Galations #8: Carry Others' Burdens
November 17, 2024Tabitha Panariso presented today's message, "Galations #8: Carry Others' Burdens." A video of today's message is here on YouTube.
The notion of loads and burdens was not unknown in the Old Testament. The notion of a load, something that one must carry simply as a condition of being, was set forth right away in the Creation story. God not only puts Adam to work naming the animals, but also makes it clear that Man will have to work constantly for food (Genesis 3:17).
The scripture for the day, Galations 6:1-5, makes it clear what Greek words were used for load and burden. Load, phortion (φορτίον), is something a person must do or carry themselves, something we are expected to carry ourselves. One of the earliest uses was to refer to what a soldier must carry himself on his back - his phortion. The Old Testament Hebrew word for the same idea is massa (מַשָּׂא).
On the other hand, a burden (baros, βάρος) is an additional load that is not normal. It's a happenstance that unnecessarily or unfairly adds to a person's regular load. The Old Testament Hebrew word for such burden is kabed (כָּבֵד). As one commentator put it, it's a boundary issue. Under normal circumstances, we carry our own loads. At some point, our work may cross over into helping to carry others' burdens.
In both Testaments, load and burden can both range from the very literal to the very metaphorical. Literal, for example, is for what you must carry on your back or do to feed yourself. Metaphorical, on the other hand, is for things that weigh on your mind or threaten your eternal life and/or your relationship with God.
There's another Biblical term across both Testaments related to burden - yoke. It, too, ranges from the purely literal as in hooking together two animals to plow fields (Deuteronomy 21:3) to metaphorical as in cooperation and interdependence and/or being under someone's control (Leviticus 26:13) all the way to divine guidance. One could think of yoking as binding, when two are more than twice as good as one. In the opposite way, the Bible admonishes us not to become yoked to evil (as in Numbers 25:5). In the New Testament, Jesus refers to His yoke being easy and His burden (not load) light (Matthew 11:28-30).
[For more about the word-link from the Greek New Testament to the Hebrew Old Testament, see the Bonus below: Septuagint.]
Back in Leviticus 19:17, the notion of rebuking someone (Galations 6:1) is addressed: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him." This Leviticus text adds the notion that if you don't help keep your brother/sister from sinning, you, too, become responsible in some way for the sin as well. Further such admonitions are provided in Proverbs 15:31, "The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise." And in Proverbs 3:12, "For the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights."
As has been pointed out several times, the Book of Galations is entirely a book of rebuking. The goal of rebuking is redemption. The Biblical Hebrew for this kind of rebuking is yakach (יָכַח). BibleHub puts it like this, "The Hebrew verb 'yakach' primarily means to reprove or correct. It is often used in the context of bringing someone to a point of understanding or conviction, typically through argument or evidence. The term can also imply a form of judgment or decision-making, where clarity and truth are established. In the biblical context, 'yakach' is frequently associated with God's correction of His people, as well as the role of prophets and wise individuals in guiding others toward righteousness." In Genesis 20:16, it carries the notion of being cleared (in this case, Abimelek is declaring Abraham and Sarah cleared or vindicated of any offense they may have committed).
Bonus
175 (קעה) Essay Entries
(About Biblical Numbers and TorahTalks.info)
The Biblical Hebrew letters in the title (קעה) "add up to" 175. This is my 175th entry in the What Does The Torah Say (WDTTS) section of this website.
Biblical Hebrew does not have what we call digits. Originally, numbers were written out with words, like "one hundred seventy-five." This is how numbers are written in the Old Testament. Later, around 78 BCE, values were assigned to each letter so that values could be built with letter combinations (much like Roman numerals which were well established by the same time). In the case of the title above, the first letter (remember to read right to left) is ק (qof) which has a value of 100. Then ע (ayin) has a value of 70, and lastly ה (hay) has a value of 5. Add them up and you get 175. Actually, numbers get much more complicated in Biblical Hebrew with cardinal versus ordinal number, gender and number agreement, etc. Because every letter has a value, every word can have a value, too, by adding up its letters. There's a term for the study of these values, gematria. The Greeks had a similar system called isopsephy, and we might call it numerology today (or arithmancy pre-20th Century).
Abraham lived to be 175 years old. Here's how that is said in Genesis 25:7, "a hundred years and seventy years and five years" (literally). In Hebrew it looks like: מְאַת שָׁנָה וְשִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה, וְחָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים (remember, right to left). That's a lot just to say "175 years."
This WDTTS section of my (this) website, TorahTalks.info, is by far the biggest. Each week I write something that hopefully adds some interest or additional insight to the message taught in the service that Sunday. Today's entry (at the top of this page) is my 175th weekly entry (I started this in August of 2021). I make it a point to not argue or contradict, that's not my place. I simply want to expand on the subject of the message in some meaningful way. It's usually accurate to say that I go off on a tangent to some degree.
I would say over 94.37% (🙂) of the time I base my remarks directly or strictly from the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). That's what I've been studying since the covid lockdowns and know the most about. Now and then I mention material from elsewhere in the Old Testament, but I recognize that's dangerous territory for me so I keep that to a minimum.
As for these Bonus entries each week... I use these to talk about anything I want to talk about regardless of any connection to the Sunday's message. There usually isn't any real connection to that Sunday's message.
The Words section includes meanings and nuances regarding miscellaneous Biblical Hebrew words. Understanding these nuances can definitely lead to Ah-Ha moments.
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I'll leave you with this thought... Torah is a Hebrew word more related to "teaching" than to "law." This group of five books would be better called the Books of Teachings or the Books of Wisdom. That's certainly how I've come to appreciate them.
Bonus2
13-Star Serapis FlagIt always amazes me when connections pop up between what I generally think of as very separate worlds. In this case, there's a connection, however thin, between the Genesis story of Joseph in Egypt and the 13-star U.S. flag known as Serapis (pictured at right). The connection is the fact that Serapis (Σέραπις, in the Greek) is the name of a Greco-Egyptian god that the belief in whom, some say, was inspired by or confused with Joseph - you know - coat of many colors, "second in command" in Egypt, appointed by the Pharoah as a result of Joseph's dream interpretation and planning and administration skills, Genesis 37-50.
More about the Serapis flag on my flag-hobby website: 13-star Serapis Flag.
Bonus3
World View Matters
Erick Erickson, a political commentator and radio talk-show host, recently wrote an essay entitled "World View Matters." In it, he makes the case that one's view of an afterlife affects how one thinks about public policy aimed at creating "heaven on earth." One's views regarding life, pro-life or pro-abortion, will affect decisions regarding all manner of family life issues. His essay goes on to focus on a particular political issue. I'll go on to point out other places where world view matters.
If you fear God, particularly His judgment, you will tend not to fear man. A Pragerism is "if the people of Germany had feared God more than they feared Hitler, there may well not have been a holocaust." Proverbs 1:7, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge."
If we all actually believed in and stood by just the non-religious part of the Ten Commandments (don't: steal, lie, murder, covet, or commit adultery; and honor your parents) then we probably could do without any police. Here's a list and links to 5-minute videos on each of the Ten Commandments. Throw in some of the other "laws" (I prefer "guidelines/wisdom") of the Torah, like "don't trick people" (see Leviticus 19:14, "Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the LORD.") and we really could have a near utopia here on earth. For the record, trying to make utopia here on earth in this life is pointless. We are sinful/evil/not-good people (you pick your adjective). Throughout history, all of man's attempts at making some kind of utopia have led to more misery for more people. Our best bet is to focus on making things better, not perfect.
If we don't have a world view that there is some kind of authority greater than ourselves, man is capable of rationalizing literally any behavior no matter how awful.
Woe unto those who don't fear their parents growing up (and/or whose parents don't behave in such a way as to hold moral authority). They end up lost, or worse. Prager tells a story in which adults were asked why they never tried "fun" drugs. The overwhelming response was, "because my Mom would have killed me." Today, kids are more likely to be doing a joint WITH their parents. Our goal as parents should be to raise good adults, not to be loved by or adored by or have a fun time with your children. If the latter things end up happening, fantastic! But that's not the goal. As coach says, keep your eye on the ball.
Those who think they need safe spaces out in the real world have no idea what's going on. One's world view of safety matters, and if it's not accurate, things will not go well. A life lived well will not have focused on being safe as a primary goal.
If you think people are basically good, you could be convinced to defund the police. If you understand people are not basically good, defunding the police probably won't make sense to you. For more, see Are People Basically Good?.
Bonus4
Septuagint: What it is and How it Helps
The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament written a couple centuries before Jesus. As the Wikipedia entry puts it, "The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that 'the laws of the Jews' were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BCE) by seventy-two Hebrew translators - six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel." It's often abbreviated as LXX, seventy (hepta/epta/efta = seven in Greek), referring to the number of translators.
By the way, seven in Biblical Hebrew is sheba/shibah (שֶׁבַע). It directly relates to the Jewish phrase "sitting shiva" which is the 7-day period of mourning upon a close relative's death. The number 7 plays a key role in both Testaments.
I use LXX mostly to get a connection between words in the two older/original languages of our Testaments. It helps answer the question, "What is the related Biblical Hebrew word that is translated as such-n-such in the New Testament. In other words, you can trace a word from the New Testament English to its original Greek word to what the 2nd Century BCE translators thought was the equivalent Biblical Hebrew word. In today's example (above) that's one way to get from load to phortion to massa.
Here's a parallel English/Greek online copy of the Septuagint. The main translation of the Septuagint into English is still the Brenton translation of 1851. To tease you a little bit, the English translation from the Septuagint for Genesis 1:2 is "But the earth was unsightly and unfurnished...". We're more used to "Now the earth was formless and empty..." or "And the earth was without form, and void..." The "unsightly and unfurnished" is clearly more negative than it is neutral giving the impression of "worse than useless."