father

father: mountain top meaning
the father's love (index)

the father's love

the father's love, deu 10:12-20
the father's love, 1 corinthians 13

deuteronomy 10:12-20, the father's love

Read Deu 10:12-20 at the Bible Gateway.

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it. The LORD delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name.” Deu 10:12-20

I saw a chiastic structure in this section:

1A) Deu 10:12-13 what the Lord requires;
  1B) Deu 10:14 the greatness of God;
    --> X Deu 10:15-16 We love Him (circumcise your heart) because He first loved us;
  2B) Deu 10:17-18 the greatness of God;
2A) Deu 10:19-20 what the Lord requires.

The Father's love, delight in, and acceptance of us is the center from which all things flow. Our own circumcised heart of love toward the Lord, the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom, and true obedience to the Lord's will, all flow from the heart that knows his Father's love.

The three actions the Father took on our behalf revealed in the central axis are:

delight: Strong's H2836, in Hebrew chashaq, q?j, chet - shin - quph. We have seen this before! The pictographs paint the picture of being bound together with a concentrated emotion, or maybe even being bound together for eternity.

love: Strong's H157, in Hebrew ahab, bha, aleph - hey - bet. We have seen this before! The pictographs paint the picture of love which reveals the heart of the father, or the strong emotion and actions inspired by the revelation that one's family is a gift from YHVH.

choose: Strong's H977, bachar, rjb, bet - chet - resh. We have seen this before! The pictographs paint the picture of the choicest animal for sacrifice which was slaughtered outside the fence; thus also the examination, the process of choosing, to determine which animal was the choicest.

So what is the Lord saying, when He says, He delighted in (chashaq) our fathers to love (ahab) them, and chose (bachar) us, their descendants, above all peoples? He bound Himself together with us, so that the connections and the entanglements formed could not be undone; and when He bound Himself together with us, He did this for all time. He bound Himself together with us because He loved us, His heart quickens with strong emotion and longing at the thought of us, and the actions He takes on our behalf are born of that strong emotion and longing. The actions He takes on our behalf reveal His Father's heart of strong love for us. Because we are the seed of those He bound Himself to out of a heart of strong love, He has examined us and chosen us as the choicest above all peoples.

What if someone is not a physical descendant of Abraham? Jesus and Paul taught us that Abraham's seed, whom God set His love upon and chose as well pleasing to Him, are those in whom the Word of God (the seed, who is Jesus Christ, Mar 4:14, Joh 1:1, 14) finds a home (Joh 8:37-47, Rom 9:6-8).

1 corinthians 13, the father's love

Read 1 Corinthians 13 at Bible Gateway.

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Cor 13:4-7

The Greek word translated “love” here is Strong's G26, agape - a strictly biblical word which is not found in Greek outside the Scriptures. The Septuagint translators translated the Hebrew root Strong's H157, bha, ahab, to agape when translating the Scriptures from Hebrew to Greek several centuries before the advent of Jesus. The two letter root of ahab from the ancient Hebrew pictographs is bh, the hey bet - the man with his arms upraised as if in wonder or astonishment or worship; and the house or family. The mountain top meaning of the hey bet, then, is the sense of wonder, even astonishment, and appreciation the man feels when beholding his family. We do not choose which family we are born into. And even the man's wife, in those days, was not chosen by him, but was chosen for him by his father. So in the Hebraic way of thinking, the family - parents, siblings, wife, children, extended family and tribal clan - is a gift chosen for him and given to him by God. Thus the verbal form of the hey bet means to give. The concrete form means a gift. The abstract form means the love and protectiveness which is inspired in the heart for one's cherished gifts; i.e., one's family.

The addition of the aleph, the ox head (meaning strength, power, or leadership) onto the front of the hey bet root, then, intensifies, not only the emotion of love and protectiveness which is felt in the heart, but also the action one takes as a result of feeling that love. (Hebrew is a language based on verbs, not nouns. It is all about the doing.) Ahab is strong love.

Now ahab as a primitive root, has a double meaning. Ahab also contains the two letter root, ba, ab, aleph bet, which means father, the strong one of the family. The additional letter is the hey, the man with his arms upraised in wonder, astonishment, or worship, who is beholding that which has been revealed to him. While he beholds it, his breath quickens or deepens into sighing. In bha, ahab, the hey is in the center, or heart, of the father (ba, ab), meaning that love is the picture of the heart of the father breathing or sighing after his children. Another nuance is that love reveals the heart of the father.

That is what Paul means when he says, agape suffers long and is kind. Agape does not envy or parade itself. Because it is not weak love, like acquaintances might have for one another. It is strong love, like the strong love that beats in the heart of the father for his children. Familial love is the strongest of all the different kinds of love, and of familial love, parental love for a child is the strongest form of love of all. A parent will reject mother and father, husband or wife, for the sake of their child. (Love has to be very cold in the heart for a parent to prefer others over their children.) Parental love is the strongest love in the universe, and that is the kind of love which is painted by ahab, thus agape.

So the lesson is not only that this is the way we Christians ought to be loving others. The first lesson is, that this is the way the Heavenly Father loves us, His children! God is love (1 Joh 4:8) - YHVH is agape! YHVH suffers long and is kind (Exo 34:5-7); YHVH does not envy! YHVH does not parade Himself nor is He puffed up (Mat 11:28-30)! YHVH does not behave rudely or seek His own! YHVH is not provoked - this is why He is so slow to anger (Psa 135:8)! YHVH does not think evil of us - He is not the accuser of the brethren (Rev 12:10)! YHVH does not rejoice when we sin or when bad things happen to us, but He rejoices in truth, righteousness, and in our good! YHVH bears all things for the sake of His beloved, who is every person He has ever created! YHVH believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things for the sake of His beloved (Rom 5:6-11, Phi 2:5-8)!

Write that down on a 3x5 card and carry it with you for a month, dwelling on the truth about YHVH that 1 Cor 13:4-7 reveals - it will absolutely change your life forever!

father: mountain top meaning

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Gen 2:24

This is the first occurrence in the Scriptures of the word “father.”

“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isa 9:6

I think this is the first occurrence in the Scriptures of the title “Father” to mean Almighty God as our Father.

The Hebrew word for father is Strong's H1, ab, ba. It is where we get Abba, Daddy, from. It is already a primary root, and contains the aleph and the bet, the first two letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet. In order to get to the mountain top meaning of the Hebrew, we have to go back to the ancient Hebrew pictographs, the letters that five- year- olds can understand. The aleph is the ox head, and it means, strong, power, or leader. The bet is the floorplan of the house or tent, and it means, house or family.

So the father is the strong one of the family. :) Strong, according to Webster's, means, marked by great physical power; marked by moral or intellectual power; having great resources, as of wealth or talent; not mild or weak; rich in some active ingredient; well established. This is the reality of our Heavenly Father, and the pattern that the earthly fathers aspire to.