HEBREW WORD STUDY – TRAVEL – NASA’  נסע  

Numbers 33:1: “These are the travels of the Children of Israel.”  

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled.”  Robert Frost

The Jewish sages are well known for their inyans.  An inyan is a spiritual concept, A general idea as opposed to specifics.  An inyan may have bechinos. Bechinos are sort of like subdivisions to an inyan. Christians often use inyans only we call it spiritualization. There is much argument over whether we should spiritualize passages of Scripture or not.  I tend to be free with inyans for two reasons.  

The first is that if we do not use inyans or spiritualization, then the majority of the Bible is nothing more than history which has little value to us.  Numbers 33:1, for instance, would be quite worthless to us in helping us with our relationship with God.“These are the travels of the Children of Israel” would be a total waste of words and space as any reasonable person reading this passage will know it is speaking of the travels of the Children of Israel. If this is truly God’s Word, then I want to believe that every letter and every word has a message for me from God. 

The second reason I believe in using inyans is that the use of inyans is as old as Scripture itself and has been practiced for thousands of years by the Jewish sages.  It seems that only with the rise of our Western, scientific culture has the use of inyan come under criticism.  This is mainly because we are a scientific and mathematical culture more than an artistic culture.  When someone condemns me for using an inyan, my response is usually the favorite expression of the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu: “Who says?”  The Bible certainly doesn’t condemn the use of inyans.  Jesus used them all the time.  When He quoted the Scripture: “Man shall not live by bread alone” to illustrate His own situation, He was using an inyan.

The sages teach that the inyan in Numbers 33:1 is a reference to our own spiritual journey in our relationship with God. For me personally, it is an inyan of my own spiritual journey to discover the heart of God.  In viewing the travels of the Children of Israel through an inyan I begin to learn of the many twists and turns that my journey to discover the heart of God can take.

The word for travel here is nasa’ which means to pull up, pluck up, tear up, to put away, to remove.”  This is not traveling in the sense of a vacation or even a business trip as we consider the word travel.  This is a travel to a new life, a new destination.  

Hence we can paraphrase Numbers 33:1 this way: “This is the story of the Children of Israel leaving Egypt to live in the Promised Land.” As an inyan it is our story of when we accept Jesus as our Saviour and being our journey to the heart of God. 

Much of Jewish literature and in fact Jesus Himself spoke of our lives as a spiritual journey, walking a spiritual road or path (Matthew 7:13).  The Talmud teaches that each day we must enter a new level with God.   St. Augustine taught that the spiritual journey is a book, if one does not engage in travel he will only live his life on one page of the book.  Every day we live brings us closer to our ultimate destination, the celestial city, the Promised Land, or the heart of God.   

In just one simple verse, one simple word travel or nasa’ I am reminded by God that every day of my life, I have a new opportunity to move to another level of faith (Nun), dependence upon God (Sameck) and observation of God’s miraculous workings  (Ayin).