The LORD laid something on my heart recently that I must share, about how Our Faith is absolutely essential for everything and how it establishes a Steadfast Foundation for The Greatest Commandment.
Hebrew Word for “Faith” is “Emunah” ( אמונה ) - needless to say this is strong name. This word doesn’t just mean “to believe” but it also means to be “steady” or immovable.” As I have firmly established throughout most of my posts, Hebrew is G*d’s Holy Language and it’s beyond amazing. Although it is so foreign in its nature to us, it’s not an extremely difficult language to learn once you identify certain aspects and patterns. I’m telling you first hand, learning it will truly strengthen your bond with The LORD.
From everything I’ve read, the entirety of the Hebrew Bible is made up of approximately 2000 root words. The root word, Shoresh in Hebrew, is typically a three letter word - however, we sometimes can obviously see evidence that three letter Shoresh is derived from a two letter root. Biblical Hebrew is an ancient language thus the concept of Biblical root is not well defined. Some words are perceived as belonging to different roots depending on the scholar classifying them. Essentially, the rabbi’s teach one thing, while the scholars teach another. I tend to lean toward the rabbinical teachings almost always when it comes to the mystical nature and interpretation of the Hebrew Language. There truly is nothing else like it.
These root words fundamentally serve as the building blocks from which other words are constructed, the rest of the idea is constructed by the prefixes and suffixes that are attached to the word. The way that these prefixes and suffixes are attached to the root, a single word in Hebrew might be translated into English as several words. This is just one reason why translation into any other language is tricky.
The three letter root of the Hebrew Word for “Faith” is “Emunah” ( אמונה ) is “Aman”( אמן ) - which is spelled the same as the Hebrew Word that we all know “Amen” ( אמן ) but has different vowel sounds. This particular root word “Aman” ( אמן ) literally means “to support” and it brings us the two letter shoresh “Eem“( אם ) which means “Mother.” We can easily make the connection from there how Support comes from The Mother.
We can also find this relation of support and steadiness in the following section of The Torah that describes the support that Aaron and Hur gave Moses by holding up his arms, which enabled them to win their battle with Amalek.
“So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.
But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady ( אמונה ) until the going down of the sun.” - Exodus 17:10-12
The main idea that I take away from on all of this that our Faith is not only a reflection of your immovable belief in Yeshua as Our LORD and Savior - it’s also a reflection of how our own actions support The Glory of G*d. We have been called out this world and set apart from it, All Glory To G*d, to walk the path that He laid out for us by His Own Actions.
We can gather a lot of insight in scripture by thoroughly investigating the first occurrences of key words. The first time that we see the three letter shoresh “Aman”( אמן ) of the Hebrew word for “Faith” - Emunah” ( אמונה ) - used in The Bible, is in reference to Abraham, just after G*d promised that He would bless Abraham with an abundance of offspring that be innumerable, like the stars in sky. The simple observation of the multitudes of Jewish People and Christians around the world is literal evidence of the fulfillment of that promise. The text tells us that since Abraham believed The LORD, Abraham was counted as Righteous.
“And he believed ( האמן ) the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” - Genesis 15:6
The key thing to note here is that Abraham was considered Righteous by God only because he had Faith in G*d’s Promise - it didn’t have anything to do with Abraham’s actions. It’s all about our Faith in Yeshua and what His Promise that enables us to be counted as Righteous. Abraham supported God in everything that he done and later in his story, we see the first occurrence of the Hebrew word “Love” ( אהב ) as well. I will soon share the connection here that The Holy Spirit revealed to me through this study.
“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love ( אהבת ), and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” - Genesis 22:2
Needless to say, this entire story of The Akedah clearly foreshadows Yeshua. If you are not familiar with that - check out this post:
There are 613 Commandments altogether in The Torah and of course, no one could ever follow them to perfection, except for The Only Begotten Son of G*d, who wasn’t born of sin. This was The Divine Plan all along for the redemption of all humanity through Yeshua, who taught us that all of The Law and The Prophets are summed up by Two Commandments.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 22:36-40
Now this brings us to the required foundation that those two commandments must be built on, revealed by a lesser known “minor prophet” in the Old Testament, Habakkuk.
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but
The Righteous Shall Live By His Faith” - Habakkuk 2:4
Obviously, without Faith as Our Foundation, people definitely can’t begin to love The LORD who they never believe in. Not to mention that without this faithful love for The LORD, they would never be able to love anyone else as much as they love themselves, much less their neighbor. Our faith is the foundation of everything and our love is built on it. It is our Faith that deems us as Righteous - we could never do enough good deeds to earn it. We can only receive Salvation from our Immovable, Steadfast Faith in Yeshua (whose Name literally means Salvation).
Of course, Paul understood this well and he made this connection regarding our Faith in The Gospel and quotes Habakkuk in a couple of places.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” - Romans 1:16-17
“Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” - Galatians 3:11
I don’t think that I’m telling you anything that you don’t already know, I’m just connecting the dots here for us. It seems so obvious that Faith must be present before anything can happen from there. The LORD has shown me time after time again that some of His Most Profound Revelations are genuinely so easy for us to understand. He wants to reveal Himself to us, but we have to change our nature just to begin to behold His Nature. He is Pure and Perfect and we are so far from that, we were literally formed from dirt - the lowest of the low.
How can we begin to rise above this physical reality from which we were formed?
Everyone’s personal journey is a little different but ultimately The Path is the same for us all. I don’t know much, but I know this much without a doubt, we can’t do any of it without Him. When we make this personal declaration of our helplessness to Him with all of our heart, we will begin our journey on His Path, as that’s the first step, humility. We must decrease in order for Him to Increase in our own lives.
Our personal relationship with Our Creator starts by simply having Faith in His Existence and by having Faith in His Written Word and especially by having Undying Faith in His Living Word - which is Yeshua, His Only Begotten Son who conquered sin and death for us all.
חסד ושלום עליכם והרבה אהבה וברכות
May Grace and Peace Be Upon You and Much Love and Blessings!
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