HEBREW WORD STUDY  – CRY OF GRIEF  – ALYEKAH – איכה 

Genesis 3:9: “And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto Adam, ‘Where are you?’”

I don’t know about you, maybe it is just me, but somehow the idea of God wandering around the garden unable to locate Adam and having to call out to him hoping for some response so he could find him just doesn’t seem to make much sense to me.  I mean if God had problems locating Adam because he was hiding in some bushes, then that picture does not inspire much confidence in me as to God’s ability to keep track of us 24/7.  

Do you for a moment believe that God didn’t know where Adam was hiding?   Yet, practically every modern translation will translate the word alyekah as “Where are you?”  Yet there is a rendering to this word alyekah which would make more sense. Translators, however, will not use this rendering for two reasons.  One is that there are no English words we can use for this alternative rendering and the second reason is that even if we found some English words that fit, we certainly don’t want to ascribe something like that to God.  It would come out to be something like this: “O’ woe is me.”  Alykah is used for a lament. It is the same root word for Lamentations.  The root word means a lamentation or a cry of grief and mourning. 

Now can you picture God wandering through the garden, weeping and saying “O woe is me?”  Most Christians seem to have a hard time picturing God as weeping over his lost children.  Hence we take the more appropriate rendering of  “Where are you.”  True Alyekah is in an interrogative form but is it also an expression of grief.  We have our choice, God is either at a total loss as to Adam’s whereabouts or He is walking through the garden expressing grief.  

We get another clue to the possible rendering in the previous verse.  Note Adam and Eve were not hiding from God, they were hiding from the presence of God.  They had willfully separated themselves from the presence of God. It was not so much their sin that separated them from God but the guilt.  God didn’t remove Himself from them, they removed themselves from God.  

Why did they hide from the presence of God?  Adam said they were naked.  Another little mystery, why did they not want God to see them naked?  He is after all the master Physician, He saw it all already.  There should be nothing shameful for God to see them naked.  The word “naked” used here comes from a questionable root.  It could be ‘aram which means naked, but could also mean to act prudently, wisely, or cautiously.   This word could also come from the root ’eyar which would then mean to be in agony as the agony of death.  Perhaps the latter is correct.

In our Tuesday class, for those who subscribe to our Full Access, we learned that much of translation reflect one’s understanding and view of God.  I see a God who is perfect in love and thus I would go for the alternative rendering expressing the cry of a lover who is separated from his beloved and his beloved is hiding from her lover’s presence because she was in agony over having betrayed her lover. 

I see a God who is grief-stricken because our sin has caused us to hide from His presence that He longs to share with us.  He is not a taskmaster ready to whip you into submission to His will, but he is a lover who has open arms, ready to hug you, forgive you and seduce you into submission. After 45 years of Hebraic study I know I can translate it that way.  Join us and subscribe to Access so you can also learn to translate as the Spirit leads you unfettered by denominational bias.