HEBREW WORD STUDY – COMPASSION – RACHAM -רחמ 

Deuteronomy 22:6: “If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young.  You may take the young but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.”

Matthew 20:34: “So Jesus had compassion [on them], and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.”

 What is interesting about this command in Deuteronomy 22:6 is that you are promised a long life if  you obey this command of not disturbing the mother bird.  There is only one other commandment which promises a long life if you obey it, and that is to honor your parents.  Don’t you find that a little curious? 

Christian commentators tend to take a very practical and pragmatic Western interpretation.   They say that the desert breeds a lot of bugs, scorpions, snakes etc. and birds tended to keep these pests under control and to mess with a mother bird could drive a certain bird to extinction which will unleash swarms of bugs and other pestilences so you do not have a long life.  Maybe. 

I take a more Eastern approach. I was reading something interesting in the Talmud this morning. In Brachot 33b the sages teach that one is to be silenced while praying and asking God for compassion.  The reason being is that God’s compassion is a given, you need not ask for it  because it extends even to the mother bird and thus all laws of God stem from compassion and not decrees.   The sages teach that when one’s children see their father showing compassion to a bird they will learn to show compassion to him in his old age. 

You see the word in both Hebrew and Aramaic for compassion is racham.  Racham is the love a mother has for her child while still in the womb. If God has compassion, racham, tender loving care for even a small mother bird then how much for those created in His image.  

The Talmud goes on to say that in the keeping of such a seemingly minor commandment where the value of a mother bird is worth only a farthing such obedience will grant you a long life.  If such a reward is granted in the keeping one of the least of the commandments, then how much more would God grant if you kept the laws which apply to those made in His image.  

In other words this passage is not so much about protecting the balance of nature as it is to teaching us compassion.  For if we can learn compassion from the least of these commandments, to care for a mother bird, then how much more will we show compassion to those created in God’s image.  Once more if God cares enough and has such compassion for the least of his creation to give us such a commandment, then how much more would God show compassion to us?