Hebrew Word Study – Discouraged – Qatzor Nephesh – קָצַר נֶֽפֶשׁ  Qop Sade Resh   Nun Pei Shin

Numbers 21:4: “Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.”

Note: Has God ever given you a booster shot for your faith? You know He has when you feel your soul healing. Have you ever felt your soul healing? I will discuss this further in our Torah Study. There will be no live class tomorrow but a video recording of the Torah study will be posted. Go to HebrewWordStudy.com to view a deeper dive into this study.

The time frame of this passage takes place 40 years after Israel escaped from slavery in Egypt. Very few remained alive who remembered that fateful day 40 years earlier when the spies reported the giants in the land and God would not allow them to enter the land. Only two spies said; “Hey God gave us this land, let’s go get it.” But their faith was not strong enough so God sent them on a 40 year journey to solidify their faith. In Christianity we tend to focus on the giants scaring the pants off of the spies. Yet, there was something else that was even more frightening.  Numbers 14:32: “And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature” Before they even mention the giants bullet point number one in their report is that the land devours its inhabitants.

You see for forty years they lived off of God. Every day manna fell from heaven.  The Cloud protected them from the intense desert heat and the other dangerous elements, including the threat of scorpions and poisonous snakes. When the spies scouted out the land what they saw was indeed a land of milk and honey but they also saw the inhabitants working like the Israelites have not worked in forty years and for many under forty years of age, they never worked for a living. They just spent their time studying the Torah given to them on Mt. Sinai, worshipping and praising God. Now all of a sudden, they face the reality of what really awaited them. WORK! HARD LABOR!!!  That is enough to scare off any Gen Xer. (Sorry, I guess I am talking like the old codger that I am). 

 But even after 40 years of living under the total protection of God and His provision, there were still people who refused to release their faith. So, God gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse, although some still refused it. 

If you are old enough, try to think back 40 years. I mean that is a long time ago. It is now 2025 and 40 years ago was 1985. Ronald Regan was President, I had just left teaching middle school to teach in college. A lot of water has run under the proverbial bridge. Think about it, for forty years God gave the people of Israel everything they needed. Manna from heaven every day is a miracle for 40 years without fail. Their clothes didn’t wear out or need laundry. Can you imagine wearing the same clothes you wore 40 years ago? There was the Cloud that protected them from the harsh elements and desert poisonous creatures like scorpions and deadly snakes. 

All of a sudden, God begins to move them into the Promised Land. Miriam died and when she died the wells of their water supply ended. She was a prophetess and God gave her the gift of locating water according to the Midrash.  Now with no water and no Miriam to tell them where to find water, many people showed their true colors and rather than trust God for water they began to complain. 

Come on, after forty years of God providing everything they needed, you would think they were ready to trust God for a simple miracle of water like He had for forty years. You know something, we may be ready to pick up rocks and stone these non-believers.  But if you sit back and meditate over the last forty years you may begin to realize that God has never failed you, if you learned to enter His heart. He has always made a way for you if you trusted Him and sought to follow Him with all your heart, soul and mind.  Yet, you know what, you get used to miracles and take them for granted. Then when you need a different type of miracle greater than the one that you actually wake up every morning with eyes that see, ears that hear, a brain that functions half way decently, all systems are gone and then you try to start your car and the battery is dead.  What happens? You wonder if God is going to come through. Will you be late for work, will you lose your job and if you lose your job will lose your home, will you be on a street corner with a McDonald’s cup (extra large) begging for spare change. 

Worse yet, the Glory Cloud disappeared and the King of Aram, thinking God left Israel, declared war on the people. This on top of everything else can you begin to blame the people for becoming impatient. They began to take stock of their journey looking at the North star and the more astute begin to figure their journey was not really taking them to the Promise Land but following a round about way. They began to wonder if they were going to reach the Promised Land or spend another 40 years wandering the desert eating that disgusting manna.

Last week in our Monday online Aramaic/Hebrew Bible Study we learned the Jewish method of Bible study called Pardes, the fourfold method of study which takes a deep dive into every word and letter of a verse. Let’s dive into Numbers 21:4 and see what it reveals.

First the verse does not say the people of Israel, just the people ha’am which is from the root word ‘am which means just people or a nation. Scripture is very clear when it uses the word ‘am to mean the people of Israel by stating Israel by name. Here God does not mention the name Israel, just the people or nation. Why is that? Well, if we go back to a previous Torah Study we learned that there were foreigners who joined Israel when they fled Egypt and these were the trouble makers. They were the ones who started to complain and of course people love to complain all you need is some rascal to start complaining and before long every one is joining in.

I believe those who were impatient were the Hyksos, the sea people from Asia. They took the miracles of the cloud, water and manna for granted and even called the manna disgusting . They surely did more than become impatient. The words used for impatience are qatzor nephesh which literally means shortness of the soul. That is a euphemism for expressing great distress. You are under such distress of fear, worry or just plain being so fed up with your circumstances that your soul can no longer bear it. We say you are at your wits end. However, I think the shortness of the soul is a better way to express this. Your soul has reached the limits of what it can bear.

God responded to this cry of dispair by giving these people an opportunity to demonstrate their faith and in passing the faith test, their souls would be healed along with their bodies. He did this by allowing the poisonous snakes to escape His protective cover and start biting the people and then telling those bitten to just look up at that bronze serpent with a heart toward God and you will be healed. This act of faith not only healed their bodies, but healed their qatzor nephesh – their troubled souls which was the purpose of this test. Why the test of the snakes. A number or reason that I will discuss in our Torah Study this Saturday, But. for me the one reason that is overlooked by our preachers is that the people bitten were not just healed physically, but at the same time they were reminded of God’s loving care and received a real booster shot to their faith?

Has God ever given you a booster shot for your faith? You know He has when you feel your soul healing. Have you ever felt your soul healing? I will discuss this further in our Torah Study. There will be no live class tomorrow but a video recording of the Torah study will be posted. Go to HebrewWordStudy.com to view a deeper dive into this study.

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