Yada, Yada, Yada (1)
For I desired loyal love, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6
Knowledge of God – Heschel points out that Hosea coins this expression, daath Elohim. The translation, “knowledge of God,” doesn’t do justice to the prophetic sense Hosea desires his audience to feel. That’s because yada (to know) has a much wider range of meaning than our contemporary use of knowing. In many ancient languages, “to know” involves the full range of being human – the emotions, the will and the intellect. In Hebrew, there is no distinction between head knowledge and heart experience. So knowing encompasses a lot more than cognitive, systematic truthful assertions.
Heschel suggests that yada includes “an act involving concern, inner engagement, dedication, or attachment to a person. It also means to have sympathy, pity or affection for someone.”[1] There are several significant examples where yada takes on one of these other meanings. Hosea’s statement is one of these. Unless we see the full range of yada, we won’t grasp the startling pronouncement of Hosea. We will reduce Hosea’s statement to a matter of correct doctrine rather than a plea for something far greater.
Hosea is the prophet of God’s broken heart. Hosea’s employment of the marriage analogy only emphasizes the distress, disgust, anger and eventual heart-sickening betrayal over Israel’s idolatrous adultery. God feels it all. The hurt. The humiliation. The heaviness. The hopelessness. The horrific consequences of seeing the one He loves to the depths of His being turn her back on Him and engage in relations with other lovers. Hosea’s terminology attempts to paint the real picture of these circumstances from God’s point of view. In other words, daath elohim is not information. It is feeling as God feels. What is missing in Israel is sympathy for God. Israel does not suffer the pain of separation. Israel does not weep over lost love. Israel does not agonize over the fate of the most-dear-one. Israel has no heart for God. And that is God’s greatest sorrow.
Hosea confronts us with a terrible spectacle. A people of God’s own choosing, a people He absolutely refuses to give up, care so little for how God feels that they are willing to engage in intercourse with God’s enemies. They spurn God. They dishonor Him. They shove it in His face while He weeps over their stupidity, their headlong rush to self-destruction and their callous insensitivity. They are becoming animals, corrupt animals, in their pursuit of permissive, anti-human life. God cries for their loss.
Daath elohim is not about information. It is about feeling the way God feels. Israel did not lack information. Neither do we. We have plenty of information about God. What Israel turned away from was sensitivity, empathy with God. And what about us? How many of us feel God’s feelings with Him, weep with Him, cry with Him, agonize with Him? How many of us really know God?
Topical Index: yada, daath elohim, knowledge of God, Hosea 6:6
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, p. 57
How many of us really know God?
Although my view of God is both clearer and more confusing now, I still find it difficult to emotionally feel what God feels. Sometimes I catch a glimmer of it over other people, but it’s much more abstract with my own life. I think that has more to do with my (in)ability to see the world (and myself) in the way that He does, though. And perhaps that’s a result of the culture in which we all live.
How awesome would it be (and maybe terrifying) to really empathize with Him? To understand the depths of His love, His compassion, and His aching desire for His beloved and His children to truly know Him? That would be life-changing, to say the least.
What a thought-provoking post!
Sometimes I think I understand how God feels when I think about how I feel about my son. Yet, my feelings are not an iota of what God feels. Would I love any other so much that I would sacrifice my son for that person? God’s love cannot be matched, never ever. I can only scream out “Lord have mercy on me and mankind.”
This posting is so on the point for me. For the rest of the year [I started this morning] I am “Regrouping Spiritually to Serve.” To help in my “regrouping,” and with your permission Skip I want to personalize your thought:
“Daath elohim is not about information. It is about feeling the way God feels. Israel did not lack information. Neither do [I]. [I] have plenty of information about God. What Israel turned away from was sensitivity, empathy with God. And what about [me]? [Do I] feel God’s feelings with Him, weep with Him, cry with Him, agonize with Him? [Do I] really know God?”
Thanks Skip! Please keep me in your prayers.
“Sometimes I think I understand how God feels when I think about how I feel about my son.”
Hi St Jerome,
My sense is that God’s feeling for me is the same as my feeling for my son or my daughter.
For me it has something to do with dependency and love and birth and death.
I love my dog Max, Max needs me, and it all seems like the same feeling.
Shalom,
Knowing G_D’s feelings? Great question indeed!
I know this commentary speaks to the anguish and heart-break of Abba … and we need to recognize and respond to this pain! This is what we have been doing in Tishrei … yes? Reflection, affliction, prayer … all with the hope of knowing better our Mashiach!
However … the season of joy is soon upon us … it is the picture of the Yovel … Sukkot … Immanu EL.
As such it would be great indeed for us to focus on how G_D feels and perhaps delving into the Song Of Songs would be a bit more appropriate for an upcoming Jubilee! We also should get a better glimpse at how G_D should make us feel!
Sorry Skip … don’t mean to be “contrary” … just starting to get into a “Sukkah state of mind/heart/soul” 🙂
I’m with Amanda on this one. This whole idea is disconcerting (actually terrifying). For some reason, it’s more comfortable for me to comprehend G-d’s anger than his sadness. I EXPECT his anger, and understand what I need to do to correct that. But the sadness, hurt, humiliation???? That feels so human…so weak. Yet, I know G-d has no weakness. Does G-d actually need my comfort/compassion? I’m probably confusing “need” with “desire”. Perhaps what He wants most is a contrite heart in his children…for us to recognize how regularly we offend him?
Start with John Timmer, The God of Weakness. A wonderful little book that is a must read.
For it is the God who once said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has made His light shine in our hearts, the light of the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of the Messiah Yeshua. (2 Corinthians 4.6)
For in Him, bodily, lives the fullness of all that G-d is. (Colossians 2.9)
No one has ever seen G-d. God’s only Son, the one who is closest to the Father’s heart, has made Him known. (John 1.18)
Jesus wept. (John 11.35)
Very nice Carl … very nice!
Brings to mind …
John: 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 14:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 14:18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 14:19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 14:22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 14:23 Yeshua answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Knowing G_D … it most certainly is about SPIRIT and having trust/faith which manifests as obedience … yes? … And of course it is all about YESHUA!
In Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34, it sounds like Messiah sadly pronounces judgment on the city He loves dearly, although they have not known Him or the ones YHWH sent to show them the way of His Kingdom. This is truly as sad now as it was then.
Hi Mary,
With all due respect, I think you might be “projecting” your sadness onto this situation.
I was thinking of this term the other day, when we were discussing how God feels about us.
I tend to think that God knows how we feel, and in a sense feels the same way.
Because we project our feelings onto him; whatever we are feeling and whenever we feel it.
A little bit like when children project their feelings onto us, we tend to connect and respond.
In any case, I don’t really think Jesus is feeling sad in Matthew 23; rather, he is very upset.
For starters, the Pharisees “occupy” the chair of Moses, and are therefore in a seat of power.
But they are abusing their power and Jesus says they are not “practicing what they preach.”
I think it would be fair to say that Jesus is “not very happy.”
But when Jesus starts using the word hypocrite, he seems very angry to me, not sad.
In Matthew 23, Jesus goes off on his “Sevenfold indictment of the scribes and Pharisees.”
And ends by referring to them as “Serpents, a brood of vipers” and condemning them to Hell.
Makes me think of Al Pacino in the movie, Heat 🙂
I understand your thoughts on this Michael. I am not sure I am projecting my sadness because I am not sad when I think of the Pharisees; I agree that they are arrogant and wicked in their prideful philosophy and hypocrisy. However, in light of the desire of Christ for those created in the image of God to come to true faith, I think even the pronouncement of judgment is the kindness of the lover of our souls. Within each breath, we have opportunity to return to Him, if only we will. Much like the increasing intensity of the discipline of a loving, yet angry God is designed to bring us in line, that is how I view this glimpse of sadness as Yeshua uses the analogy of a mother hen tending to the babies needing the comfort and shelter of covering by her wings. BUT, these babies would not enter the rest, the shelter of the Comforter, and therefore, they were left to fend for themselves and to be devoured by the enemy-their god of self. Thanks again Michael, for your thoughtful reply.
Hi Mary,
OK.
Thanks for the clarification!