Remembering to Rest in God
And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again,
and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baalberith their god. And the children of Israel remembered not the
LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side:
Judges 8:33f (Spoke 7, Cycle 1)
The name of the Seventh Letter denotes a weapon, usually understood as a sword.
In modern Hebrew, it means to be armed. This links to the primary theme of fighting that
dominates the Seventh Book. It sounds like an English "z" and was drawn as such in the ancient Hebrew script.
Many Zayin KeyWord express the idea of motion – busy buzzing motion. This is particularly
evident in the KeyWords zavav (buzz) and zevuv (fly). Christians are
familiar with the latter from the name Baalzebub (Lord of the flies) which uses the "b" sound
of the hard Bet (b), though the softer "v" sound is more accurate. These words are onomatopoetic
(they sound like what they describe), which is why we see the same consonants in English words like
busy and buzz. This is the busyness of the world that constantly attacks
and distracts us as we struggle to enter into the rest that Christ offers (Heb 4:11), typified by the
Seventh Day Sabbath, the topic of the Fourth Commandment:
Remember (Zakar) the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour,
and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt
not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle,
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed
the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exodus 20:8ff
The imperative verb in this command – zakar (remember) – is also the primary
Zayin KeyWord that God used nine times in the Alphabetic verses:
- AV Psq 25:6 Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses ...
- AV Lam 3:19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- AV Psa 119:49 Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.
- AV Psa 119:52 I remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself.
- AV Ps 119:55 I have remembered thy name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept thy law.
- AV Lam 1:7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her
pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
- AV Lam 3:20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
- AV Psa 145:7 They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness ...
- AV Psa 111:4a He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered ...
God's extreme emphasis on this one KeyWord shows His concern that we remember Him, His Works,
and the spiritual meaning of the Seventh Day Sabbath that now is fulfilled in Christ, our Everlasting Rest:
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday,
or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come;
but the body [substance, reality] is of Christ.
Colossians 2:16f (Spoke 7, Cycle 3)
God marked the connection between the Seventh Day and the Seventh Spoke by
placing the final occurrence of word sabbath in Bible in this verse from Colossians.
God amplified the idea of remembrance in two Alphabetic Verses with the KeyWord zamam
which means to think, consider, meditate, or plan:
- AV Prov 31:16 She considereth (zamam) a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
- AV Psa 37:12 The wicked plotteth (zamam) against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
This is what God calls us to do in this busy buzzing world of endless motion.
Be still, and know He is God. Christ must be our meditation and our remembrance all the day long.
Next article: Judges: Struggle in the Promised Land
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Remember to Rest in God