The Heart Remembers--IX

A careful student of the Bible should know that one determines the meaning of a word like "heart" by studying the heart in contact with verbs used with the heart. There are EIGHT Hebrew constructions which attribute memory to the heart.

1. shub 'el--"to turn into." Deuteronomy 30:1: "When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, IF YOU CALL THEM TO HEART [NRSV mind] among all the nations where the Lord you God has driven you, . . . then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes." To "call to heart [mind]" clearly means "to remember." Remember all the things that have happened to you. To remember is to relive or re-enact, not merely recall mentally.
2. sim dabar `al--"set a word upon." When the servants of Achish king of Gath heard the song of the women after David killed Goliath: "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands," David "TOOK THESE WORDS [Hebrew laid up his words] TO HEART and was very much afraid of King Achish of Gath." David remembered these words and took them seriously.
3. sim 'omer be--"to set a word in." In his third speech to Job, Eliphaz admonished him:
         Receive instruction from his [God's] mouth,
               and LAY UP HIS WORDS IN YOUR HEART.
To receive instruction is equivalent to remember and take seriously.
4. saphan be--"to hide in." The author of Psalm 119 says in verse 11:
          I treasure [hide] your word in my heart,
               so that I might not sin against you.
To treasure or hide words in the heart is to remember, to relive, to re-enact, not merely recall.
5. shamar betok--"to keep in the midst of." Proverbs 4:21 says:
          Do not let them [the words of the writer of Proverbs] escape from your sight;
               KEEP THEM WITHIN YOUR HEART.
To keep God's words within the heart means to remember, relive, re-enact.
6. qashar `al, "to bind upon." Proverbs 6:21 says:
          BIND THEM [the teaching of your father and mother] UPON YOUR HEART ALWAYS;
                tie them around your neck.
To bind upon the heart means to remember, to relive, re-enact.
7. qashar be--"to bind in." Proverbs 22:15 says:
          Folly is BOUND UP IN THE HEART of a boy,
                but the rod of discipline drives it far away.
To bind up in the heart means to remember, relive, re-enact.
8. kathab `al--"to write upon." Jeremiah 31:33 says: "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I WILL WRITE IT ON THEIR HEARTS, and I will be their God and they will be my people." To write on the heart is to remember, relive, re-enact.
When Solomon prayed to the Lord, the Lord responded in 1 Kings 9:3:
     "I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you made before me;
       I have consecrated this house that you have built, and put my name there forever;
       MY EYES AND MY HEART WILL BE THERE FOR ALL TIME."
Here, the heart remembers the house or temple which Solomon had built under Yahweh's instructions. To remember the house means to relive or re-enact what Solomon had accomplished.

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John Willis
              
(1 Samuel 21:12).