Page 94 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

CHAPTER 3 “RANDOMNESS” AND “COLD”
CHAPTER 3 “RANDOMNESS” AND “COLD” 73 73

As the scriptures continuously remind us, the concealing of the face of the
Divine starts with the humans who attempt to hide from God. However, the root
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used in not S.T.R, as in the earlier examples, but Ch.B.A, pronounced le-hechavae
(to hide). As the story is told in the book of Genesis, “And they heard the voice of
the Lord God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day, and the man and his
wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden” (Gen. 3:8). And later, the excuses came: “And he said I have heard your
voice in the Garden, and I was afraid because …” (Gen. 3:10). And still later,
when Cain is punished for murdering his brother, Abel, he says to God, “Behold,
you have today expelled me from the face of the earth and from your face I will
hide” (Gen. 4:14). Thus, both God hides his face, hiding which is invariably the
outcome of human transgression, or man attempts to hide himself from the face
of God (it is always the face—nothing else).
From these examples and others, God’s hiding of his face obviously intends to
convey a sense that the presence of the Divine, or the intervention of the Divine
in what is happening, is concealed, and thus all look as a consequence of sheer
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randomness. In fact, the Hebrew word olam (world) derives from a root that
means “concealment.”
The Bible reserves for the concept of randomness a very particular root in the
Hebrew language. Furthermore, this root, with its manifold variations, always
intends to convey extremely negative connotations. In fact, some translations of
the Hebrew Bible refer to Hebrew words derived from “randomness” as “rebel-
lion” (an example will be shortly given). The usage in a negative sense of the
Hebrew root for “randomness” is consistent throughout the Bible. Although the
latter does not always expressly emphasize this negative respect, it is always clear
from the context that the usage of the root implies that somehow the existence of
God, or the intervention of God in the affairs depicted, is denied. At times, the
Bible does so in a cynical fashion, like implying “You, the reader, might think
this was an accident, but you can easily deduce from the context that it was not”
(examples will shortly be given).
The Hebrew-language root for randomness is K.R.H.
From this root, various words are derived, like “to occur,” or “occurrences.”
The root may appear in the Bible in various forms and shapes. But it always
means “occurred to happen,” “occurrence,” “happened to be meeting” (as in,
“Joseph happened to meet John”), “occurring by sheer coincidence.”
Examine a few examples for the usage of this root throughout the Bible.