Jerusalem of Gold
Patience is an Action Word
This study is a shortened version of two previous studies on Patience and Waiting on the LORD. I was commissioned to produce it for another organisation.
Wait Patiently on the LORD:
“Be still in the LORD and wait patiently for Him.” (Psalm 37:7)
We wait patiently for the LORD to return. To be with Him in His glory will be our reward. I often wait for people and prayerful outcomes. But I don’t always find myself waiting patiently. Waiting is a common word in the Old and New Testaments. But patience is much rarer - in the Old Testament it is only specifically mentioned three times.
Understanding these three occurrences will help us to wait patiently on the LORD.
Waiting With Responsibility:
“Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him...” (Psalm 37:7)
Here, the Hebrew word to wait patiently is chool ( חוּל ) meaning: to writhe, whirl, twirl, dance and is used to describe childbirth. Pregnant women wait with responsibility by taking care of what they eat, drink and the activities in which they partake. This culminates in the joy of new life.
We too are to wait for the LORD with responsibility, taking care of the spiritual food we consume and how we live our lives, through obedience and serving Him. This culminates in the joy of our renewing - and eventually heavenly - life in Him.
The author of this Psalm, King David, wrote prophetically and accurately regarding the coming of the Messiah. He – like us - waited for Him with deep love through many battles and troubles. Encouragingly, the word chool ( חוּל ) in Psalm 37 is actually written in the Hebrew here as a command: “Wait Patiently!”
It is also expressed in a particular rare Hebrew verb stem which describes doing an action to oneself (the reflexive Hit’pael stem). For example, this verb stem is used when King David “encouraged himself in the LORD his God.” (1 Samuel 30:6). And when Israel – formerly Jacob - was told at the end of his life: “Behold, your son Joseph is coming to you. And Israel strengthened himself and sat up in bed.” (Genesis 48:2) Jacob waited through many years of grief, to see his son metaphorically return from the dead to save many lives as the ‘saviour’ of the tribes of Israel and the nations.
This is a picture of the Messiah. It is awe-inspiring and humbling that the God of Creation came as a Son through the process of human childbirth.
This is, interestingly, one of the sticking points in the Jewish mind that prevents many from believing Yeshua is the Messiah. The Hebrew Scriptures clearly say that God is One. “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) And within the Jewish tradition, there is a daily prayer called Yigdal, which states “He [God] has no image of body nor is He a body.” So, Jewish people rightly ask, “If God is One and has no body, how could God also be Yeshua? How can He appear in human form, yet still be the Divine God of Israel in Heaven?”
Yet, God already appeared on earth and in heaven at once, before He appeared as Yeshua. When? During one of the most pivotal moments in Jewish history, the giving of the Torah: “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire.” (Exodus19:18) His appearing on earth in fire did not in any way forfeit His simultaneous divinity in heaven.
It is this God we wait for as the returning Messiah, fully God in Heaven, yet also our Bridegroom returning for His Bride. Meanwhile, as we wait patiently, we find life full of writhing, dancing and struggles, often similar to the pains and hopes of childbirth.
Yeshua Himself expounded this very picture in the New Testament as He encouraged His disciples - and us - to wait patiently for Him: “Your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” (John 16:20-22)
Waiting with Hope:
“I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry.” (Psalm 40:1)
Again, a Davidic Psalm, the word for waited patiently here is kavah ( קָוָה ) and is most often translated into English as hope. It means to stretch and twist; again invoking images of childbirth and our struggle and character growth as we wait for Messiah. If we wait with this hopeful patience the LORD inclines to us and hears our cry.
Here, the words “I waited patiently” are written in a Hebrew verb form which does not appear in any other language. The infinitive absolute verb form is a classic Hebraism and literally reads: “Waiting I waited on the LORD”
קַוֺּה קִוִּיתִי יְהוָה (kavoh kiviti Adonai)
The verb is repeated twice, to deeply intensify the meaning. But that is often lost in translation, and instead translated as only one verb with an added adverb, such as “waiting patiently” or “speaking clearly.”
But in God’s language He repeats the action word. This is key to strengthening ourselves as we wait. We have to wait, and wait again. I think of Joseph here. Two pits. Two seasons in his life when others did not honour his dreams; his family and fellow prisoners. Two deceitful betrayals; by his brothers and Potiphar’s wife. Joseph is a classic example of a life lived within this linguistic Hebraism.
As we wait patiently with hope in the LORD, we often find ourselves stretched to our human limit, precisely so we learn to trust Him more, dig deeper into His Word and stand with patience on His promises, just like Joseph.
Because through patience we receive God’s promises: “Imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” (Hebrews 6:12)
The verb kavah ( קָוָה) is also the root of the word Hatikvah (הַתִּקְוָה), meaning The Hope and is the Israeli national anthem. This song describes the patience hope for a return to the land of Israel. Eventually, this freedom will be spiritual through Messiah as King of all Creation reigning from Jerusalem.
Waiting in the Spirit:
“The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8. )
The word patient here is arech ( אֶֽרֶךְ) and is the adjective for slow. It is derived from the verb arach (אָרַךְ ) meaning: to continue, delay, endure, lengthen, linger, prolong, stick to, survive and be long but almost always on time.
The quality of waiting slowly in the spirit here is contrasted with being proud in spirit. We learn a great deal from these contrasts in Scripture. In Hebrew the word for proud here is מִגְּבַהּּ (mig'vah) from the verb gavah (גָּבָהּ) meaning to be haughty, to lift up and to exalt oneself.
I can wait either knowing the LORD knows all things and grow through the wait in His Holy Spirit. Or I can lift myself up, perhaps even trying to find a solution to excavate myself from the wait prematurely. In this I assume I know better than the LORD in His process and timing and this finds out my pride. Instead I need to pray for more of His Spirit to endure and learn to trust Him more.
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22) Heavenly patience is a result of His Spirit living in us. Through patiently waiting on the LORD we grow more like Him. He has been waiting all this time for His Bride and for us to be ready for His return. Through our waiting we may catch more of His feeling and humbly grieve for keeping Him waiting. After all, every single time the LORD is described in the Hebrew Scriptures as “slow to anger and full of mercy” (for example in Exodus 34:6), it is this verb arach (אָרַךְ ) which is used.
And finally, through patience we will receive indescribable relief and blessings: “Since you have kept My command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.” (Revelation 3:10)
With God, we live in a fulcrum between two states. There is a well-known Jewish phrase: "On the other hand” - while we wait patiently for the LORD, all the evil of the world is doomed to eventually perish. Yet on the other hand - trouble and trials can rise for a season, there is grief and sometimes long-suffering for the people of God. Yet, both Jewish people of faith and people of the Biblical Christian faith wait patiently for the LORD, just as He waits patiently for us to be ready for His return.