HEBREW WORD STUDY – CHANNELS – PELEG  פלג   Pei, Lamed Gimmel

Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart [is] in the hand of the LORD, [as] the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”

The word for king is melek which has a wide range of meaning.  It is not just for someone who wears a crown and rules a kingdom, this is anyone in authority. This is a message for anyone who is having to struggle with someone in a place of authority. It could be a boss, a parent, a pastor, anyone who has some type of authoritarian rule over you. 

The message is that this authority figure’s heart is in the hand of God.  This authority’s heart is filled with passion, desires, lust, hunger for power, etc.  I heard on the news recently that those powerful authorities who were accusing the United States President of treason are now themselves being investigated for treasonous acts. These people hearts were filled with a passion for power and control, yet all that passion for power and control were in the hands of God to manipulate it any way He pleases. 

Like Hamon in the book of Esther who prepared a gallows for Mordecai, Hamon ended up as the victim of his own gallows because God had this authority in the palm of His hand.  He manipulated the noose meant for Mordecai to be tightened around Hamon’s neck. 

I have an app on my I Pad called Red Alert.  It signals every time a rocket is fired into Israel. It just went off and as I prayed I prayed Proverbs 21:1: “Lord, those trying to overpower Israel and be a melek over Israel, their hearts are in Your hands. Manipulate their hearts as the peleg of waters.”

Some translations render the word peleg as rivers and commentators refer to these rivers as torrents with destructive waves. Peleg can mean rivers but its origins go back to a Middle Egyptian word where a peleg were channels or irrigation ditches.  Irrigation ditches made it very easy to manipulate the direction of water from the Nile when it overflowed. 

If you ever notice irrigation ditches you find these ditches dug in a specific direction so that the maximum use of the water is taken advantage of to nourish a crop. So too with that boss or leader who exerts control over you. God has his heart in His hand and He can manipulate that heart anyway he wishes to ultimately nourish you.  

A good melek or bad melek does not matter to God when it comes to controlling. That boss may think he is controlling you but in reality, he is playing right into God’s hand to use his passions and desire to nourish you.  The key is to let God take the control, let Him manipulate the hearts of that melek who thinks he is going to flood you out but in reality, it will only nourish you and tighten the noose around his own neck.