HEBREW/ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – PLAGUE – MACHAL, MAUTA מחל מותא Mem Cheth Lamed Mem Vav Taw Aleph

Exodus 23:25: “And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.”

Revelation 6:8: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth”

“All I know is what I read in the newspapers.” Will Rodgers

Back in the early 20^th Century Will Rodgers, a political comedian, drew huge laughs from his audience when he said that all he knew was what he read in the newspapers. This was a humorous statement because it was well known that the news media was biased. You actually had newspapers that were clearly Democratic or Republican posing as nonbias media. News is still a form of entertainment and of course dependent upon ratings and news media will report on what it takes to produce good ratings.

When it comes to the Coronavirus or COVID-19 as it is officially known, all I know is what I hear on the new media. I have never been to China, I have not personally met anyone with the virus so like most, if not all of you who are reading this, I don’t know any more than you do. I have read in our media that there are 60,000 people in China who are diagnosed with the virus, as of this writing 1,300 have died and 75 million are in quarantine. There are cruise ships in quarantine and food is really getting bad or scarce for those in quarantine. There is talk of food shortages due to this virus and even China’s economy collapsing and the news keeps getting worse. Two days ago there was an article in the news media saying that the military is preparing for a pandemic. We’ve seen enough sci-fi movies to know what that means.

I could not help but think or Revelation 6:8 and the pale horse bring death and hell. The word death in Greek is thanatos which is your common word for death but there are three occasions where the word is used for a plague. The Aramaic is more direct, which was the native language of John the Revelator, is mauta which means a plague.

But there have been these scares before, the bird flu and Sars. These were all threatening to become a pandemic but didn’t. Yet, there were all the terror predictions. Buckets of dried food were selling out as people prepared for a possible food shortage, the face mask industry could not keep up with demand, and the food supplement industry experienced a boom in sales. Although statistics indicate a drop in the bucket compared to a billion people in China, we love to be scared to death and we expect the worse.

That brings me to the basis of this study. Medical professionals will tell you that the greatest threat to your immune system is fear. I read where a young woman with asthma was having an attack. She rushed to the ER at the local hospital and found the door locked, she panicked. That fear caused her airways to constrict even more causing her to chock to death. These reports of possible pandemic are causing fear in people and even if the coronavirus does not hit this country many vulnerable people will likely die of just the common flu fearing the worst weakening their immune system. Only one in 60 people who have the virus actually die, those are pretty good odds. But like a friend I had who was an airborne ranger said: “I was told that when you jump out of a plane there is only a one-tenth of one percent chance that chute will not open. But, when you look out that door you can’t help but wonder if you are that one-tenth of one percent. You live in fear as that fear weakens your immune system.

So, I give you a verse I found as I was preparing for this week’s Torah Portion Study with our All Access group. That verse is Exodus 23:25 where God promises that if we serve Him He will bless our bread (food) and water. Now, why does God need to bless our food and water? Why do we ask a blessing on our food before we eat? Does God mystically change our food to something even more healthy? If I pray for God to bless that Big Mac before I eat it, will it become as healthy as a bowl of cauliflower and broccoli? The word bless or baruch in Hebrew means power, growth or energy. The whole purpose of eating is to give our bodies energy. The food has already been blessed by God it is our bodies which need to be blessed. If we have a weakened immune system the body will not properly digest the food to turn it into energy.

If God blesses our bodies it will receive the food and energy to increase our immune systems so that  He can take away all sickness from us. The word sickness in Hebrew is machal. Machal in Aramaic is mauta the same word used in Revelation. Yes, the promise is that God will take the plague or illness from our midst.

But there is a condition, that we serve Him. The word serve is the word ‘eved which is to work subject to another’s will. What is the will of God? Matthew 22:37-40: “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

(38) This is the first and great commandment. (39) And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

No commentary is needed for that, it is quite clear. If we love God with all your heart, soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself, you will not fear and your immune system will stay at its highest level and God created us with an immune system that He will use to ward off any plague.