Happiness or Joy?

Until I started writing this, I had never given much thought about the difference between the terms "Happiness" and "Joy". These two words have often been interchangeable in my vocabulary, but putting all of this together has given me a whole new understanding of these words and how different they truly are. I pray that all of this information will open your eyes to this as well.

To begin to understand the difference between "Joy" and "Happiness", we should start first by defining each of them.

Joy is a selfless feeling of extreme happiness and pleasure. While joy often requires great self-sacrifice, it rewards us long lasting inward contentment and peace.

Happiness is an emotion that allows one to experience various feelings such as pleasure, contentment, bliss, and satisfaction. While happiness is not a negative emotion, happiness often comes through the acquisition of material objects or by having earthly experiences, thus happiness is about the pleasure of oneself.

"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." - John 15:11

Notice in this verse from John, Yeshua specifically mentions "Joy" twice. Of course anytime anything is repeated anywhere in scripture, we should take notice and look for a deeper meaning; so that's what I've done and what led me down this path of understanding.

In the original Greek, the word used for "Joy" is ( χαρὰ ) - Strong's Number 5479 - 59 Occurrences. 59 is the Numeric Value of "Gentiles", which is ( גוים - Goyim ). We know that The New Covenant was given to everyone and not just Israel throughout the world and which are referred to as Gentiles.

We see the Hebrew word for "Joy" is "Sasson" ( ששון ) - Strong's Number 8342 - 22 Occurrences. We know the Number 22 is very significant because there are 22 Letters in The Hebrew AlephBet. 22 is also the Numeric Value of "In His Hand" ( בידו )

So, we see 59 times "Joy" is mentioned in the NT and 22 times "Joy" is mentioned in the OT; the difference of these two numbers literally showed me His Divine Numeric Fingerprint of 37! We can literally see that the Joy is mentioned 37 more times in the New Testament. That's evidence of The Work of The Hand of Our Creator.

59 - 22 = 37

37

Behold From His Hand!

Now, we will examine the Numeric Values of these "Joy" - ( ששון ) and ( χαρὰ ).

702 = χαρὰ - Joy

702 = שבת (Shabbat / Sabbath)

ששון = 656 - Joy

656 = התרומה - The Offering

656 = שושן - of Lillies

I don't have to explain the significance of The Sabbath or The Offering, but I feel it's necessary to expand "Lilies" a bit. In The Bible, "Lilies" represent Holiness and Purity.

"As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters." - Song of Solomon 2:2

When we are Born Again through The Blood of Yeshua (Jesus), we begin the path to becoming Lilies in The Eyes of Our Creator. When we look deeply at ourselves and accept our flaws, that's the first step of correcting ourselves to become a "Lily Among Thorns". We can look at this phrase "Lily Among Thorns" in a couple different ways. We should view ourselves as living representatives of Yeshua, as the King Priests that He has appointed us to be in this life, as the lilies amongst the thorns of this sinful world. We must make our ground fertile and remove the thorns from around us, so that we may yield fruit.

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, where it was trampled, and the birds of the air devoured it.

Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the seedlings withered because they had no moisture.

Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the seedlings.

Still other seed fell on good soil, where it sprang up and produced a crop—a hundredfold.”

As Jesus said this, He called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” - Luke 8:4-8

Ultimately The Lily Among Thorns is an obvious image of our King of Kings, who was the True Righteous One (Lily) was was crowned in Thorns. This is a physical depiction of The "Lily Among Thorns".

"And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe." - John 19:2

Anytime HaShem puts me on a path of looking deeper into His Word, many times through the numbers divinely encoded within, He is always leading me to something and most of the time I don't know what, I just follow His path. I fought His Way kicking and screaming for years until I finally learned that my way only led to death. So, let's crunch these numbers and see where it leads.

702 - 656 = 46

In The Blood ( בדם ) = 46

So what's "In The Blood"? Salvation and Eternal Life. We can even observe this is our own physical realm through DNA, which is Code of Life in written in our own blood. Our DNA comes from Our Father, while Our Mother provides our body. Just as Yeshua came from The Father (G*d), in Heaven, we could say the G*d's own DNA was contained in Yeshua's blood. Until we are Born Again and become Sons of G*d, we are technically Sons of Adam, and were born of sin. This is why we struggle so much with sin in this world, we were literally conceived through sin and born into a sinful world. Yeshua was not like that at all, He was The WORD Made Flesh. He wasn't conceived from the loins of man, as we were. Since He wasn't born of sin, the sin of this world had no control over him as it does us. He literally was brought into this world to conquer all of that sin, for you and for me.

If we add these two numeric values up:

702 + 656 = 1,358

There is only one verse in The Bible with a Numeric Value of 1358:

Genesis 47:8 = 1358

"And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?" - Genesis 47:8

Since this verse is a question and prompts an answer, let's follow it and see what it shows us. The next verse states:

"And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.” - Genesis 47:8

We see that Jacob tells Pharaoh that the days of his "sojourning are 130 years", however we see that Jacob lived another 17 years in Egypt, thus he lived 147 years:

"And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years." - Genesis 47:28

By following this numeric trail, and adding the these two ages together (130 + 147), we get the Numeric Value for ( זרע ) - "Seed". The whole Nation of Israel, both Jewish People and Gentile Follows of Yeshua, are the "Seed of Jacob". Jesus is called the "Seed of David" in Romans 1:3, and the whole nation of Israel is referred to as the "Seed of Jacob" in Jeremiah 33:26.

"Thus says the LORD: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth,

then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.” - Jeremiah 33:25-26

If we can reveal the Numeric Value for ( זרע ) - "Seed", by the addition of 130 and 147. We must surely see that the difference of 147 and 130 shows us something significant as well, as it always does.

First off, and most importantly, using the Mispar Katan ( מספר קטן ) - Reduced Value Method - where the value of the letters but without the zeros after large numbers. (ex. "Yud" is 1 instead of 10, "Tav" is 4 instead of 400); 17 is the value of HaShem ( יהוה / LORD ).

147 - 130 = 17

We see that this method shows that Yod ( י ) equals 1, Heh ( ה ) equals 5, Vav ( ו ) equals 6 and Heh ( ה ) equals 5. Thus, 1+5+6+5 = 17

We should also note that 17 is the 7th Prime Number - 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17

"And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years." - Genesis 47:28

If we examine this take a closer look at the Hebrew of this verse we can see that it's 17 words, the difference of the two ages given in Genesis 47:8 and Genesis 47:28 - which is also the amount of time Jacob lived in Egypt.

ויחי יעקב בארץ מצרים שבע עשרה שנה ויהי ימי־יעקב שני חייו שבע שנים וארבעים ומאת שנה

What I'm seeing through all of this is that both the Old and New Testaments bring together the completion of all scripture. One is not complete without the other. Although we may have once been "Gentiles" ( גוים - Goyim ), through The Blood of Yeshua (Jesus) and our Faith in Him, we have been grafted into The Nation of Israel; thus we are all Seeds of Jacob.

Now that we've journeyed down that path, let's get back to subject of "Joy" versus "Happiness".

Happiness is only an emotion, just like sadness, fear, or jealousy. It comes and goes, so it is fleeting and isn't eternal. Just because you might be happy about one thing right now, doesn't mean that same thing is going to make you continually happy forever. Happiness is is wonderful, but as I mentioned before, it can often be earthly and impure. Between happiness and joy, joy is the greatest of these two. Joy is promised by G*d, not happiness, and this Joy is what we should strive towards. Joy is what is promised to us eternally after we make it through this life.

"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." - Romans 14:17

Just the constant knowledge of our salvation, as well as HaShem's unconditional love for us should always bring us joy, and this where we need to condition our minds to go to when times are tough. This is the joy that cannot be taken away from us, even if our present circumstances do not make us happy.

"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." - Psalm 16:11

It can can be summed up as happiness is based on what's happening, evident in the word itself, but joy is based on what we believe. Joy is definitely way beyond happiness, as joy is a gift of pure light that fills you with faith, hope and love.

חסד ושלום עליכם והרבה אהבה וברכות

May Grace and Peace Be Upon You and Much Love and Blessings!