HEBREW WORD STUDY – LIVE EACH DAY FOR GOD – BA BAYAMIM בא ביומים Beth Aleph      Beth Yod Vav Mem Yod Mem                               

Genesis 24:1: “And Abraham was old, [and] well stricken in age: and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things.”

I sometimes wonder when reading out English translations of the Bible just what was going through the minds of the translators.  They obviously study the Word of God in great depth, and analyze every word.  Do they not stop to wonder why the Bible is filled with so much redundancies? Don’t they wonder why the inspired word of God seems to love to repeat the obvious?  I mean Genesis 24:1 is a prime example of one of these redundancies.  Abraham was old, well stricken in age.  I mean is not being old also being well stricken in age.  

Now some translations recognize these redundancies and just not repeat it in English. For instance Good News Bible just say he was very old or the Living Bible says he was a very old man.  But most of your modern translations just put a spin on the redundancies like the ESV says; “old advanced in years” or the Berean Study Bible says: “was old, well along in years.” 

I assume what is going through the translator’s mind is that sure Abraham was old, but I mean he was really old. In other words taking the general rule in Semitic languages that when some thing is repeated it is for emphasis.  I can live with that but I would also want to look beyond that.  Maybe it was not for emphasis but to express another idea. 

You see in the Hebrew it reads literally: “Abraham was old,  ba bayamim which literally means he came into days.  The word ba come from the root word bo’ which means to come, to enter into, to settle into and to have intercourse or intimacy with someone or something. Let’s drop the idea of redundancy for a moment and consider another option.  Suppose the writer meant the word bo’ to mean to enter into intimacy with bayamim.  Bayamim comes from the root word yom for days. Perhaps, as many Jewish sages interpret this, it should read that Abraham was old but was intimate with every day of his life. 

What that would suggest is that Abraham lived every day to the fullest.  He did not waste one day of his life. He used every day of his life to serve the God he loved. He woke up every morning thanking God for another day of life. 

We forget that every day of life here on earth is given to us as a gift from God.  There is an old child’s prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” This prayer was written during a time that many children did die in their sleep. Death was very real and one knew that at any time they could be stricken with some fatal illness or disease or even an accident.  Today, with modern medicine, death is not as real as it once was.  Even as a driver of a disability bus I often hear of someone who “passed” and we think: “Wow!” It is a surprise.  A hundred years ago it would be “Oh, sorry.”  Not a really surprise like it is today.   We used to say passed away and I even remember someone saying that “so and so died.”  It seems it is no longer politically correct to use the word die or even passed away.  We have to sanitize it with the simple word passed.  Few people actually see death anymore, but many years ago death was very common. 

The average life span in 1900 was fifty years.  That is why people who lived into their seventies or eighties were honored, there just were not many of them around. My point is that because of modern technology, science and medical science we fully expect to live into our eighties or more.  Hence, we take life for granted and don’t consider that we may “die before we wake.”  So life goes by, we waste a day on something frivolous and think: “Oh well, I have another day to make up for it.”  Abraham lived well past one hundred years and made every day count.

Living our lives for the sake of God we must realize that each day God gives us is a gift. It is a day we will spend eternity living over and over. Each day God gives us should be a red letter day that we will share with the angels, heavenly host and other created beings for an eternity.  We will spend eternity giving a testimony of the power and wonder of God from each day that we spent on earth.  In light of eternity, we have very few days on this planet and one day we will regret having wasted those days when we could have had a testimony to share.  Abraham had some really good days and some really bad days but no matter how good or how bad he is in heaven sharing with the heavenly host the wonders of God that he experienced in every day he spent on earth because he  ba bayamim – lived each day to its fullest for God.