Isaiah  49:3: “and said unto me,  ‘You are my servant, O’ Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ ”

God is saying  that we are his servants. The Hebrew word for servant is ‘aved.  ‘Aved has a very broad use in the Hebrew, it has the basic idea of laboring for the advantage of someone else.  What is the advantage that God is seeking from us?  To be glorified. The word used here for glorified is ‘athepa’ar.  This is in a Hithpael  imperfect form from the root word pa’al.  This has the idea of adorning with brightness, a beauty that is lite up for all to see. As a Hithpael, God is saying that he wants to light himself up in us. We are just a lamp and he wants to be the light for the lamp.  The word is also used for a very fancy headdress.  This headdress is one that people immediately see and it is very beautiful.  Those who study human behavior will tell you that if you wear some sort of hat or something on your head, it will be the first thing someone notices about you. That is why king wears a crown, a soldier a beret, or State Trooper Smoky the Bear hat. A hat may actually define your personality. That is why we take such care in grooming our hair as that is the first thing someone will notice about us.   Thus, we have the word pa’al used here.  God is saying that as His servants, the world will see Him through us.  We are to live our lives such that the first things others see is us will be God and His beauty.  As servants to God, this is our most important job.

The Talmud teaches in Kisvei Kodesh, 24c:  “God cannot laud Himself, for who can comprehend His essence?  Therefore, He exalts Himself in His children, like a father prides himself in his son. With this love, God created us, in order to be exalted through them.”  It comes out that spiritual delight is revealed in this exaltation.

God has given each one of us certain talents and abilities.  A better way to put it is that God has given each one of us a pa’al or  hat to wear.  It may be a musical hat, a speaking hat, teaching hat, giving hat, sharing hat, friendship hat… well you know the list of spiritual gifts.  We may have more than one hat to wear.   Each hat, however,  is a headdress, a pa’al.  When people see your pa’al or your hat, who do they see?  Do they see you or do they see God. We may prophesy in His name, we may cast out devils in His name, we may do great and mighty things in His name but if we do it to draw attention to ourselves, Jesus just may say: Depart from me, we were never intimate or we were never that intimate that people saw me, they only saw you.