Limitless, Part 1, Sozo
February 6, 2022Today's message was the first in a series called Limitless. A video of the message can be found here.
I naturally gravitate first to words referenced in the message from the original Greek or Hebrew. Today it was the Greek "sozo." In a nutshell, as Pastor Patrick pointed out, sozo = wholeness = saved + free + healed/redeemed. In the Greek New Testament, there are about 100 words with this root that are translated in many ways including: will save, to save, get well, shall be whole, be cured, made, cured; with all manner of tenses, subjects, and objects in various numbers and genders. Save(d) or made whole seem to be common translations.
So then I ask myself, what Hebrew word, if there is one, is similar in meaning and usage. It appears that yasha is as close as any and usually refers to some form of saving (about 200 times in the OT), including deliver, rescue, and preserve. It's usually God doing the saving of lots of people, as in the Exodus as Patrick mentioned, but also saving individuals. The people also use the word to request God's deliverance from their enemies. Lastly, it can be used (less often) with people rescuing other people (Deut 22:27, 28:31). A few OT references are translated as savior, as in God is the savior of David and of Egypt.
In the OT, this "saving" or "made whole" is primarily physical and material. The NT carries the meaning into the eternal and spiritual realities.
Patrick also mentioned El Roi today, "God who sees me." This is only seen in Genesis 16:13-14. Hagar uses this term for God when God saves her and her baby in the desert. It is the only time that a human gives God a name. The usage of this name starts to personalize God. It's another attribute of God. The Hebrew ro'iy can be translated as shepherd, seeing, looking, or gazing. Generally, the verb ra-ah (to see) is used in many other ways, including when God looks upon His Creation, when God looked on the earth and saw evil, when God inspects (sees) the ways of his people, and when God asks that His people see and give attention to Him. It's also used when humans are doing the seeing, looking, etc. It's used when Eve saw (in the sense of "realized") that the forbidden fruit was good for eating.
It is certainly true that the Israelites grumbled a great deal in the wilderness, to the point of wanting to go back to Egypt. Exodus 16:3, "'If only we had died by the LORD's hand in the land of Egypt!' they said. 'There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!'" Talk about comfort versus divine discomfort (see last week's message). Or settling versus limitless.
At the end of his message, Patrick mentioned that God "heard their cries." Indeed, see Exodus 3:7, "The LORD said [to Moses], 'I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.'" My ears perked up as the Torah makes a big deal of hearing versus seeing. The Torah trusts the ears far more than the eyes. And shmay, the word translated as hear in "Hear, O Israel", is really more like the command Listen (and obey)! And we should do the same. But both these hear concepts (hear vs see, and hear as in obey) are whole other Torah studies for another time.