Genesis 22.12.
My church’s musicians finally got round to learning “Jireh,” an Elevation Worship song which mixes together the ideas of God being “Jehovah Jireh” and “my grace is sufficient for thee.”
Kinda like the Don Moen’s old song “Jehovah Jireh” did. Here’s the Moen song:
- Jehovah Jireh, my provider
- His grace is sufficient for me, for me, for me
- Jehovah Jireh, my provider
- His grace is sufficient for me
- My God shall supply all my needs
- According to his riches in glory
- He will give his angels charge over me
- Jehovah Jireh cares for me, for me, for me
- Jehovah Jireh cares for me
And he does! Anyway, y’notice Moen stitched together a couple different things from the scriptures: There’s the name “Jehovah Jireh.” There’s the “grace is sufficient” concept, which comes from when Paul complained to God about something he suffered from, and God’s response was, “I’m not curing that. I want you weak; it reveals my strength. So you’re just gonna have to settle for my grace.” That’s an extremely loose translation of
Oh, and the “supply all my needs” bit comes from Paul and Timothy’s statement to the Philippians at the close of their letter:
Philippians 4.19 KJV - But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Buncha provision scriptures. Moen’s trying to remind us of
Matthew 6.25-34 KJV - 25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
God provides. And a lot of Christians like to remember that—and love the Moen song—so they’ll call him “Jehovah Jireh.”
But here’s the problem: “My provider” is not what Jireh means. It means “seer.” God sees us.
The binding of Isaac.
There’s a rather well-known story in Genesis which tends to creep out a lot of pagans. Plus a number of Christians; particularly after we’ve read Søren Kierkegaard’s retelling of it. Jews call it “the binding of Isaac,” and it’s about when the L
Genesis 22.2 KJV - And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
Yep. Absolutely out of character for God. It’d cause most of us Christians (honestly, me included) to respond, “Oh this so isn’t God; I rebuke you Satan; piss off.” God doesn’t do human sacrifice. Well, other than the once—and
Deuteronomy 12.31 KJV - Thou shalt not do so unto the L
ORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD , which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
No doubt Abraham had to make absolutely sure this was God telling him to do this. Once he did, he took Isaac and a few slaves and went to Moriah to do just that. Didn’t tell anyone what he was up to; didn’t tell Isaac either. In fact Isaac clearly wasn’t a willing participant in any of this, ’cause Abraham tied him up.
So at some point Abraham got the better of Isaac, and tied him up, and was about to slit his throat. Like you did with ritual sacrifices: You gathered the sacrifice’s blood, poured it all over the altar, then either burnt parts of the sacrifice and ate the rest (which wasn’t happening here), or burnt it entirely. Isaac’s either screaming his head off, “Don’t do this, you crazy old man!” or unconscious, and Abraham’s weeping like crazy—though the writer of Hebrews believed because of the L
And just then the L
Genesis 22.12 KJV - And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Abraham immediately noticed a ram nearby, which had been caught in the bushes, so he ritually sacrificed it instead, and named the altar
As I said, the story tends to creep people out, because it sounds like just the worst kind of test of Abraham’s faith. Shouldn’t God, who knows all, already know how much Abraham trusts him? Maybe Abraham himself didn’t realize how far his faith went, and needed the demo. Still, why this demo? Heck, why’d God have to put Isaac through this? Feels downright cruel, and Isaac might’ve suffered from years of
“God sees.”
Which is it, “yiréh” or “jireh”? I’m going with “yiréh.” That’s how the Hebrew word is pronounced, so that’s
And no, Y
Genesis 22.14 KJV - And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the L
ORD it shall be seen.
Yiréh is a verb tense of
But if you get out a more recent translation… it’s gonna say something very different from the King James. Check ’em out on Bible Gateway. That’ll confuse you. Today’s translators, for the most part, figure “the L
Which is it? Well, “sees.” Ask any native Hebrew-speaker. (But don’t ask Google Translate; it’ll tell you “fear” because it mixes up yiréh with
Okay, to my point: Why’d Abraham give this altar this name? Because in
’Cause he is. And was when the binding of Isaac was going down: God saw what Abraham was up to, saw he was miserable about sacrificing Isaac, saw him about to do what he really didn’t wanna do, and intervened.
We can cut Don Moen and Elevation Worship some slack for not doing their homework, and other Christians from taking their interpretations from a pop song instead of bible. Too many bibles agree with them. The original text doesn’t really; “Y
See, Mt. Moriah eventually became the place Solomon put the L
Hopefully we’re paying attention in case he says something!
