Necrotizing Fasciitis
For the zeal of Your house has consumed me, the reproach of Your reproachers has fallen on me. Psalm 69:10 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter
Consumed – Do you know what necrotizing fasciitis is? It’s flesh-eating disease. I am reminded of this terrible condition when I read the Hebrew term used here, ʾakal. This Hebrew word isn’t just about leisurely meals in good company. It’s about six different circumstances where we feel eaten up.
The basic meaning of “to consume” is used in at least six different ways. First, it occurs frequently in the context of hardship, whether deserved or not. Drought, fire, war, and other plagues devour the innocent as well as the guilty..
A second context for the root is in worship or devotion. Certain foods are either eaten (II Chr 30:18; Ex 23:15) or refused (Dan 1:12; 10:3) in devotion to the Lord.
A third contextual use of the root, eating well, indicates prosperity (Joel 2:26; Gen 45:18; II Kgs 18:31; Prov 24:13; Deut 8:3) or the lack of prosperity when eating does not satisfy (Mic 6:14).
A group of lesser contexts must also be noted. The root can denote being zealously involved or simply being consumed (Ps 69:9 [H 10]; Gen 31:15). Eating can also be indicative simply of reward for work done (Prov 27:18; Amos 7:12).
And we can’t forget the derivative, maʾăkelet, Knife. This word is used to denote the knife by which Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:6,10) and the knife used by the Levite to dismember his concubine (Jud 19:29). It also describes the teeth of devourers of the poor slicing them in greed.[1]
ʾakol to’kel’ God says to Adam. “Eat, eat!” “Eat as much as you desire. Stuff yourself with everything available in the Garden . . . except . . .” That command must also be playing in the background here. David has necrotizing spiritualis, his desire for God is eating him up. He can’t think of anything else. All he wants is to be as close as possible to the lover of his soul.
He calls this zeal, qinʾâ. It’s not just avid passion. It’s pure jealousy, the unquenchable desire to have what is properly mine. It is the longing of every heart touched by God. We are designed in His image and that image is the deepest and truest expression of ourselves. It clamors to be released, to proclaim God’s glory in the world. It is the hunger that cannot be satisfied, and for this reason we often suppress it simply because we can’t handle its overwhelming power. We don’t want to be continually starving to death. But that is the nature of the divine expressed in the human. Consuming! Unabated! Saintliness! Wonderful—and scary.
Topical Index: ʾakal, eat, consume, zeal, Psalm 69:10
[1] Scott, J. B. (1999). 85 אַכַל. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 40). Chicago: Moody Press.
Amen… and emet. Oh, that my fleshly desire might be consumed by an overwhelming jealously for that which is properly mine by the affection of my heart!
Thank you, Skip, for bringing this to light of our understanding… and with such suitable timing.
“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well…
sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is toward you… [desiring to consume you]…
but you must rule over it… [even as you were made to rule over all the earth].” (Genesis 4:7)
“We don’t want to be continually starving to death.” No, indeed! And that is precisely how the the superiority of life under the new covenant is shown to be superior to life under the Mosaic covenant. The privation of the manner of life under the Mosaic covenant is elevated to it’s heavenly source in Christ Jesus, as Paul proclaims: “Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?” (2 Corinthians 3:7-8) This is because, (as Paul also elaborates), under the new covenant, the Lord’s people have God’s immediate presence by the Spirit dwelling within them (as Ezekiel had promised; Cf. Ezekiel 36:27). This was not the case under the Mosaic covenant.
To be clear, there are no shortcuts, neither is there any end run around the process (i.e., the reckoning of one’s flesh as dead). The power and desire of the flesh, alongside its false usurpation of any authority other than God— having been put to death with/by means of Christ’s sacrificial on the cross— is also as Paul exposits: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the law would be fulfilled in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are living according to the flesh are intent on the things of the flesh, but those who are living according to the Spirit are intent on the things of the Spirit.” (Romans 8:2-5)