Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

nâcham - נָחַם (Strong's #5162)
Comfort

The verb נָחַם nâcham (Strong's #5162, x108) is first used in the supposed verbal origin of the name Noah נ^•חַ nôach (Strong's #5146), "This one will comfort us from our work and the pain/toil of our hands" (Genesis 5:29). However נ^•חַ nôach derives from נוּחַ nûach (Strong's #5117) "to rest, respire, draw breath" (cf. רוּחַ rûach "spirit, breath", Strong's #7307) and so the close association with נָחַם nâcham "to draw breath, groan, grieve" is something of an onomatopoeic wordplay. The root is more legitimately found in the names Nehemiah and Nahum.

The idea of breath, expired or even exasperated, is met with again almost immediately in this ongoing wordplay when Genesis 6:6, repeating in identical order the same three Hebrew root verbs as 5:29 above, tells us that "the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart" (NKJV). The KJV here uses "it repented" and the NIV "grieved". The NIV is probably closest in meaning to this passive (Niphal) use of the Hebrew verb, indeed, the parallelism later in the verse is with עָצַב ‘âtsabh (Strong's #6087, x17) "grieved, pained". The other versions usage of "repent" and "sorry" raise further theological issues of whether God can repent. Pain, grief and regret, are very real emotions of one who is exasperated in anthropomorphic terms but who is elsewhere (1 Samuel 15:29) described as not like a man that relents.

Genesis 24:67 records how Isaac was "comforted after his mother's death" through his marriage to Rebekah. A few chapters later Rebekah tells her son Jacob that his brother Esau "comforts himself concerning you by intending to kill you" (Genesis 27:42). This latter strange use of comfort is transformed in the Greek Septuagint Old Testament into "threatens to kill you" and the Aramaic Targum changes it again into "secretly rests in wait to ambush" from ïîk kâman. Clearly, Esau's perverted comfort and consolation by planning to kill his brother caused a problem for ancient translators as much as modern. Jacob survives, but when, later, his children falsely report the death of his favourite son Joseph, whom they also had ambushed, he refuses to be comforted by them (Genesis 37:35).

On a fair number of occasions נָחַם nâcham is associated with grief and death and hence "comfort" seems an appropriate translation (e.g., apart from those mentioned already, Genesis 38:12; 2 Samuel 10:2; 12:24; 1 Chronicles 19:2; Isaiah 61:2; Jeremiah 16:7; 31:15).

Isaiah opens his prophecy with a combined use of נָחַם nâcham, only in this instance not translated by its usual "comfort" or "repent", with נָקַם nâqam (Strong's #5358, x35), aligning the verb for "vengeance" with getting "rid of/relief from my adversaries, avenged of my enemies" (Isaiah 1:24). Later he uses נָחַם nâcham twice in the "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people" passage addressed to the down at heart exiles in Babylon (Isaiah 40:1). He returns to another use paralleled with a verb meaning "redeem, avenge", גָּאַל gâ’al (Strong's #1350, x104), in Isaiah 52:9, "the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem".

The idea that the verb can sometimes mean a change of mind is found in instances such as Exodus 13:17 where God led the Israelites through Sinai so as to avoid the Philistines, thinking that the direct route might bring about a conflict and God feared that "the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt". Here, perhaps, "regret" or "rue" may be better translations, or even "pine", for one can imagine the Israelites pining after Egypt when the going got tough.

More convincingly, Exodus 32:12,14 describes God relenting from punishing the Israelites over the Golden Calf, here "comfort" or "grieve" don't seem to fit at all. Similarly, the prophet Jeremiah often (18:8; 26:3,16,19) uses the idea of God "repenting"/"relenting" of punishment after the repentance of the people. Here it is a turning back from doing something which is the real idea of repentance anyway, not a verbal "sorry" but a change of action. It is not therefore that God changes his mind like a man but rather that he is comforted by no longer needing to act in punishment when man himself relents of his bad practices.

The KJV continues to give the impression that God changes his mind or repents by 38 translations of the Hebrew passive of the verb as "repent" and by the Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation's use of μετανοεω metanoeô "repentance" (Strong's #3340), literally, "to change one's mind". Some of these verses such as Judges 2:18, for example, can be just as easily translated by "pity" (NKJV) or "compassion" (NIV).

In 1 Samuel 15:11, however, one can hardly regard God as being comforted by the thought, "I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king". Most versions use "repent" which is equally inappropriate for how can one repent in the sense of "undo" after an action, or to whom would God apologise? Here the NIV is quite good, "I am grieved", similarly to the NKJV's "regret".

Some passages use the verb in such a way as to describe immutability of action. For instance, Psalm 110:4 "The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek". Also, Jeremiah 4:28 "... I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it".

God's apparent repenting has nothing to do with sin other than man's own over which he does indeed "grieve" and "groan". It is more to do with compassionate change of course on his part in response to change in man.

Thus the original idea of "breathing out" in a groan or grief can transform into a repentant change of action as indicated by the Greek Septuagint translation μετανοεω metanoeô or the idea of bringing comfort, these two attendant ideas are demonstrated in the Greek translation in these instances by παρακαλεω parakaleô "comfort" (Strong's #3870), the verb used to describe the work of the Paraclete or Holy Spirit in the New Testament.

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