HEBREW WORD STUDY – PERSONAL DESIRE – TSEVE  צבא

Matthew 23:37: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under [her] wings, and ye would not!”

I am not a theologian nor do I claim any expertise in the area of theology. I went through the required theology classes in Bible College and repeated the same thing in seminary.  I struggled just as mightily the second time around as I did the first. It was just as hard for me on a graduate level as it was on an undergraduate level.  Ask me what Epistemology is and I will likely tell you it is a study of pistols online.

The Bible does not even mention that God gave man a free will, it is just assumed by theologians who, as good theologians, they build a case based on logic and assumptions.  Free will is a theological issue and not an issue of Biblical languages. So don’t expect me to answer all those issues associated with free will, like how can God gave man a free will if He knows the future?  What about prayer, election, repentance and all those other things that you try to wrap your brain around when meditating on free will. 

One thing we do agree on is that man does have a free will.  The proof of that is sin. Sin is choosing something that is not in harmony with God. What I want to do is view the heart of God in relation to our free will. There are only about three verses in the Bible that even openly address a free will. One of them is Matthew 23:37 where Jesus longs to reach out to those who rejected His messengers and concludes by saying: “Ye would not.”

“Ye would not” in Greek is ethelelesate which means a willingness, see there, the word will. Man has a will.  He decided to reject God’s attempt to convey His message. In the Aramaic it is teseve which is a personal desire, to want something, to be right regardless of what the truth is. It is being closed minded.  Who would not want to be gathered under the protective wing of God?  

It is like my study partner described tseve as someone saying: “Oh I can’t hear from God. His message is not clear.”  So what they do is what they want to do, what their desire is. They want to interpret Scripture to fit what they want.  They do not want the responsibility of having to do the things it takes to have an intimacy with God which is the responsibility of hearing God’s voice, letting Him teach you. To have that one on one with God.  They would rather have some prophet or some preacher to tell them. They don’t want to wait on God’s timing, to commune with Him, to discover His heart. They are tseve, focused on themselves and not God. They want intimacy with God but they don’t want to spend the time, they do not want to seek Him or search for Him with all their hearts.  They just want God to give them a straight answer, that fits their agenda. 

Jesus will and does make it very clear to us what His heart’s desire is but if it does not match what we want we quickly reject it and cling to our own personal understanding which matches our will. We want the freedom to walk with God but on our own terms.

Jesus is literally pleading, He says two times Jerusalem Jerusalem.  In Semitic language to repeat two times shows a great emphasis. He sent His messengers, His prophets but they would not listen. They only want to be gathered as chicks under God’s wing if it fits their agenda. They are even offended by the idea of being little chicks. 

Here is the catcher.  When Jesus says: “How I long…” he is using the same word teseve.  In other words His desire is just as strong to gather us under His wing as man’s desire is to not want to be gathered under his wing.  In other words God wants us a million times more than we want Him. He wants to convey His heart’s desire for us a million times more than we want to know His heart’s desire.