Going Somewhere?

Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me!  Destruction is theirs, for they have rebelled against Me!  I would redeem them, but they have spoken lies against Me.  Hosea 7:13 NASB

Strayed – Tossing and turning.  Sleeplessness.   And when you eventually drift off, then you find yourself in the midst of a trauma—a scary nightmare.  If you could only wake up.

nādad is the Hebrew term for bouts of sleeplessness.  It basically means to depart, move around, wander.  It expressed the idea of moving away from something or someone.  Do you remember nôdi in Psalm 56:8 (which the NASB changed from “wanderings” to “miseries”?  How about nûa’  in Numbers 32:13 which also means “to shake, reel, stagger, wander, move”?  Well, here in Hosea we have a Hebrew synonym.  It’s interesting that a simple change of the final consonant, from dalet to beth, renders נָדַב (nādab), a word that also connotes movement, but now “an uncompelled and free movement of the will unto divine service or sacrifice.”^[1]  Why do you suppose that all of these “moving” words begin with the letter nun?  Could the answer be related to the Paleo-Hebrew symbol for activity and life?

Hosea speaks God’s words.  “You have strayed” is essentially “You chose to move away from Me, rather than move toward me in uncompelled service.”  I would like to think that the subtly of the consonant shift wasn’t lost to his audience.  The judgment isn’t about apathy or complacency.  It’s about movement in the wrong direction.  The metaphor reminds me of the essential motion of ʿēzer k^enĕgdô.  “Toward the man—away from the man,” is all that’s necessary for the woman to indicate God’s desire.  Ah, if only we’d pay attention.  In this case, God Himself assumes the ʿēzer k^enĕgdômovement, noting that the people haven’t learned the basic lesson of Genesis 3:18.  Drawing near is the right direction.  Pulling away is the avenue to the grave.

Yesterday we learned that ancient wisdom isn’t about gathering the facts.  It’s about alignment with the moral government of the creation.  Today we discover that one of those synonyms teaches us about the directional signals of the creation.  Toward or away, the choice is yours.  Pity those whose passion for factual accumulation has taken them in the wrong direction.  They probably never noticed that the landscape changed.  They were too focused on data collection.

Topical Index: nādad, wander, restlessness, nādab, service, ʿēzer k^enĕgdô, movement, Hosea 7:13

^[1] Coppes, L. J. (1999). 1299 נָדַב. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 554). Moody Press.