comes from the root word kodesh (to make holy) which is put into a Hithpael form making it reflexive, in other word the people are to make themselves holy. How does one make himself holy and why should they be made holy to witness a miracle.
Well tonight I certainly don’t feel very holy, it has been one of those days and I don’t feel like putting in my three to four hours of daily study. Yes, I do have days that I don’t feel very holy but when that happens I take a peek being my Looking Glass just to see what my friends the Hebrew letters are up to. I am curious about this making yourself holy business. Can I make myself holy even when I don’t want to feel holy?
I poke my head through my Looking Glass and suddenly stumble into Hebrew Esoteric Lange. Looking around I find I am in an old Vaudeville theater and on stage were the letters Qop, Daleth and Shin which spelled out Kodesh (Holy, sanctification).” Qop, Daleth and Shin were dressed in formal outfits and with cane in hand doing a little tap dance with Qop steps to the front and says: “I am Qop and I represent holiness and sanctification. Daleth stepped forward and said; “I represent a doorway to…” Shin eagerly stepped forward and finished “to me, the power and wonders of God.” They then joined hands and shout “Ta Da!!!” to the applauding and standing audience of Hebrew letters. Then still holding hands Kuf, Daleth and Shin started to do a soft shoe when I stop them and say: “Listen you guys, this will never play in Peoria. You just told me nothing more that I don’t already know. Everyone knows holiness is the doorway to God’s power. I am really tired of this old song and dance act, I want to know how you make yourself holy.” Qop, Daleth and Shin looked at each other and Kuf asked: “Do you know where you are?” I replied I was in some loony Vaudeville theater.” Qop replied: “You are in the performing arts center of the University of Hebrew Land.” Go across campus to the Gematria research lab where Dr. Lamed is just about to give his Lecture on Kodesh.” So, being anxious to distance myself from this horrible excuse for entertainment, I hurriedly ran across campus to the Gematria building and into Dr. Lamed’s class just as he was beginning his lecture.
“Class, today I want to show you Qop, Daleth and Shin. These three letters together form the word Kodesh. Each letter will tell you how you can become holy. First the Qop, is the number 100. The 100 represents a new beginning this involved leaving behind the old and making peace with the change in your new beginning. The next letter” continued Dr. Lamed “Is the Daleth. The Daleth is the number four. Four represents creation as we become a new creation in Jesus. Dr. Lamed continued and showed that the Shin was the number 300 which represents our separation from sins. Dr. Lamed then said that the total value of Kodesh was 404 and our assignment was to determine what the total value Kodesh meant.
I thought about this and considered that to make myself holy I needed to make peace with the changes God has brought into my life (Qop), to allow God to create something new in my life (Daleth) and then to allow this new change and new creation in my life to separate me from the cares and sins of this world (Shin). Basically I need to make myself holy by letting Jesus do his finished work in me and allowing God to do what he wants to do in my life, even if it is going through these trials that will strip me of all the trust in myself. All these trials in my life are making me holy. I just need to allow God to continue this wonder within me so he can perform the wonder of bringing me, like the children of Israel into the promise land.
Still as I make my way back through my Looking Glass I am pondering what the blazes does does 404 have to do with all this? So I pick up my Hebrew vocabulary guide and I run across the word vabahanasim which means to carry me and hafashim which means to strip away. I quickly add up the numerical value of both words and find that each equals 404. Therein lays the key to being made holy. We must allow God to strip away (hafashim) all that extra weight of guilt and sin so he can carry us (vaahanasim) into the promise land.
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