HEBREW WORD STUDY – OVERTAKE – NASHAG  נשג Nun Shin Gimmel

Deuteronomy 26:1 “And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein;”

If you read this verse carefully you will find a deep spiritual message.  First let’s take a look at a couple of these words in the original Hebrew.  “And it shall be when you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.”   The word give in Hebrew is nathan which is spelled the same both forward and backwards  Nun Taw Nun.   The Jewish sages teach that this shows that giving is meant to be repeated.  Thus, when you give to someone they receives and then they will give back to you or to others.  There is a spiritual principle that when you are given something you will receive something in return. There is something called the joy of giving.  Sometimes the return is just the joy of knowing you were helping someone.  God gave the land to Israel and Israel in return would use that land to make a dwelling place for God.  

God explains that it is an inheritance.  The land was given to Abraham and his descendants the Jewish people would be the inheritors for eternity, from that time to the present and on into the future.  But then He adds that they are to possess it. Does that really make sense?  If someone gives you something don’t you automatically possess it?  

The word possess in Hebrew is yashar which means to take possession but it also means to become impoverished.  What does possessing the land have to do with becoming impoverished? The sages explain this in the word for land which is erets.  This word erets is related to the word rutson which means will or desire and to the word ruts which means to run.  The possession of the land will create a desire that will cause the Jews to run to it.  However, if that desire is for personal benefit outside the will of God and not in obedience to the will of God it will become a land that will impoverish them.  When Israel was seeking statehood in 1948 there were orthodox Jews that believed this was not God’s will as the nation of Israel was to be restored by the Messiah. It was believed that if they established the nation without the Messiah it was outside the will of God and they would be impoverished in the land.  As it turns out the establishment of the nation was within God’s will because the land was blessed with much wealth and power. 

This matter of the ratson – will and desire, however, is viewed by orthodox Jews as the most powerful force within the human being. The will has the power to control and unleash one’s dormant potential.  The will has the power to awaken the desire to feel or understand.  In other words to awaken the heart and mind. 

The will is the most powerful weapon in spiritual warfare.  God created a level playing for the enemy by giving man a free will.  It is our choice to love or hate.  Our choice to use our mind for good or evil.  It is our choice to use our bodies for good purposes or evil purposes. 

God instructed Israel to possess their inheritance.  Forty years earlier they had the opportunity to possess their inheritance but ten out of twelve spies said it was too dangerous and they did not possess the land.  We Christians have an inheritance from Jesus Christ who provided for us in His death on the cross.  That inheritance is eternal life in the presence of God.  But we have a choice to either possess it or not. God gave us a free will.  God does not send anyone to hell, man chooses to go to hell, he chooses to not acceptance his inheritance.

You see Israel did not just reject their inheritance to enter the land that was promised to them because of their fear of the giants.  The spies also reported that the land was a giant of work that would consume them as reported in Numbers 13:32. According to the Midrash what that meant was they would have to work the land for their food. There would no longer be manna from heaven and water from a rock.  They would have to dig their own wells and they saw how hard the people of that land worked to cultivate the land and saw that the land consumes them. They also argued that the effort needed to cultivate the land would pull them away from spirituality and the material bounty would distract them from God.  This was the very reason God instituted the bikkurim, the law of the first fruits so that the people would not be drawn away from God during their time of prosperity but by giving Him the first fruits of their labor they were acknowledging that God was their source of prosperity. 

Deuteronomy 28:2 tells us “All these blessings shall come upon you, and over take you, if you will listen and obey the voice of the Lord your God.” All they had to do was obey the voice of God and the blessings would not only come on them but overtake, nashag in Hebrew, that is pursue you.”  

Just by being obedient to God and using the land to show the world the love and passion of God Israel would not only be blessed but they could not outrun the blessings, the blessings will pursue them.

So, too if we possess God’s gift our inheritance of salvation and use it to bring the love and passion of God to the world, to fulfill God’s purposes we will not be able to outrun His blessings.

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