HEBREW WORD STUDY – A SONG OF LOVE –  KASHIR  ‘AGAVIM  כשׁיר עגבימ

Ezekiel 33:32: “And, lo, thou [art] unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.”

If the nightingales could sing like you
They’d sing much sweeter than they do
For you brought a new kind of love to me – Irving Kahal

The songwriter Irving Kahal expresses in the song made famous by Maurice Chevalier and Frank Sinatra that you can learn a new kind of love. Today while studying Ezekiel 33:32 I discovered another Hebrew word for love.  In a sense, I discovered a new kind of love.  I read in Jewish literature that the words very lovely song is more correctly translated you are a love song.  The word love here is not ahav, your general word for love, nor is it racham, a deeply affectionate and romantic love.  But a word I never thought could be translated as love, it is the word ‘agav.  This is selfish lustful love,  a word used for the relationship with a prostitute. You go at it for purely personal pleasure and desire for the other person is only for your pleasure. The whole thing is for self-gratification. If one doesn’t give it, you dump her for another that can.

Ezekiel was preaching the love of God, preaching the protection of God and people were eating it up. It was like he was singing a love song.  Only to the people of Israel, it was not an ahav song or a racham song, but an ‘agav song.  It was a song catering to one’s own personal desires and pleasure.  They loved to hear about all the good things God would do for them. They hear these words of love but they do not act upon them.  It is: “Give me my gratification and I will repay you with my tithes, offerings, and praise.”  God pays you like an employee.

Now before we throw rocks at Israel maybe pause and look at yourself.  I have heard people say: “I am not going to that church anymore because I just don’t feel the presence of God.” They tramp around to different churches trying them out like a new mattress until they get one that feels just right. They are not feeling the presence of God, they are feeling their own passion. Their own passion demands a certain type of music, a certain type of sermon, a certain type of expression.  Yes, they love God alright but not with ahav or racham, but with ‘agav, a selfish, feel-good type love.  Love does not always feel good.  Sometimes it needs to feel pain as it shares the pain of the one who is loved. 

So ask yourself, “Do I  attend church just as the people of Israel listened to Ezekiel?”  They listened to a love song, but what they heard was not ahav, racham but ‘agav, “What’s in it for me, and if I am not getting satisfied, fulfilled, well then I will just pick up my tithe and find a god that will satisfy me.  I deserve to be satisfied.”

There are a lot of churches that fill their empty chairs with promises of great things from God, prosperity, healing, success, restored relationships and all sorts of goodies and people flock to hear those sermons.  If the people listened to Ezekiel with a heart of racham love and not ‘agav love, they would have felt God’s broken heart, God’s longing for the lost, God weeping for them. Instead, all they wanted to hear was happy, happy, happy, joyful, no problems just rich and fulfilled.

When you go to church this Saturday or Sunday, what love song are you going to hear, an ‘agav selfish me, me, me song or a song of a heart longing to have a relationship with you, weeping for a lost world or is God just your favorite prostitute.