First day of school! My wife is teaching English at Faith Christian School this year. Funny how I couldn’t stand English class in high school, but now I spend the better part of my life translating Hebrew! I think God has a sense of humor!

But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. Jeremiah 17:7 NASB

In Hebrew this reads more literally, “Blessed the man who trusts in the Lord and the Lord his trust.”

The second part of the sentence uses the same verbal root (bāṭaḥ) as a noun (mibṭaḥ). This is very poetic in Hebrew, but we miss it in English.

There is also something to note in the Hebrew verb hāyâ, the verb for “to be, become, exist, happen.” In English we might translate this as “is,” but the action (verb) is converted to a condition (noun) here so unlike the simple word “is” in English, the Hebrew draws us into a deeper consideration of the usage.

Trusting produces trust.

This is typical Hebraic thought and a mirror of the circular covenantal relationship. It is the same principle we see in Psalm 37:4 – that when we practice what our heart posture should be towards things of the Lord, God then circularly transforms that into joy or it becomes the desire of our heart. I do in order to become, “the Lord becomes my trust” and my delight.

“This hope in God is not a sort of querulous wishing, but a confident expectation. Unlike the pagan religions where unremitted anxiety was the rule, the Hebrew religion knew a God whose chief characteristic was faithfulness and trustworthiness.”[1]

“Perhaps the place where the central issues revolving around bāṭaḥ are seen most clearly in a brief compass is II Kgs 18 and 19 where the Assyrian Rabshakeh challenges the worth of Hezekiah’s trust in God and where that trust is fully vindicated.”[2]

[1] Oswalt, J. N. (1999). 233 בָּטַח. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 102). Chicago: Moody Press.

[2] Ibid.

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