ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – WOUNDED LOVE – CHAV חב Cheth Beth‘

I John 4:18-19: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (19) We love him because he first loved us.”

Do you remember your first love? For most of us, it was bittersweet. It usually happens in our pre-teen or early teen years. I remember conducting a seminar at a Sunday School Convention and I asked those attending my seminar on teaching pre-teens how many could share a good memory of the time when they were the age of eleven, twelve, or thirteen. Most could not be sure that the memory they had occurred during that age period of their lives. In fact, many could remember very little during that age. The reason is that you forget the bad things that happen in your life and the pre-teens years are often the most difficult years of your life. Your bodies are becoming adult while you are still being treated like children. Your hormones have gone off the charts. I am convinced that 75% of the hormones of adolescent girls are giggles and 75% of the hormones of adolescent boys are show off.

It is during this time that sexuality is awakening and you find yourself attracted to members of the opposite sex. The difference between love and sensual love is blurred and confusing. Flirting begins and the sense of jealousy is aroused when someone also flirts with the object of your attention. That is a painful, wounding experience. You begin to dream and fantasize about a relationship with the one you are seeking attention. You hardly dare use the word love, instead, we call it a crush. This is a very appropriate word for the whole experience becomes a crushing experience where we experience rejection, disappointment, and a wounded heart when our fantasies don’t play out the way we hope. We say our memories of our first love are bittersweet. We feel a flush of joy and pleasure when we think of our first love followed immediately by a sense of bitterness that eventually followed.

When we consider the difference between ‘ahav/chav and racham we are not talking degrees of love but the relationship involved in these words. Racham is a love that is pure without having been offended. “‘Aahav/chav is a love that has been wounded but continues to love. It can still be unconditional love, it can be a nurturing love, a caring love and have all the same elements of racham except like our first love there is a tinge of sadness, bitterness to ‘ahav/chav, an unpleasant memory. “‘Ahav/chav has in its history a wounding and/or betrayed. Yet, the love can still be just as strong and powerful but it is what we call a bittersweet love. Still very sweet like racham but with an element of bitterness.

There is the old story of an Englishman visiting American and when asked about the American customs he said the thing that baffled him the most was how the Americans drank their tea. He said that they would put sugar in it to make it sweet and then lemon to make it bitter. That is sort of the dichotomy we find with ‘ahav/chav. “‘Ahav/chav is bittersweet. Racham is everything that is ‘ahav/chav without the lemon or the bitterness.

Thus we learn in I John 4:19 that “We love him, because he first loved us.” In both usages of the word love the Aramaic uses the word ‘chav If we are talking about a first love should it not be racham?

The word first in Aramaic is the word qadamith from the root word qadam. Qadam has the idea of a first meeting, an initial introduction. When we first introduce Jesus into our lives we meet Him in love. We were drawn to Him because of His love for us. Yet, when we first encountered Him and His love, his love for us was a bittersweet love. There is that memory of our sin and transgressions. The heart of Jesus has already been wounded and broken by us. Yet, God’s love for us has all the intensity of racham. It has all the desire and longings of racham. It is just as sweet as racham but not contaminated with the bitter memory of our sins.

It is that knowledge that Jesus still loves us even though we did break His heart. It is such knowledge that draws us into loving Him. The realizations that He is willing to forgive and forget are sins and trespasses. Hence John is saying we ‘ahav/chav Him in our first initial meeting. Yet, when we accept His as our Savior and is born again, brought back into the womb, God loves us with racham. Yet, our inability to forget our sins, the way we broke God’s heart still haunts us as it did with the Apostle Paul in II Corinthians 12:7: “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” It is very possible that this thorn in his flesh was not physical but mental. He was a mass murderer who killed many of the relatives of the Christians he was now ministering to. That must have surely haunted him and the enemy used it to against him in his service to God. Paul recognized, however, that he was a thorn in the flesh, not his spirit. For once his spirit left his body he would enter that perfect state of racham. But the enemy used the corruption of his flesh and/or fleshly desires to hinder him.

In the prior verse of I John 4:18 we learn that: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” The word used here in Aramaic for love is ‘ahav/chav. If we are talking perfect love, would it not be racham?

Yet it is the word chav. The word perfect in Aramaic is mshamlya which means perfect, mature, complete and/or fully grown. This love will create trust and trust eliminates all fear. The word fear in Aramaic is dadachalatha which is a childlike fear, the simple unreasonable fear that a child experiences. The fear of monsters under the bed, the bogey man at the window, thunderstorms and things that go bump in the night. The child cries out in fear and the mother or father comes in and hugs and kisses the child assuring him that all is well. The child has such trust in the love of the parent that his fears are all cast away knowing and trusting in complete trust that the parent loves him and will not allow any harm to come to him.

Here the word chav is used as this is not racham a pure love. The parent loves the child, unconditionally but there is a struggle in expressing the love. There is a struggle between fear and trust and the parent must overcome the child’s fear by reassuring the child of their protection. The child needs reassurance of the parent’s love where a newborn baby in rachamhas absolute assurance of the mother’s love. The baby while nursing in its mother’s arms does not for a moment questions its mother’s love. But when that child is fearful and it takes reassuring from the parent, the child is in a sense questioning that parent’s love, albeit in a mild way but still, the comfort does not come until that child rests in that assurance of love that he felt when just a baby. This is likely when that parent feels a tug at his or her heart that the child is growing up and even now is beginning to push away and exert his own independence. The parent begins to feel the first subtle ting in their hearts of a growing withdrawal and rebellion. It subtle but there is that slight hint of sadness. Racham is becoming ‘ahav. A love that has been wounded.

Yes, even that slight doubt we have in God, that slight fear that He may not protect us, tugs at his heart, wounds his heart.