Hear O Isreal, the Lord your God, the Lord is ONE

The Lord your God is the Lord of words.  God loves language and loves a good play on words.  This is what I am loving right now.  Often in the Hebrew text He takes words that sound similar and creates depths of meaning from those words.

He creates a sentence with intentionality and precision.  He does not waste words or use words that are meaningless.  His words are rich with meaning.  So I have been addicted to looking up the Greek and Hebrew words of bible passages and seeing what they mean.  I also enjoy learning similar words in the Hebrew or Greek.  It's interesting and kinda nerdy!

For example, the hebrew word for 'almond' is shaqed and the word for 'watch' is shaqad (these two words share the root word sh-q-d -- no vowels in hebrew).  In Exodus 25, God sends the blueprints of the articles to be placed in the tabernacle to Moses.  He instructs them to build a lampstand with 'shaqed' Almond branches, buds and blossoms on it.  The root of both words, according to Gesenius' Lexicon, means "to be sleepless" or "to fix one's attention on any thing", "vigilant".  The lampstand was to burn oil continuously.  In Jeremiah 1:12 the Lord asks Jeremiah "What do you see?" and Jeremiah replies "I see the branch of an almond (shaqed) tree".  Then the Lord says "You see correctly, for I am watching (shaqad) to see that my word is fulfilled".  Shaqad means to watch, wake, remain or hasten.  Some interesting notes are that the almond branches were earliest to bud and bloom in the spring in that region; the lampstand represents the full cycle of growth (branch, bud, blossom) and in Numbers 17, when the people look for a sign that Aaron is God's chosen as priest, Aaron's staff sprouts, buds and blossoms as an almond branch.  

The two words sound the same and if I were Hebrew and spoke hebrew, then I would get the "joke" right away, because I would think of both watching and almonds at the same time.  The lampstand is a vigil to the holy of holies, that was just behind the veil in the tabernacle and lit the way to the holy place.

But really, who would not love that God wrote the bible with word play mixed in.  Really, it makes me excited to figure out the next "joke" (for lack of a better word).  There is so much more because God is consistent throughout His word.  The lampstand connects Exodus to Zechariah to Revelation where "one like the Son of Man walks among the seven lampstands".  It is really too much to figure out in one sitting.

Oh Lord that you would open my eyes to see and my ears to hear, that I would be vigilant, never lacking in the oil of Your Spirit until the return of the Bridegroom, even through the longest watch of the night!