Milk and Honey

Festival of Shavuot/the Festival of Weeks

Series: Joy

Milk and Honey

Scripture: Exodus 3:7-8 ESV

There’s something very special and even almost magical about scripture that I learned when I was young.

As was usually the case, my dad did not give me answers, but he repeatedly asked questions. He asked me questions I had never considered. Then when I begged for the answer he would give me one scripture to go read.

For example, he would send me to Exodus 3 and he would ask me if God knows we suffer.

In Exodus 3:7-8 we are told, “Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”

At first, I was clueless about finding the answers but then eventually after working at it for a while, I figured out why my dad was asking.

For example, I would go back to my dad and I would tell him it says that God heard their cry, God knew their suffering, God wanted to deliver them.

Just when I thought I had all of the answers, my dad would ask related questions.

At the time I was in early junior high school and I was an inquisitive sort and I used to get in trouble in class for asking so many questions. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my dad made me inquisitive and my teachers often told me to stop being so inquisitive. I think my teachers thought I was just trying to be annoying but I wasn’t. I really did learn from my dad how to ask questions.

In time I joined a debate team, and I knew how to ask questions. It was a great skill. It’s still a great skill today. Knowing which questions to ask, was especially a great skill when I took Argumentation and Debate in college. As a sidebar, if you know a child who is inquisitive encourage their questions.

As an adult newspaper writer and editor I learned asking the right questions is absolutely essential.

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In Seminary all of the questioning skills came in handy.

Since our primary source was ancient texts and we learned how to read the original languages, we needed to have a good working knowledge to determine the context of the text.

I had a rudimentary working knowledge of the New Testament text and I had seminary textbooks to help with translations of the Koine Greek. I decided to take Biblical Hebrew as my language. My friends warned me that Biblical Hebrew was much more difficult than the Greek but I took Hebrew. We had to master four semesters of our language of choice.

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At one point I was really sorry I chose Hebrew, but once I got past Hebrew 2 (Grammar) I started to understand how to translate the text.

Today I am glad I took Hebrew.

Through the whole process of life I learned asking the right questions is an essential component of knowledge.

After all…if we don’t wonder and ask, how will we know?

So, back to the initial question…how did God KNOW their suffering?

Was it simply because he saw the look on their faces?

I think it was much much deeper than that.

I think when we suffer (either by the hand of another or even because of our own mistakes), God suffers with us.

When we choose to trust God, God in us feels everything we feel.

Everything.

God heard and felt the cries of the Hebrew people who were being mistreated by their taskmasters.

Deborah

acrazyjourney.com