Zeus or YHVH?
When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder. Exodus 19:19 NASB
Thunder – At least the translators were kind enough to add a footnote explaining that the word for “thunder” is really the word for “voice.” The KJV and NIV get it right, but the ESV and RSV follow the NASB and use “thunder” instead of “voice.” Since the Hebrew is qol, used multiple times for the sound of a human voice, it’s incumbent upon us to ask, “Why did the translators choose ‘thunder’ rather than the obvious ‘voice’?” The answer is found in the rabbis’ astonishment about this verse. Read it with the word “voice” and ask yourself what this means. Doesn’t it suggest that Moses spoke and God answered? Doesn’t that reverse the appropriate hierarchy? God should speak and Moses answer! Who would ever dare to expect God to answer a man, even if it’s Moses? This incident is the beginning of the delivery of the Ten Words. This is the seminal event of God’s revelation of the covenant expectations. This is God descending on Sinai. And Moses speaks? Moses, just an ordinary man, commands God to come down on the mountain?
The rabbis had a lot of trouble with this implication. Apparently so did the translators of the NASB. The rabbis go to great lengths to propose that what really happened is that God spoke through the voice of Moses, so that in fact Moses answered himself although it was God using Moses’ mouth. They point to Exodus 20:18. “Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning . . .”(ESV) Literally, the Hebrew reads, “All the people saw the voices and the flashes.” The verse uses the plural of qol (qolot). Once again, the translators sometimes substitute “thunder,” but that is not what the text says. The text says that the people saw the voices. The rabbis claim that this means each person heard (saw) a voice unique to the capacity of that particular person to understand. In other words, God fit His voice so that it was received according to each person who heard it. His voices were manifest at Sinai. On the basis of this plural instance, the rabbis argue that Exodus 19:19 should be understood as God answering Moses in Moses’ voice. Therefore, the verse does not imply that Moses held a superior position.
Now you know some of the convoluted rabbinic explanation for these two very unusual verses. But that isn’t quite enough. Knowing how the rabbis treated these verses only prods us to ask, “Is this how God speaks to me?” Does God answer me in my own voice and is that voice unique to my individual capacity to understand? That certainly seems to be the case. What I comprehend about the words God speaks is not exactly what you comprehend. It is as if God speaks directly to my heart, and, at the same time, directly to your heart, in ways that are completely unique to each of us. We hear His voices even though we hear the same words. Furthermore, I discover that my personal spiritual journey is often conducted in a conversation where I seem to be both parties. I find myself “talking” to myself in my head as I ponder and wrestle with God’s words. It is as if God is answering me with my own voice. In fact, hearing God’s voice outside my own inner consciousness is extremely rare. Most of the time I hear God in my own silent words.
The NASB translation, “thunder,” pushes me to think of YHVH like Zeus. Moses confronts God. God answers with a bolt of lightning and thunder. It’s all about power and fear. The imagery is common Greek mythology. Perhaps that’s why we don’t question it. But the Hebrew text was not written by Homer. What is happening in these two verses is far more complicated and far more personal. God speaks to you—and to me, according to our capacity. I hear Him in my own words. Isn’t this what Paul tries to capture with his comments about the Spirit? And I learn this. What God says to you isn’t what God says to me. We might agree on the words, but how that actually affects you or me will be different because we are different persons. God’s words are never “one size fits all.” So relax. Don’t get frustrated if someone else doesn’t “see” it exactly like you do. Listen to the words in your own voice and rejoice that He is speaking to both of you.
Topical Index: voice, qol, Exodus 19:19, Exodus 20:18
I love this post. I’ve wondered why God’s voice sounds like mine when we talk. Ive wondered if maybe I’m not really hearing Him. I’ve never thought there might be a reason. It makes God more intimate that he knows me so well and so deeply. And I think it’s good because lately I’ve struggled with the other side of the coin: God’s majesty and greatness making Him seem out of reach and aloof.
Thanks Skip!
Makes total sense. It made me think of Acts 2.
As I read today’s “Today’s Word,” red flags kept popping up for me. I kind of know where you are going with this, but I still have reason for caution. Too many times, I have seen people twist what the Bible says to make it fit their situation in order to say, “see, God says it is OK for me to do __________.” I, too, fall into this category.
Maybe another write-up to explain that we don’t get to twist YHVH’s word; that His word will never contradict itself and that the Ruach HaKodesh will also lead and prompt us towards what is truth, and not self; that the little small voice may be the yetzer hara instead of the yetzer tov?
I’m not sure another write up would do the trick for those who want to use this comment on a rabbinic idea as an excuse to justify their behavior. The point is not that we can DO anything we want. The point is that God speaks to us in a personal way, using words that we will understand and take to heart. They are still His words and His direction, so we can’t just hear them anyway we want to, but they are not STRANGE to me. I KNOW what they mean even if choose not to do them.
In the past you have expressed concerns about ‘the Spirit spoke to me and said…’ statements, Skip. Is what you are saying here any different?
Thanks for the clarification Skip. I too was where Mr. Blankenship was. I know YHWH’s Word is the same yesterday, today and forever, so i was having a few flags too. But I realized its like listening to you, sometimes you are way over my head and my husband has to translate it into laymans terms for me. LOL!
May you be blessed and highly favored.
rett
Gee, I hate to think that I am up in the clouds somewhere not able to communicate with you. Maybe I just need to make things more practical. I am way too analytic (comes from all that Greek education).
EARS TO HEAR
God speaks to His children and those with ears to hear
actually hear Him!
Listening is an art. The key to all communication is the
ability to listen and hear in the first place.
Sometimes the sounds of ourselves and our own thinking
block out the sounds of others . . . including God Himself.
You’re right, Skip. God speaks to us in the unique way each
of us can uniquely understand . . . if we’ve learned to listen!
hmm…speaking of thunder, my daughter and I have been discussing the meaning of Psalm 81:7…what is “the secret place of thunder” spoken of in that verse???
Excellent word today Skip. We have experienced this so often.
Our daughter attended a church some years ago. The pastor would read the passage and then give the “so what does this mean to us” exposition. His messages drove us crazy. But our daughter thought it was great. The strange thing about this was that she didn’t seem to believe the doctrines that he preached. Her understanding was far closer to ours even though we had not been in church together for many years.
After some years of this we visited her one weekend and after we had suffered through the sermon she commented on in the car how much she had enjoyed this man’s teaching. I asked her what she liked about it and she began to expound on every point that he had made that had caused us fits.
As she went on we were quite dumbfounded. She had made all the corrections in her head that we would have made to the pastor if we had had the chance to go through it with him and pick the message apart. In other words, what he said was not what she heard.
It was at this juncture in your lives that we began to deeply understand that God really does know how to preserve His children. We had prayed that his terrible teaching would somehow not affect her. Not only had it not affected her she had grown into a similar understanding to ours of God’s word quite independent of us by just reading the word everyday.
As much as I love deeper study I have learned to be confident in the Spirit’s ability to speak to those who truly seek Him with all their hearts.
Skip, Your words today ring with authenticity. My own experience, as a much younger person (college) was just as you suggested and for me it was really God making suggestions to me about how my life should go forward. Today’s Word was an affirmation of a long ago experience. Thank you.
This is a very thought-provoking subject for me. I truly believe that there are strings of the heart that are tuned to vibrate when they hear the truth. That, yes, we can (and do!) hear what we want to believe, but also, (there is always another side to the coin) we can also want to hear the truth. Pam Custer, it is kinda your fault that I decided to speak up, but your story of your daughter really struck very close to home for me. What a story! Thank you! I really hesitated to respond at all to this post, but, here goes.
It has puzzled me in the past that people claim to hear that Voice speaking to them is some decidedly strange places, but when they share what they heard, it is undoubtedly the truth! How can this be? I have now come to a different place about this. I don’t think G-d waits until we are in a perfect place with a perfect mind to speak to us in a perfect way. I now believe that if He can humble Himself to come down lower than angels to reach me in my ditch, then there is truly no place He cannot go. Even to the ‘crazy’ places, where I need Him the most.
In the height of my strange places, in a place where I would look into a mirror and not even know who that person was, at that place right before the biggest attack on my life, where I could not believe anybody or anyone (least of all myself I was so schitzo), He spoke to me in the middle of a prayer, and told me audibly in my ear in authoritative terms a command that sounded the exact opposite that I ever would have expected to hear from Him. I did not believe it, and questioned it, and dialoged with it, questioning my sanity, of course, which I already was, the whole time. I finally decided that that Voice had passed all the tests I knew, and had answered all the questions I dared ask, so I had to decide whether or not to obey, even though it meant I had to disobey other orders that seemed the height of righteousness as I knew it, with about zero chance of actually even getting away with it. Well, I did choose to obey that Voice, and I did get away with it, inexplicably (and as a bonus, ended up with my first real religious experience, safe and sane, in a long time). I also gained the courage to stand on independent ground, and the courage to question what I had assumed to be righteousness. Just in time. In less than three months, the rest of my world blew apart, and I was in a tailspin to the bottom. That Voice had told me that if I did not obey It, I was looking at “death and destruction”. Well, at that bottom, looking at that death and destruction, it was that courage that I had gained from disobeying perfectly good earthly orders to obey the higher one, that enabled me to stand my ground and defy that death. I had stepped out and taken my own responsibility for my life, and that is what ultimately saved it. I had already chosen to forgo what would have been my ‘perfect’ excuse to end my life, and so had nothing left to hide behind. I don’t believe that He could have used any other way to get through to me, and give me what I would not have otherwise have had.
Yes, I know that schitzophrenia spawns auditory voices galore, and a precious person in my life just went through a crisis, where he was hearing voices and seeing Jesus, with his pastor was telling him it was the devil, and his secular therapist was telling him it was not ‘true’, but it was precious to him. He loves Jesus. Am I plugging mental illness, or drug abuse? I don’t think so. I think I am plugging G-d’s ability to reach us wherever we are at with whatever it takes when we need Him most, and especially in those places beyond the ability of those around us to reach out and touch us. I have learned to listen more carefully to those who we usually just label and dismiss as somehow not ‘qualified’ to hear from Him. Why are not those who need Him the most not the most qualified to hear Him? That very strange Voice and even stranger directions, which, if I had told anyone at the time, would have been assured, I am quite sure, that it was just a classic case of illness, or worse, a satanic attack, and to be ignored or even resisted, did actually give me the very key I was going to need to save my life. It just happened to be a rather crazy life at the time. So I was handed a crazy way. Except, looking back, it was just what the Doctor ordered. For me. Halleluah!
Oh my Skip – looks like the follow up posts run in all directions. I do agree with you…He does speak to each of us in a way that we will understand and relate to…it’s part of His great Love for us. Absolutely, we should be wary of thoughts and ideas that seem to come…slipping their way into our hearts and minds…absolutely, no doubt about it. I’ve heard some pretty convincing “comments” coming up inside my heart….but with each one there was just..something…a little…not quite right….a little too loose with what I know to be God’s Holy Integrity. Hearing these things is perfectly normal….we are getting to know Him..we are learning to relate to Him – have a relationship with Him and that’s the one thing He wants with all His Heart. We learn to relate with Him much like we learn to relate with a human friend…but we have an edge with Him because we know (if we have studied and read His Word) where He stands on everything. I think someone may have mentioned this…the key is to really WANT HIM – above EVERYTHING else – I want YOU Father – more than any dream I could dream or “band aid” the world has to offer. I’ve followed my own bleep long enough and it hasn’t worked out…not even a little! I want YOU!
Then be brave enough to ask Him to not let you get away with anything or be fooled by the enemies’ lies. TRUST me….He’ll oblige. NOW – having said that – I know of a couple who – together – had an “introduction” to Holy Spirit while doing some kind of drug – totally turned their lives around-no drugs ever again- and He now uses them in incredible ways. We just can’t put Him in a box – He’s GOD – and honestly….that’s way more and bigger than we really consider! And a lot more Love…..and dare I say….He does have a sense of humor!
When we want HIM and learn to TRUST HIM – then He can begin to show us all sorts of things – as He did with people like Madam C.J. Walker and George W. Carver. We can relax and trust that He wants to “know” us (be allowed into our lives) and wants us to know Him. Moses walked into the unknown – with understanding the need for respect….we can too. Good-down to earth- word!
Exceptional clarity! thanks
The Messenger
One of the most influential, life-changing “revelations” I have ever have come across, was the (hidden “na” or “please”) spoken by God to His friend, Abraham.
God (Mighty God, – El Elyon – the God of Heaven’s Armies) said “please?” This is no commanding “Zeus!”
And then, there is this.. ~ Behold, I stand at the door and knock.. if “any man” hears My voice and opens the door.. I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me. ~ (Revelation 3.20)
And, there is this.. ~Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I AM gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls ~
We have, beyond any doubt, uncertainty or peradventure, a God who speaks. Is a quick review in order? God spoke and.. – this green planet was created. He spoke everything into existence, including the original Adam [adamah].
“And God said… ____________ and there was _____________ .”
Then we view God speaking again through the prophets. Holy men of God, each chosen by God for His purposes. Moses was a mouthpiece. God’s command (request?) of Moses was for him to “speak unto the children of Israel and say this..” And we read in the scriptures of each of the prophets.. “and the word of the LORD came unto .. (this one or that one..) God spoke to each of them and then, they in turn repeated whatever God had said unto the people. Jonah, I’ve got a job for you.. ” “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”
That was then.. – this is now. So, what about us?
~But you [too] are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you [too] may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light ~
The Living Stone
And coming to Him as to a Living Stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For this is contained [written] in Scripture: “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” This precious promise, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve,
“THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED,
THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,”
and,
“A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.
But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you[too]may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.
Need we guess as to Who this “Living Cornerstone” is? No. Not at all!
And still, unto this very day, this “Cornerstone,” this Solid Rock, this firm Foundation, is very much either received and accepted or refused and rejected. One man’s trash is another man’s Treasure and one man’s Treasure is another man’s trash!
What do the scriptures say concerning this?
This is the witness of John.
~But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right (exousian) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God ~ (John 1.12)
As we also are witnesses of these things, we can now see it is all about giving and receiving.
Because God SO loved the world.. – He gave.. This is what Love does!! [Love gives! – and God is love!] “Benevolence towards another at cost to myself.” The incomprehensible “cost” of tHis [sacrificial] love? A hill called Mt. Calvary.
and?
The One that spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, – how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?
(Romans 8.32)
and? [one final Word!]
The Supremacy of the Son
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.. (Hebrews 1.1)
~ You are worthy, O LORD, to receive glory and honor and power: for You have created all things, and for Your pleasure they are and were created ~ (Revelation 4.11)
Excellent clarity Rabbi. Thank you for the part about….DON’T BE FRUSTRATED IF THEY DON’T SEE IT LIKE WE DO.
Shabbat Shalom:)
Carl – Love that “hidden” reference to “please” – how awesome is that?! How wonderful He is!!
Your encouragement is on target … Much Shlama to all you who read this thank you to Skip!
Most often for me it is not even a “voice”, but just a “knowing” you hear inside. I know I am supposed to do something and it will keep nagging me until I pray and seek out the answer and apply it to my life with action. If I don’t get out there and do it, Yah does it for me, with consequences sometimes.
My “voice”, though, says mean things that I know aren’t true. I don’t trust my own voice.
I see Yah work in my life more often than hear Him. “We are out of food, God,” I say. He sends quail (one time, literally!) Or I think to myself “I’m almost out of laundry detergent.” Next thing I know my mom sends us a package and rather embarrassed says she doesn’t know why but threw in some laundry soap. We have a very strange life, but I am 100% sure of who is in control of it.
My entire family including a long lost brother were getting together for Thanksgiving. The kids really want to go and I tell them, “If it is God’s will for us to go, He will make a way for us to be there.” We have no money and our vehicle broke down. A few days later we get a phone call from a family member who wants to give us a car (they didn’t even know about the reunion or about our car breaking down, it was my husband’s side of the family). Then my sister calls and says they are “hearing” from God that they need to pay for us to go to this reunion. It was His will and He accomplished it! I am so grateful for people who listen to the voice of God and act on it!
Sorry for this late response, I am trying to keep up 🙂
Got this from one of the kibbutz brethren I am involved with-
“…sometimes we hear from ABBA but if we don’t share it, we may be misled, right? I think it’s okay for someone who’s sound and matured in the Spirit to think that they hear from YHWH, but for someone who’s new or those who have the wrong spirit, it’s dangerous to conclude that they hear from ABBA. So, we should learn to differentiate ABBA’s voice and our voice because most of the time we can be deceived, because we like to hear what we want to hear. Those are the teachings we received in the kibbutz.” – Daniel A
That is really loud and clear, thank you Daniel! We love our kibbutz/community life, where we freely share and discuss issues such as these.
Shalom!