Exodus 14:10b “And they were sore afraid and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.”
Every major translation I have looked at will render the word sa’ak as cry out. Now sa’ak does mean to cry out but it also means to summon or to appeal. It comes from a Semitic root SQ which is found in the Akkadian and used to express the idea of an army being assembled together with just one mind and purpose. Now translators have applied exegetical principles to decide what English word to plug in here, although I question the use of exegetical principles in the Hebrew as with any Semitic language, it is still a useful tool and the decision seems pretty obvious, the children of Israel were afraid so naturally they would cry out.
Yet, there are a couple things that bother me about this rendering. In
English we have adjectives and adverbs which show degrees of comparisons. For instance we have good, which is your regular verb and is called positive. Better is called the comparative and indicates a greater degree and then we have best which is called a superlative and indicates the greatest degree. The comparative and superlatives are irregular. In Hebrew you do not have these forms, however with certain adjectives and adverbs, you do have certain forms which determine intensity. You also have regular and irregular verbs. Sometimes just a repetition of a word could, but not always, suggest a superlative. Verbs are given degrees of intensity. For instance, a verb may be found in a Qal form which indicates a regular verb and would be positive. It may be found in a Piel which indicates a comparative or a more intense form or it could have a paragogic added to it which creates its greatest degree of intensity. Although there is a school of thought that the paragogic does not exist in Hebrew, I tend to believe it does exist in the Semitic languages which would include the Hebrew and Aramaic.
Those who reject the idea of the paragogic in Semitic languages would point to a verb like SQ (cry out) and show that by its very nature it would suggest forms of intensity. With SQ you could simply call out or summon (positive), you could appeal (comparative) or you could cry out (superlative). All are usages for the word SQ, or sa’ak in Hebrew. So how do you know which is positive, comparative or superlative? You could use an exegetical approach and say the people were sore afraid so that would naturally cry out or you would use the most intensive form. However, the word in Hebrew is a verb and is used in a simple Qal form and grammatically you should use its simplest form which is to summon and make a request. Yet, in defense of the exegetical approach, the very context suggests that they cried out to God and then went to Moses belly aching that God sent them out to die. So obviously they must have been crying, weeping and calling out to God.
Yet, there is another grammatical issue to consider. This verb sa’ak (cry out) is in an imperfect form, which is an incompleted action and should be rendered in a future tense. They will cry out to God. This makes no sense in the passage so again you must resort to an exegetical approach and decide to make it a completed verb even if it is grammatically in an imperfect form. You can do that with the Hebrew.
Still one would have to ask just what the Masoretes were thinking to point this up a Qal imperfect form. Maybe they were trying to show something other than what our English text is suggesting. If we kept this in a Qal imperfect form about the only way to render this in the English is: Because they were sore afraid, they would have assembled themselves to summon God.
In other words by putting this in an imperfect form they would never have gotten around to crying out to God or making an appeal to God, instead they just went to Moses and started to belly ache. Ok, I will admit this might be really stretching the grammar here, for if they did not cry out to God, there would be something to indicate that they did not cry out to God, like maybe using a word such as lo’ (word used to indicate a negative) somewhere in this verse.
The fact is that they did most likely cry out to God, got no response and then went complaining to Moses. Perhaps that is why the Masoretes pointed this up as a Qal imperfect. They did get together to summon God, but they really didn’t sa’ak or cry out to God. They got together to just belly ache to each.
You see when you break down this word sa’ak and examine its built in commentary, you find the word is spelled Sade, Ayin and Qof. The elements of the crying out are first with a Sade or with humility and surrender to God. Next you must demonstrate the Ayin which is to look beyond the circumstances and see the ultimate will of God. Finally you must demonstrate the Qof by making peace with change. Often the stress in a situation comes from the fact that we are about to enter a change and we do not want that change.
When we cry out to God we are humbling ourselves and surrendering our selves to His will, looking beyond our present circumstances to where that is taking us and making peace with any change that will come as a result. Perhaps the children of Israel did cry out to God but was not in surrender to God’s Divine purposes. Sa’ak also carries a shadow, which is blindness to the unholy tendencies embodied in that cry. When Israel cried out in its shadow form, there was no response from God, so they complained to Moses.
Do you have times when you cry out to God and there is no response. Perhaps you are just crying out as we understand crying out but not really sa’ak which is a cry of surrender and submission to the will of God as well as a petition. All we are doing is just crying out a petition. As a result we end up like Israel and start to belly ache that God doesn’t care, when in reality we are crying out in sa’ak’s shadow, blinded to the unholiness in our cry. We have cried out without first submitted ourselves to the will of God and accepting whatever change God is seeking to bring about.
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