HEBREW WORD STUDY – DESPERATE SEARCH – DRESH – דרש Daleth Resh Shin

Jeremiah 29:7: “And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”

I am finding that many Christians are in a real funk over the election results. Although the final results are not in it does not look very hopeful for their candidate and there is a real possibility of one party controlling the legislature and executive branch. For many Christians their faith is really shaken, all these promises and prophecies of assurance that their candidate would win and now it appears these are false promises and false prophets. 

Over 2,500 years ago Judah was confident that their nation would last forever. Prophets were predicting a real victory and destruction of their enemies.  All but one prophet, Jeremiah.  He told the people what they did not want to hear.  Get ready, prepare to go into captivity.   Suddenly Babylon came in and took them into captivity and the people were left wondering why was God doing this, how could He allow his people to be driven from their land and their temple destroyed? They pleaded with the prophet Jeremiah for answers, a word of hope that this was just a temporary stop and they would be returning to their homes one the ballots were recounted.

However, God speaking through Jeremiah, said “Just settle down, get married, have your children build your homes and start an occupation, you here for 70 years.  Then God says something really interesting: “Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives and pray unto the Lord for it for in the peace thereof shall you have peace.”  “Seek the peace in the city.”   The word seek in Hebrew is the word dresh which is a concentrated search.  It is like looking for your lost keys.  At first you chaqar, that is an initial search, covering the areas where you may have lost your keys. You are still confident they will be found and just a quick cursory search and you are confident it will turn up.  Only it doesn’t turn up.  Now you feel a little panic setting in as you move from chaqar search to a chaphas search.  You whisper a quick prayer and you begin to look in the least obvious places while rechecking all the places you looked during your chaqar phase. Now you are in a total state of panic and ready for a melt down. You have entered the dresh zone.  This is the seeking, the frantic search stage checking even the most unlikely areas your keys could be.  That is the seeking that God is commanding the captives to do. For if they find the peace of the city they will contribute to the peace and in that way they will have peace even while in captivity.

Note it is a command because the word dresh is in an imperative form. The time has come to stop questioning the why and start to accept the facts and more forward with your life. Sure, it is in a foreign land, sure their livelihood is threatened and maybe even their lives as they no longer have their freedom and are under a foreign ruler who could decided to destroy them all if he got a notion to do so.  Like so many Christians today, they are imagining the worst.  But God wanted to remind them as He wants to remind us, that He too went into captivity with them.  He did not abandon them.  Just as Christians need to remember today that even though their candidate did not win, God did not abandon us.

But He give us the same promise as the captives 2,700 years ago. There is peace out there, just search diligently for it. The word peace is shalom which means more than just how do you do.  It is a word for harmony, healing, prosperity, fulfillment and joy.  There are many other wonderful English words that can be applied to shalom. 

Thank about it for a moment.  Babylon was a pagan, idolatrous, brutal, oppressive, dictatorial nation under an ego centric king. Yet, God is saying that even under such oppression they will find shalom and even help to bring it into the land from which they will also benefit.  Indeed, by the time the 70 years was up and they were free to return under the decree of another nation, Persia, many like Mordechai and Easter chose to remain because they found a good life of shalom. 

So, your candidate loses the election, so the government is ruled by one party, I have one word for you – dresh.  Search, seek with all your heart the peace for it will still be there. God will still give it if you search for it.  God is giving us the same promise He gave to Israel when they entered the Promised Land.  The final results of this election can be a blessing or a curse. It is your choice.

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