Hebrew Word Study – Fear for One’s Safety – Yagar – יָגֹר Yod Gimmel Resh
Job 9:28: “I am afraid of all my sorrow, I know thou wilt not hold me innocent.”
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” C.S. Lewis
Job’s friends approached him with simple human logic. All suffering is the result of sin. Job is suffering, therefore Job has sinned. Job sends that bit of logic into a tail spin with a bit of his own logic in 9:28; Suffering will not redeem one’s sins, therefore if I sinned, I’m toast.
This is pretty much the general consensus among Christian commentators as to what Job means when he says that he is
afraid of his suffering. That is, that his sin will only bring more suffering. If he is suffering because he sinned, and this suffering will not cleanse his sin, then he is doomed to keep suffering. There is no hope. Of course this then gives a good opening to the Gospel message. I still believe that is what Job is saying but I am also persuaded that he is expressing something else as well in this statement.
It is curious that the word yara’ or paqad is not used, which are your usual words for fear. The word used here is yagar. This word is rarely used in the Old Testament and as such most of your lexicons will simply tell you that it means fear or to be afraid. But golly gee, we already have two perfectly decent words for fear, why another one. Maybe there is an alternative rendering here. It struck me as odd that this word is used here. This word is used only seven times in the Old Testament and each time it is used for fear. You can trace this word back to its Canaanite origins and find it is used for piling on rocks. We get the idea of fear from this as Job realizes that his suffering will not remove his sins and if he is suffering because of his sins, his sufferings will only increase and get heavier and heavier as more rocks are heaped upon each other.
The word for
yagar for
fear is spelled Yod, Gimmel and Resh. I found in Jewish literature an article which addresses the Yod in
yagar. This rabbi tells us that he
yod is the only letter suspended in the air. The danger of the
yod in
yagar is that we will be so focused on our pain and sorrow that we will stumble over the rocks that are being heaped up on the ground.
These three letters all represent a message, a message from heaven, a message from friends, and a message from the Spirit of God. The numerical value of the word as it is used in Job 9:28 is 613. The Hebrew word for warning is also 613. So Job could be saying that his fear is that his sorrow is a warning or message from God, but he will be so focused on his sorrow that he will not hear the message that is being given. Instead he will stumble over the rocks of his afflictions. The word sorrow is ‘asav which means grief, sorrow and pain but it is also used for the word idol and worship. That raises a very interesting thought that would really fit this context.
Job’s fear is that as his sorrows keep piling up. His pain will actually become an idol. This rock pile will become an idol that will trip him up. Rather than read the message behind his suffering, he will just focus on the suffering itself and that suffering will in effect become an idol. That may well explain why Job uses this obscure word for
fear which also represents a rock pile, as in an idol.
An idol is anything that becomes your primary focus and the object of your passion. An idol is anything that causes you to behave in a certain manner. It is anything that will control your actions and your life. It is very easy to allow you sufferings and sorrows to control you. People let their lives be ruled by their sufferings and sorrows. They go into hiding, they let their healthy habits go, they avoid socializing and there are many other negative behaviors that take control of you when you let your sufferings and sorrows become an idol.
In the midst of all this suffering Job could not defend himself against the accusations of his friends, he could not explain the reason for his sufferings, but one thing he did know and that was that he must keep his focus on God and not his sufferings. He must watch carefully as the rocks of his affliction keep piling up so that he does not trip over this rock heap and let it become an idol. He must continue to worship God and not his sufferings.
Clearly Job was in the midst of a spiritual warfare. We learn that in the first chapter. The Apostle Paul also reminds us that we are in a spiritual warfare. In that warfare we may suffer wounds and afflictions. We may not understand the reasons for our battle wounds, but like Job, we need to guard against the infections of idolatry that these wounds can produce.
Yes, I see a Gospel message here, that no amount of personal suffering will atone for our sins, only the suffering of Jesus Christ will bring that atonement. But I also see another message here. Our sufferings may not be for redemptive purposes but God is shouting to us. He is trying to speak to us. Yet, we may become so focused on that rock heap of sorrow and pain that we do not hear God because we have been listening to the rocks crying out. We worship and serve the rock heap rather than God.
Like Job, we must fear our sufferings and pain. Not fear them for what they can do to us physically, but what they can do to us spiritually.
