Combat Zone
He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. Psalm 103:9 NASB
Strive – The Hebrew word rib is about combat. In its primary sense, it describes physical battle, often between two single opponents. Of course, it also includes verbal combat, contention, debate and arguing. “By another easy transition it takes on a legal-judicial significance and, strangely, usually with God as acting subject. Since God as creator is ruler of all, even his chidings have a judicial flavor, and BDB [Brown, Driver, Briggs lexicon] are not likely in error in placing many references where ‘chide’ or ‘reprove’ seem to be the best rendering in this category.”[1] With this umbrella of meanings in mind, carefully consider what David implies.
First, David suggests that our relationship with God is often a battle zone. But David describes God as the aggressor. He will not always fight with us. We would have expected the opposite: we will not always fight with Him. But David sees a deeper truth. While we may wander, be disobedient or contentious, it is the Lord who fights. He fights to bring our yetzer ha’ra under His dominion. He fights to redeem us from the hand of the Enemy. He fights with our own petulance. And as long as He is engaged in the battle, we are heaven’s collateral damage. Jacob at the brook is the perfect example. The mysterious figure who fought with Jacob all night was not there to destroy Jacob but rather to set Jacob on a different path, the path that changed his name to Israel. Nevertheless, it was a fight to the finish, and Jacob won his new identity only by losing the battle. It seems that we must also contend with that mysterious person in the dark.
David suggests that the experience of YHVH’s mercy and grace (rahum v’hannan from the previous verse) will not always be the case. At some point, YHVH will cease fighting. But rather than bring peace, this will bring judgment. When the Lord is battling with us, we are experiencing His care. His mercy and grace are demonstrated in the battle. The very worst thing that can ever happen to us is to discover that God has stopped striving. It is the fight that proves He still cares.
Most of us believe that a relationship with the Lord brings peace, joy and comfort. And that’s true—after the battle. After it’s all over. But it seems that YHVH’s tactical plan is to confront us at every turn until we are defeated by His care. As long as the yetzer ha’ra has influence, we need to be dragged into battle. As long as the yetzer ha’ra controls some aspect of who we are, God will contend. We will feel the discomfort, perhaps even the agony of those wounds, but what we bleed is only a sign that peace is coming, that YHVH is victorious. Woe to the day when the battle ends because God withdraws.
Topical Index: rib, strive, contend, fight, chide, Psalm 103:9
[1] Culver, R. D. (1999). 2159 רִיב. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (845). Chicago: Moody Press.
“As long as the yetzer ha’ra has influence, we need to be dragged into battle. As long as the yetzer ha’ra controls some aspect of who we are, God will contend.”
Are you suggesting that the time will come when the yetzer ha’ra has no influence over us? I can agree that the issue might well be about who is in “control” but it seems that a Hebraic view recognizes the yetzer ha’ra as being very much a part of how we were created, and necessary to our being human. Have I misunderstood something here?
The fiery furnace is fueled by the righteous anger of YHVH; it is an anger directed at my enemy and His, and the fire is designed to separate me from what is killing me. He already hates my enemies with perfect hatred; He is inviting me to learn how to hate them, too. When I hate what He hates, then, and only then, will we be on the same side.
The yetzer ha-ra does not naturally hate evil. This came as a big, big shock to me, way back when. To the extent that I was not, in fact, completely and correctly loved, was to the extent that my yetzer ha-ra did not recognize evil as an enemy – a protagonist – to that love. I assumed I knew what evil was, and hated and feared it as my enemy, but until right standing is tried in the fire, it is only like borrowed paint – good for covering yourself at the local pow wow and blending in, but not so good as armor when you are ambushed on the way home. I can know what the Ten say, all day long, and agree that those sayings are right, too, but until I thoroughly and properly hate evil, there is always going to be a part of me that will be a summer soldier; I am prepared to fight IF the weather is good, the victuals keep coming, and my comrades are winning. To the extent that I was correctly culturally conditioned as a child to recognize and avoid and be disgusted by evil, was to the extent that I THOUGHT I was adequately protected from that evil. I was wrong. The yetzer ha-ra apparently expects to be able to correctly assess each and every situation and calculate precisely (or at least with correct intention!) its next move. It assumes that it already knows what is best; what love is. But the yetzer ha-ra is always going to be looking out for #1; for itself first, and THAT is what it assumes love is. It is wrong. The yetzer ha-ra can believe as far as it thinks it can see and understand, but it suffers from myopia – it sees only what is in front of its face, and can only calculate the next move. Love, on the other hand, is about cosmic order and complete interaction with all entities and possible outcomes at all times and in all ways. When the King of Heaven states that His ways are higher than our ways; are not even our ways at all, this is what He is talking about.
The heart of man is desperately wicked, and we do not understand our own hearts. The yetzer ha-ra does not believe this. To the extent that I have not been done by correctly is to the extent my will is blind to the enemy. My pump has not been primed for the fight, and I am not even facing the right direction. The enemy is within, but my will refuses to acknowledge it. There is nothing in the yetzer ha-ra that can concede that I can ever possibly be sleeping with the enemy, but that is, in fact, what I am doing. I am infected with a microbe that can imitate me so completely that my own DNA is fooled. Paul knew it. David knew it. I am beginning to know it, too.
The sin that so easily besets me looks just like me. My immune system is fooled into fighting FOR the interests of my enemy because I think they are my own. The antibiotic that my Father prescribes for me, then, has a tough fight ahead. The heavenly Physician is sworn to first, do no harm. To the extent that I am still identifying with my sin; to the extent that I still think it is ME, He will not, cannot, make a move against it, because that is who I believe I am. Instead, He has to make a move against EVERYTHING ELSE, in an attempt to make things so hard that maybe I will become willing to drop the baggage. When I can see and be willing to drop the sin; then, and only then, can He move in with the SWAT team and the guns, and cut out the intruder and haul it off. As long as I think it is ME, however, I am going to interpret any move made against my sin as a move against myself, and then I will believe that He does not love me, or even want me to live. When I repent for sin, I become willing to separate my self from it, and then He can destroy my enemy without killing me. If you ever wonder why things are still hard in your life, maybe you still have some more identifying of what the enemy is, and still have not become willing to understand that that is not who you really are. My Father has known all along who and what my enemy is; it is I that has been confused.
Rabbinic literature does not equate the yetzer ha’ra with the Christian idea of a sin nature. It was a created part of man BEFORE the fall, and God declared it “good”. So I really think we have to divorce ourselves from the idea that it is “an evil inclination” and that the yetzer ha’ra is by nature our enemy. I have not found that to be the character of yetzer ha’ra in Jewish literature. We must need it for life as we know it or YHVH would not have created it as part of us. My question to Skip was whether he was suggesting that there is a future in which the yetzer ha’ra and the yetzer ha’tov are no longer necessary for harmony.