Choice Word: “Yada” (to Know)
Choice Word: “Yada” (to Know).
CAUTION: SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. In this era of amazing advances in technology, there are sometimes unexpected consequences that turn out to be harmful to our Christian faith. One of these harmful improvements is the flood of believers who read scripture online, on the smart phone, on the computer screen. I’m convinced there should be a warning label on every one of the online Bibles… CAUTION: SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. So many of us now read the Word like we would read our emails or social media or the daily news. We skim the material hurriedly, superficially, carelessly. We skim the Scripture. Skim-reading the Bible doesn’t really bury the seed very deeply, of course. And in our skimming, we would be more likely to just skip over an important word or phrase without thinking, a word that could be vital to the whole passage. The fact is, the Bible is full of single words or short phrases that are too important to simply gloss over as if it wasn’t there. There are times in the Word when single words are intended to feed us, nourish our faith, stimulate us to think at a deeper level about the biblical text.
There are single words in Scripture that are like stop signs asking us to stop and consider carefully, to pause before moving forward in the reading. This series on my blog will try to unpack some of these power-packed words or phrases in Scripture… Words like: Behold; Rejoice; Truly; Woe; Blessed; Beware; Come; If. And I will attempt to also explore the meanings of some short phrases that are single words in the original biblical language, such as “Himeni” (Here I am); “Shema” (Listen and Do’); “Splagchnizonai” (deeply moved with compassion); “pistence” (believe), and “kal-v’chomer” (How much more). If it is poetically possible to “see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, and hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour,” as William Blake once imagined, then certainly we readers of Scripture can find a world of meaning in a single word, we can grasp something profound in a simple phrase.
“All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death.” (Philippians 3:10).
To Know in the Biblical Sense. The Hebraic-Christian understanding of “know” is not at all limited to an intellectual or mental knowledge. To know someone in the Biblical sense is to experience that person in a deeply intimate way. “Know,” whether with ‘yada’ (Hebrew) or ‘ginosko’ (Greek), is a relationship word, and involves knowledge that comes from personal experience. To know involves a deeply personal union with a truth or with a person. In the Hebrew and Christian mind, we don’t really know something until it becomes a part of us, something that changes us in some way. To truly know something is to be able to live it out, to experience participation with that which is known. Knowing something involves a heartfelt focus, an intense investment. To know something is to care for it, to give oneself over to it. To know someone in the Biblical sense is to literally participate in a profound relationship with that person, to establish an ongoing union with someone, to be personally invested to an intimate degree with a person. Limiting our knowledge to the abstract, religious principles, doctrinal statements or theological propositions doesn’t even come close to approaching the biblical ideal of knowledge. Too many of us seem to talk about God theoretically, instead of talking to God heart to heart. Intellectual knowledge is a worthless dead end if disconnected from a personal relationship with God.
One Flesh. The Hebrew word for used for intimate marital relations was “yada,” which means to “know.” In the Hebrew mind, to know is a relationship word, a word that implies profound personal experience. Adam “knew” Eve and she became pregnant with Cain (Gen. 4:1); Hannah and her husband “knew’ each other, and she became pregnant with Samuel (1 Samuel 1 :19); the warped, depraved men of Sodom wanted to “know” the visiting angels that appeared to be men, a gang rape in the making (Gen. 19:5). In the Hebrew Bible, “knowing” was a polite euphemism for love-making between husband and wife. Using the word yada was the most powerful way they could think of to describe the sexual act.
“The Israelites, groaning in their slavery, cried out for help and from the depths of their slavery their cry came up to God. God heard their groaning; God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and God knew (yada) them.” (Exodus 2:25) … “Yahweh Lord then said to Moses, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying for help on account of their taskmasters. for I know (yada) their pain.” (Exodus 3:7).
So when God claims to “know” someone, it is not just God’s mind taking note of something. It is not just God’s intellect at work. When God saw the Israelites and “knew’ them in Ex. 2:25, God experienced the Israelites at a deep, visceral level. God was experiencing the Israelites intimately, having deep relations with them. When God told Moses He “knew’ their pain in Ex. 3:7, God was deeply experiencing their pain along with them. He was personally bearing the yoke with the Israelites. As Isaiah recounted in reference to God’s relationship with the Israelites, “In all their affliction, He too was afflicted.” (Is. 63:9). When David rejoices in the fact that the Lord “knew” him in Ps. 139:1-2, David understood that God didn’t merely know of him. David understood that God knew him intimately, that God was literally his bosom friend. David understood that God knew him completely, a spiritual version of physical relations. David used the word yada as his best way to describe the relationship between him and God, because yada implied union and the idea of a “one-flesh” bond. In this case, of course, it is a “one-spirit” bond.
“On that Day of Judgment, many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord! Didn’t we prophecy in Your name? Didn’t we expel demons in Your name? Didn’t we perform many miracles in Your name?’ And then I will tell them to their faces, ‘Get away from Me! I never knew you!” (Matthew 7:23-24).
I never knew you! In this rather scary closing scene of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7), Jesus has just finished saying that whoever does what His Father in heaven wants, whoever does His will, will sure enough be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But then at the Judgment throne came many powerful miracle-workers to claim that they have indeed expelled many demons, spoken profound prophecies, and demonstrated other miracles, all in God’s name. They assumed that those powerful deeds were what Jesus meant by doing God’s will. But Jesus told them in no uncertain terms… But I was never a part of those miracles. We never had a relationship together. So I had nothing to do with any of those powerful works. Those works were counterfeit, because my power was not used in them. My awesome power comes out of a personal relationship. You knew about Me, but you didn’t know Me! You didn’t understand that the first order of business in doing my Father’s will is to establish union with me, that we join together intimately and engage in a personal, spiritual friendship with each other. That is my Father’s starting point in doing His will. It is impossible to do His will without personally knowing Me! We were not familiar with each other in the slightest, and in fact I don’t even recognize you at a meaningful level. So, go away from Me! I never actually knew you!
Truly knowing Jesus means going way beneath a surface level with Him. It is doing a deep-dive into Him through His Holy Spirit and personally experiencing His character. To know God is to read His mind by soaking in His Word. To know the Lord is significantly more than a passing acquaintanceship with Him, it is not half-hearted. To know God is not abstract head knowledge. To know God means one has a life-changing relationship with the Lord, a friendship that involves reliance, obedience, submission, trust, devotion, commitment. To know God is to experience Him, to participate in His life and allow Him to change your life direction and purpose.
“Father, this is eternal life: that My disciples may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:3).
Surface Knowledge. The Bible has a lot to say about the meaning of know, including the usual suspects: memory of a fact or event; possession of a technical skill; a perception of a piece of reality; an intuitive awareness; a mastery of a particular subject; an understanding of something; a personal familiarity with something. That’s all good. Nothing new there. But now the fun begins…
Intimacy. A spiritual relationship with God seems best understood in the context of “knowledge” in the biblical sense, a deep union involving spiritual relations between God and the believer. In the same way that Adam and Eve “knew” each other physically, God wants to “know” us spiritually, and for us to know Him at that same level. To walk with the Lord is to grow in our “knowledge” of Him, to experience spiritual relations with Him in an intimate way. The biblical view of knowing includes images of intimacy, of union with something, of personal commitment and intense focus, of a literal participation and involvement in something.
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge?” (Hosea 4:6).
If we accept the biblical definition of knowledge, here’s a pop-quiz question: What did Hosea mean when he quoted the Lord as saying that His people will not survive, simply because they don’t have adequate knowledge? It would be tempting to give answers that would include religious memory; biblical information; pastoral skill; factual data of theology. Instead, the answer to this quiz question about the meaning of salvation knowledge is closer to… a profound devotion to Me; intimate involvement with Me; a heartfelt focus on Me; a life-changing union with Me; a committed understanding of Me. True knowledge is a relationship word involving personal experience, not only with truth, but also with The Truth.
“If you live and dwell in my Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32).