Hebrew Word Discovery - Racham

            Racham, Love

Yahukanon (John)3:16

16 For Alahim so loved (Aramaic: chav or Hebrew “’ahav) the world that He gave His only brought forth Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but possess everlasting life.

Yahukanon (John) 21:20a

And Kefa (Peter), turning around, saw the pupil whom Yahusha loved (Racham) following,  

Let’s look at the different meaning for these two words whose base understanding is Love.

There are several words in Hebrew that have the base meaning of love with different expressions of love. There are two words in Arabic that express love

Hebrew words that I have learned are:

1 ‘ahav - love

2 racham - tender mercies

3 dodi - beloved (spousal love)

4 ra’ah - Brotherly love or friendship also as Shepard and consuming passion

Greek words I have learned are:

1 agape - unconditional love

2 phileo - Brotherly love our friendship

3 eris - erotic love

Arabic that I have learned are:

1 Chav – love that is not necessarily returned. Love flows from one person

2 Racham – love is returned therefore it is a completed love

It is very difficult to make a parallel between the Greek words for love and the Hebrew words for love. There is a school of thought that the original writings were done in Arabic and much easier to make a parallel understanding.  

There is one word that I want to talk about today that is the same exactly the same with exactly the same understanding in Hebrew and Arabic. This word describes the type of love we all want to reach for in our relationship with Yahuah/Yahusha.

So, we are talking about two different types of love just to clarify for you. Loved, Chav/ ‘ahav is found when we read the passage from Yahukanon (John) 3:16 that Yahuah so loved the world that he gave His only brought-forth son. The word love in this passage scripture is a love that it’s one-sided it is a love that is given by one person but not necessarily returned by another. So Yahuah loves all of us, but he does not expect all of us to return that love. Regardless of our reaction Yahuah’s great Chav/’ahav caused Him to pour out that love to redeem us. It is the love that says Yahuah wants all men to be redeemed equally.

The second love that I want to talk about is a Racham. This is exactly the same word in both Hebrew and Arabic, and it has the exact same meaning. When we look at the verse that says that Yahusha loved the one who followed Him, and that love is the word Racham.  

This love is a love that is returned. When you love Yahusha in return you bring him joy because his love is completed in you. Love returned is completed love.  Yahuah loves us all equally but the love relationship He has with each one of us is different. Few people Love Yahuah in return and complete the love that brings Him joy, the love relationship He is looking for.

 Chaim Bentorah says it this way,

“It is not that Yahuah loves one person more than another. He loves all equally. It is just that very few people will love Him in return and complete His love, bring Him the joy of His love, awaken Him in that love, and cause Him to sing with joy in that love.”

We have to look at how we love Yahuah and see if it is ‘ahav or racham.    Is it one-sided, it is Yahuah loving you and you are not really loving him in return. You must truly love him in return for the love to become racham love. This understanding definitely pushes us to find is scripture the ways Yahuah wants to be loved so that we can create this racham relationship.

You know some of them with obedience being the most well-known. When you uncover a verse or passage in the Scripture of Truth that speaks about this type of love relationship with Yahuah please come back and post a comment on this post and share with everyone.

A driving motive for creating Natsarim life is that all of us will experience Racham love with Yahuah. His personality is so enormous that we can lose sight of what I think is the most important side of Yahuah. That is His desire for a personal loving relationship with each one of us.  

For Yahush’a Joy His Racham!

Margaret