Hebrew Word Study – To Tarry – Chakah   חָכָה    Cheth Kap Hei

Isaiah 64:4: “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.”

I Corinthians 2:9: “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun.”  Amazing Grace – John Newton

Commentators have debated through the centuries whether the Apostle Paul was quoting Isaiah 64:4 in I Corinthians 2:9. As you can see the wording is not quite the same. In Paul’s quotation the words eye has not seen is followed by ear has not heard.  In Isaiah it is ear first eye second.  Then Paul says those who love him and Isaiah says those who wait for him. I mean really, these two passages have gone through so many different translations it is amazing linguistically that they are even similar. The meaning is the same despite the different wordings and order in the English except for two words. When the passage in Isaiah speaks of the things God has prepared for them it is for those who wait for Him. Yet, in Paul’s quote it says that it is for those who love Him. Now that does change the meaning. There is a big difference between those who wait for Him and those who love Him. Or so it is in English.  In the Aramaic there is really no difference.

In the Hebrew the word for wait is chakah which means to tarry, to wait or to restrain. It is used for waiting in ambush. It has the idea of staying where one is or to delay some action until a particular time.  However, in the Targum the word for wait is dimesaverin which is from the root word savar and has the idea of being bright and shining as one who is so joyful being fully in love. Now Paul uses the word racham  which is a word for love but a very special type of love.  

Here is what is interesting about this. The Rambam which is the commentary of a 12th century AD Jewish scholar and Hebrew master Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe Ben (son of) Maimon hence RaMBaM) indicates that this passage in Isaiah 64:4 is a reference to the world to come or what we would call heaven, the after life. Not even the prophets could foresee what God has prepared for us. It is something we can not even imagine in our finite, physical realm. It can only be understood in the realm of God, the supernatural realm.  

Paul was not misquoting Isaiah, He was only paraphrasing Isaiah from the Targum Jonathan which was like the Living Bible of the first century Jews and a reference the Apostle Paul, a former Pharisee would have been very familiar with.  The Targum was an attempt to put the Holy Scriptures into the everyday language of the people, the Aramaic, with a lot of paraphrasing. The Dead Sea Scrolls have uncovered some of its earliest manuscripts. Like our modern translations and paraphrases it was not considered as authoritative as the Hebrew Scripture themselves but was accepted as an accurate reflection of the original language when read in the language of the day. Thus, the passage in Isaiah 64:4 reflects the idea that God has prepared something we cannot even imagine when we leave our bodies and enter into the realm of God, that is heaven or the afterlife. The Aramaic word savar is a picture of the Aramaic word racham. Racham has no Greek or English cognate or equivalent. It can only be described. This is what what the word savar does, it describes this racham love.  It is a love that literally makes one shine.

I recall years ago when I was a summer camp director for inner city children. During the year I was a high school teacher and then as a summer camp director I hired some of my students to be counselors at this summer camp.  It was a faith based camp and my counselors were all born again Christians who desired to lead their campers to the saving knowledge of Jesus. 

I recall one day one of my counselors came into the staff house, here face was just aglow.  I swear the light on her face could be measured with a light meter.  She was filled with joy and the love of God. She had just prayed with one of her campers and led her to the Lord.  It was the first time she led anyone to the Lord and it was like heaven was rejoicing over the repentance of another soul and she was filled with this joy of the Lord, the same joy the saints in heaven were filled with.  When I saw the glow of love and joy on her face, I could not help but think of John Newton’s song “Amazing Grace” where he says: “When we’ve there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun. We know less days to sing God’s praise, than when we first begun.”  What my young counselor was experiencing at that moment was God’s love, racham love.  It is a love we cannot obtain while we are here on earth except when God shines through us.  It was not her love but God’s love, God’s racham that I had witnessed. It was a love which we will not experience on our own but will when we are in heaven and our soul is removed from this sinful, corruptible flesh and is free to be united as one with God as He created us to be. 

Thus, what God has prepared for us is impossible for us to even imagine. The King James Version says: “the things that God has prepared for them.”  That is not the way it is written in the Greek. It is only: “What God has prepared for them.”  God has not prepared a thing, we don’t know what He prepared for us but it will be something that causes us to shine as bright as the sun. It will be an experience of love, racham love, something that we can’t begin to imagine, even after ten thousand years we will still be shining with the joy of it.  It will be even greater that what my young counselor felt and expressed the day she led her first person to the Lord. 

There is an interesting word play in the Aramaic.  The word thing is not used in the Aramaic, rather it is the word madam which means anything: “…neither have entered into the heart of man anything which God hath prepared for them that love him.”  In Talmudic Aramaic the word madam could also be rendered as “from the blood.”  Hence we could render this as: “…neither have entered into the heart of man, from the blood (of Jesus)  what God hath prepared for them that love him.

Note from Chaim: Join us tomorrow morning for our weekly Torah service where I will be sharing Facts About The High Priest You May Not Know But Foreshadow Jesus Christ. All teachings are recorded and can watched at any time. Hope to see you there: www.HebrewWordStudy.com

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