Second word study or context study video where I just want to walk you through using our resource Bible hub and think about how we do context studies well. I'm actually jumping ahead to a word that we're going to encounter in the book of Numbers and in the book of Numbers there are multiple rebellions of the Israelites that are talked about there. We're going to talk about the rebellions and how that all works, but I'm just using this as a jumping off point. Actually, what I have here is Numbers chapter 11, verse 4, and I have it here in both the NASB and the NRSB. The rabble who were among them, the rabble among them, had greedy desires in the NASB, and NRSB had a strong craving.
And the Israelites also wept and said, if we only had meat to eat. Okay, so that's the gist of the verse. You can see some different translations here.
I'm particularly drawn to this idea that the NASB talks here about having greedy desires and here had a strong craving. So when I see one question students often ask is, well, how do I pick a good study word to do a word study on, to do a context study on? And in some ways, any word works. But There are a few things that can be tip-offs. One, verbs tend to be more illuminating than nouns.
That's not always true, but they tend to be. So here, they had desires, had craving. There you go. There's my verb, verbal formations there.
The second thing that can tip you off is when you're doing something like this, you're doing a comparison of two different translations, and they translate a word slightly differently. Well, in my mind... a desire, it can be different than a craving.
Why do they call it greedy desires in the NSB and a strong craving in the NRSB? So those just bring questions to my mind that I want to go search out. And remember, a context study is simply a careful and strategic focused meandering through scripture.
I just want to get into other places where I get this idea of craving. So I'm going to jump over now on my screen to BibleHub. This is where I am here, BibleHub.com.
And I want to go first to my interlinear. I type in number 11-4 in my interlinear, and here I go. I get to numbers 11-4.
And the mixed multitude, that's this word in our previous screen, that was the word that was translated rabble. This is a word that's only occurs this one time in all of Scripture. So unfortunately, that's a bad word to use. If you find a word and it's only used one time in scripture, there's not much, you can't do anything.
You can't go any farther than that. So you would rely on your lexicon. Maybe give you some helpful understanding of that. Maybe go to a Bible commentary.
How did we get translations like the mixed multitude or the rabble? And you can get some insights into that. But that's not where we're focusing. And the mixed multitude who were among them, here we go, had yielded. to craving.
Well, craving, that was the word I was interested in. I'm going to click on this word up here, and I see here, ta'ava. I see here it means a desire, but I notice here it's a noun. Now, wait a minute. I wanted to look at the idea of they had a desire.
They had a strong craving. I really wanted to look at the verb. Let me go back. I'm going to hit the back button here. And if I come back here, here's the word had, here's had yielded.
There's my, there's my verbal form. And if I click on this number, Strong's number 183, I get avah. And I don't know if you remember the previous word was avah. And here is avah.
Ah, this is a verb. Actually, what's happening here in Hebrew is Hebrew is putting a verb and a noun together. It said they. craved a craving or they desired a desire.
Hebrew likes doing that, but that can be tricky sometimes when I'm trying to find the word I want to do a word say on. Here, what I discover is that the verb, which in my inner linear got translated had yielded to craving, when I click back on this verb, what I discover is that the verb itself means to incline. Remember, this is my definition. Here's Same repeated here, to incline, to desire, down here as well. Remember, those are kind of the two words that best capture the big picture of what this word means, the idea of this word.
And the verb here means desire. This is the word that I want to study. So I want to scroll down now to remember our resource that we want to use here is the BTB, the Brown Driver Big Briggs Lexicon. This is a verb meaning to incline desire.
Compare stem to, we don't need to do that. Remember that part in parentheses after that you can ignore. But look what I have here. I have PL, big word kind of in that brown color. And then I have hit-pa-ale.
Those are my two stems. What I have here is a Hebrew verb occurring in two different stems. So remember, immediately after the stem, I ignore all that stuff until I get to my definition.
And in this, there's not a number one here because there's only one definition. They would say in the pial, this verb means to desire. In the pitpael, again, ignoring all of this until I get down to my...
my definition. Again, there's no number because they would say every use in the hip pile means to desire, to long for, to lust after. Now, what I want you to see right there is like, I think, well, to desire and to lust after mean different things in my mind, right? So the idea of this verb, this verb means to incline to desire.
We have it English. understanding of desiring that we use the word lust for. And I would say, well, to lust is very negative, but to desire or belong for is not necessarily.
So how can this Hebrew word mean both of these things? Well, that's what we want to explore. Let me give you, before I kind of walk through how I would get to understanding this verb, let me give you one little tip. If I were to hit control F. at this moment.
Control on my keyboard, control F, that's my find. And if I start typing in my numbers, notice that those get highlighted and I can quickly realize that, oh, here's my numbers 11-4. It's in this hit pile stem, right? But what I would say to you is that even though maybe I would say, okay, this is where I would focus my looking on these uses here.
in the hitpael stem, I can see that this idea to desire in the hitpael and the idea of to desire in the piel, obviously, they're very closely connected. So, this is one of those places where I would say even if maybe your closest connections would come from the hitpael, you could actually look at the uses both in the hitpael and in the piel stem. Remember, stem changes meaning But I see here that the change in meaning seems fairly minor in this particular verb.
Online, I have posted for you a chart with all the uses of this verb. If you actually want to stop right now and go do this word study, this context study, and look at every single use of this verb, feel free to go do that and then pop back in and see the conclusions that I come to. Okay, so that's what I want to do now. I'm going to flip back over actually to my PowerPoint, and I want to get to this idea of craving. So now we want to do these two steps.
Having looked at all the occurrences of this word, we want to ask number one, are there any contexts, other contexts away from numbers 11 that help me understand this concept of craving more clearly? And then number two, we want to draw conclusions related to Numbers 11. So what can I teach about this concept of craving in Numbers 11, back to my initial passage, based upon all the other contexts? So I have three points of illumination. First, I learn as I look at other contexts that this idea of craving does not have to be negative.
If I'm just preaching Numbers 11. I could very easily make the assumption that the idea of craving is just a negative thing. But I discover, wait a minute, God himself can avah. God himself can crave. What does God crave?
Well, in Psalm 132, it says, for the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it. He has craved it for his habitation.
This is my resting place forever, God says. Here I will dwell. for I have desired it.
So this context helps illuminate the idea of craving by showing me it's not always a negative thing. for one reason, God himself can evolve, but also God fulfills our cravings. He can fulfill what we desire. So I'm in 1 Kings chapter 11. This context is God speaking to Jeroboam as he's removing the kingdom from Solomon.
He is offering it to Jeroboam and he says here, I will take you, Jeroboam, and you shall reign over whatever you desire, whatever you pray. and you shall be king over Israel. Now, multiple times in this passage, God says to Jeroboam, if you obey me, if you keep my commands, as Solomon has not done, this is the promise that I give to you. But note that he is offering Jeroboam the fulfillment of his cravings.
So these two contexts show me that the idea of craving does not have to be negative. A second illuminating point is that when and how you satisfy your cravings is important. So the context that I'm going to here is Deuteronomy chapter 12. And here God is saying, Moses is saying that when the Lord your God extends your border as he promised you, Deuteronomy, when God brings you into the land, Moses is telling them, when that happens, and when you say, I will eat meat because you desire to eat meat, you crave eating meat, then you may eat it. You may eat meat.
Whatever you desire. So this context is extremely important to me as an elimination in comparison to Numbers 11, because I could preach Numbers 11 and say, well, it was the fact that they were craving meat that was wrong. Deuteronomy 12 here indicates that that is not the case.
Here, when they get into the promised land and they crave meat, they may eat it. They are permitted to fulfill that craving. Whereas. Numbers 11, when they craved meat, they were punished for that.
But the when and the how is important because in the wilderness, they're craving it and in rejection of all that God is providing for them. Whereas in Deuteronomy 12, once they're in the land, we have a context in which they can fulfill that desire, that craving. And that brings me to my third point, which is really very closely tied to that second point.
The object of your craving is what can make it negative. So here's Proverbs 24. What are they craving? What are they desiring? They are desiring to be with them. Who are the them?
Well, the first line, do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, with evil men. So their craving for the company of evil men is clearly negative. Proverbs is warning us against that.
And then you see the reason why. Another example of the object of our craving, making it negative, is in Deuteronomy 5. Now, this is the Decalogue. This is the Ten Commandments.
So, an illuminating context that comes from such a major passage should always jump out to us as the source of good illumination. And indeed, here I have, you shall not. covet your neighbor's wife, you shall not desire or crave your neighbor's house. So our word avah, to desire, to crave, is paralleled with the idea of coveting in the first line.
Note that in Exodus 20, in the first giving of the Decalogue, our word avah does not appear there. It only appears here in Deuteronomy, potentially even strengthening our argument. that this idea of craving or desiring can be parallel with the idea of coveting. So if I'm coveting, if I'm desiring, if I'm craving something that belongs to someone else, clearly that is negative. But look at this.
The object of my craving can also make it very positive. Here in Isaiah 26, my soul longs for you. This is Isaiah the prophet speaking to God. My soul craves you.
Indeed, my spirit within me. seeks you diligently. When the earth experiences your judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. Those last two lines, I think, would be wonderful lines to preach related to Numbers chapter 11, because we see there God's people experiencing his judgment, but we see that in the experience of God's judgment, we learn righteousness. We learn how to live rightly.
before and with God. My soul longs for you. That craving is the deepest and best craving. So what conclusions can I make?
for Numbers 11 with those illuminating contexts. I go to Psalm 106 as my final illuminating context, but really it's just a poetic reinterpretation, understanding of Numbers 11. And what we see is that they soon forgot God's works in Egypt. They did not wait for his counsel, but they had a wanton craving in the wilderness and they put God to the test in the desert.
So notice. This idea of craving in the wilderness is parallel to putting God to the test. So clearly very negative. So he gave them what they asked and sent a wasting disease upon them.
This maybe is how I would state my conclusions for Numbers 11. When I focus solely on my needs and my desires, when I fail to see and acknowledge God's unfailing and gracious provision, I am treating God with contempt and aligning myself with God. against him in rebellion. Yet, when I see and know who God is and submit myself to his transforming work in my life to the point that he becomes the sole object of my craving, all my needs and desires are met in abundance.
I think we can pull all of the teaching about craving together maybe in those types of.