Who Decides?

And Moses’ hands were heavy. So they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. So his hands were steady until the sun set.  Exodus 17:12  NASB

Steady – You might not see the important connection in this verse in English, but you wouldn’t miss it in Hebrew.  That’s because this is the first occurrence of the Hebrew term ʾĕmûnâ, a word that becomes the most important word for “faith” in the Tanakh.  Here it is translated as “steady.”  “Wait a minute!” you might reply.  “What does faith have to do with steady?”  The answer tells us how different faithfulness in Hebrew is from our Western Greek idea.

As it clearly demonstrated in this text, ʾĕmûnâ is first a very practical, even physical, description.  In this verse, it’s about making Moses’ arms stand up so that Isreal can win the battle.  In other words, Aaron and Hur provide reliable support.  In the material world, this means constancy, steadfastness, and perseverance.  Those attributes are converted into facets of ʾĕmûnâ in the spiritual realm.  Scott writes:

The basic root idea is firmness or certainty. In the Qal it expresses the basic concept of support and is used in the sense of the strong arms of the parent supporting the helpless infant. The constancy involved in the verbal idea is further seen in that it occurs in the Qal only as a participle (expressing continuance). The idea of support is also seen in II Kgs 18:16, where it refers to pillars of support.

In the Hiphil (causative), it basically means “to cause to be certain, sure” or “to be certain about,” “to be assured.” In this sense the word in the Hiphil conjugation is the biblical word for “to believe” and shows that biblical faith is an assurance, a certainty, in contrast with modern concepts of faith as something possible, hopefully true, but not certain. . . The various derivatives reflect the same concept of certainty and dependability. The derivative ʾāmēn “verily” is carried over into the New Testament in the word amēn which is our English word “amen.” Jesus used the word frequently (Mt 5:18, 26, etc.) to stress the certainty of a matter. The Hebrew and Greek forms come at the end of prayers and hymns of praise (Ps 41:13 [H 14]); 106:48; II Tim 4:18; Rev 22:20, etc.). This indicates that the term so used in our prayers ought to express certainty and assurance in the Lord to whom we pray.^[1]

If we learn anything from Job, we learn that faith depends on God’s ʾĕmûnâ.  Without His support, without the certainty of His word, no one survives.

In modern Jewish thought, ʾĕmûnâ becomes a central pillar of the relationship with God.

Rabbi Shalom Arush, in The Garden of Emuna: A practical guide to life, makes some startling claims about the role of ʾĕmûnâ:

“ . . . the root of all human suffering is none other than a lack of emuna, the pure and unshakable faith in The Almighty.”[2]

“Emuna is the original biblical Hebrew term for a firm belief in a single supreme, omniscient, benevolent, spiritual, supernatural, and all-powerful Creator of the universe, which we refer to as God (or Hashem, which literally means ‘the name’, so that we don’t risk using God’s name in vain).”[3]

“ . . . everything that happens to us in life is the product of Hashem’s will and personal intervention in our lives . . .”[4]

“Hashem decides when we succeed and when we fail, when times are easy and when they’re hard.   According to Kabbala, or Jewish esoteric thought, completing one’s soul correction, or tikkun, is the loftiest achievement a person can accomplish in this material world.”[5]

You can see that Arush is in line with Job’s friends, exhorting contemporary believers to recognize all events as God’s engineering.  We may not like the implications, but it is hard to deny the consequences to total sovereignty.  We can (almost) agree with the last three citations, but it’s the first one that grates on our independence.  Is all suffering the result of a lack of ʾĕmûnâ?  Arush apparently ignores the opening of the story of Job, deciding rather to pick up the story when the friends begin their arguments.  There is no doubt whatsoever that ʾĕmûnâ is crucial to Hebrew faith, but Job’s story adds an element of mystery to the concept.  How sovereignty and suffering actually coincide isn’t quite so straightforward.  Nevertheless, even Job’s story makes it clear that God’s faithfulness is the essence of relationship regardless of the circumstances.

Topical Index: ʾĕmûnâ, steady, faith, certainty, sovereignty, suffering, Exodus 17:12

^[1] Scott, J. B. (1999). 116 אָמַן. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 52). Moody Press.

[2] Rabbi Shalom Arush, The Garden of Emuna: A practical guide to life (trans. Rabbi Lazer Brody, Third Edition, Chut Shel Chessed Institutions, Israel, 2008), p. 16.

[3] Ibid., p. 22.

[4] Ibid., p. 23.

[5] Ibid.