BibleProject - The Uniquely Biblical View of Grace – Character of God E4

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

Grace is such a familiar word that we often miss the depth of its meaning. In this episode, Tim, Jon, and Carissa look at how the Hebrew Bible uses the word grace to communicate one of the core attributes of God.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (0:00–13:22)Part two (13:22–26:45)Part three (26:45–38:45)Part four (38:45–53:20)Part five (53:20–62:50)Part six (62:50–end)Additional ResourcesJohn M.G. Barclay, Paul and the GiftJohn M.G. Barclay, Paul and the Power of GraceShow Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by Tents“Friends Circle” by Sitting DucksShow produced by Dan Gummel and Camden McAfee. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at Bible Projects. On the podcast, we're in the middle of a series discussing the character of God, attributes that God assigns himself in a really important passage in Exodus 34. Last week we looked at the first word he used to describe himself that he's compassionate. And this week, we're going to look at the second word, that God is gracious. Now when we call someone gracious, we often mean something like courteous, like she was gracious with that stranger. But that's not what God means by gracious.

So the word that God uses in Exodus 346 is Ghanun, the Hebrew word Ghanun. There's a noun, Gain, which means grace or favor. To be an object or a person who has Gain means that it's something desirable to vokes the light and pleasure in favor. The focus of the word khen isn't just on the beauty or elegance of the object,

but it's about how the beauty or charm of that object is perceived in the eyes of the observer. And so khen refers to something's valuable, or that generates a favorable response. It generates favor. When I look at it, I'm like, I like that. It's just an interesting use of the word grace. Now a very common biblical phrase that appears 47 times is the phrase to find Hain in his or her eyes. In other words, to find favor or delight in someone's eyes.

This phrase is a request for someone to look upon you as favorable or even desirable. If you go through these 47 examples, you'll see a pattern that when somebody finds chained in the eyes of another, it's almost always that the person who finds chained is in a subordinate position, they're of low status, or they're vulnerable. And so to find Chien in the eyes of someone means that you're being given a gift of generosity, kindness, by someone who you don't properly deserve it or don't necessarily merit it. It's a gift.

And for someone to consistently give this kind of favor and delight, means that they are gracious. That's today. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. So we're going to continue on our series in Exodus 34. We've been talking about these two verses, Exodus 34, verse 6 and 7, where God makes a proclamation about Himself to Moses up on Mount Sinai, and He says five things about Himself that He's compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, full of loyal love and faithfulness.

And we're going to walk through all of those. And last week we talked about the attribute of God as compassionate. And that was a great conversation that Kyrissa, you led us through? Yeah. And this week, we're gonna talk about the second attribute in this verse, which is gracious. And so we've got Kyrissa Quinn.

Hey, John. And Tim Eki. Hey, hello. And Tim, you're gonna lead us through this word study. Yeah, yep, I get to play tour guide with the word gracious. So some interesting things about this word. Biblical vocabulary has worked itself into the English language at such deep levels we forget that it's there.

So, you know, there's some, oh, I was just reading something about this. There's multiple popular phrases that we still use that come from the Bible through William Tyndale and English, the King James version, the skin of my teeth. Oh. You know that one? I know that phrase. The phrase, yeah, it comes from Job.

Ah, I forget what chapter. But he uses it in the sense of that his body's barely holding together. And so in Hebrew, is it literally skin of my teeth? Yeah, that's right. So it's a Hebrew idiom that's come into English. And so in Hebrew, is it literally skin of my teeth? Yeah, that's right. So it's a Hebrew idiom that's come into English. Through the Bible. Through the Bible.

They knew teeth were hard. I don't know if they had a figure of speech for tooth enamel. I don't think it means tooth enamel. But anyway, my point is that this word, gracious, both in Hebrew and in its Greek translation, have made their way into the English language through names. And as we sat down record, it just occurred to me.

Chrisa and John, both of your names are derived from the Greek or Hebrew word for gracious or grace. Did you know this? Yeah, so cool. Yes, that's right. So, Chris, the Greek word is carus. You know, I actually knew a carus in high school. Yeah, I've met more caruses than caruses. Oh, really?

Oh, that's interesting. I have, maybe it's a Christian circle or something. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And then John is our boy, our condensation of the Hebrew name, Jehochanan. Jehochanan. Which is Jonathan, right?

Because I'm a Jonathan. Oh, you're Jonathan. You're Jeho-Natan. Jeho-Natan. Then I was wrong. But I've been told that my name means gift from God. Yeah, it means Yahweh gives. Which is very similar to grace, right?

Yes, it is. Yeah, that's right. And you're a J-O-N. Yeah. As you're short for John of them. I always forget that. You're right. Okay, so I take back what I said. But J-O-H-N comes from... J-O-H-N is a condensation of... You're whole-kindaensation of the Hebrew word,

Yohou, condensed form for Yahweh, and then Hanan is the Hebrew word for gracious. So John's and Karases and Kristas out there, high five, you were God's gracious gift to the world. So the word that God uses in Exodus 346 is 恨雲, the Hebrew word 恨雲. It comes from the Hebrew word 倫, 恨雲, 恨雲, and so it appears in all kinds of different forms. 恨雲 is the verb to show favor or to show grace. What God uses here is the adjective 恨雲, and then there's all of these nouns that spin off of the root. There's a noun,

Chén, which means grace or favor. But then there's also Techina and Ta-Hanun. So I'll told these words add up to, I didn't do the math, I'm looking at it. Oh, it looks like about 150 different occurrences of this route throughout the, no, no, way more. 175 occurrences of this word. It's a prominent word in biblical language. Yeah, I think compassionate was just around 100.

Oh, really? Yeah. What's interesting, I think you noted this, but the two words, compassionate and gracious. First of all, here they rhyme. Here. So, rahum, compassionate and khannun for gracious. And then they're often used as a pair. You, Chris, you look this up.

Yeah. What I just noticed is interesting on here is that khannun is used 13 times and that's the same amount of times that Rahum is used but out of the 11 or out of those 13 times 11 times they're used together. Yeah. Another risk Hanun doesn't often appear outside of this pair. Right. And same with Rahum. Yeah. Oh I see. Yeah. They both occur the same amount of times and 11 of those 13 times they occur together. So they're almost synonymous, but yeah, you know, after you talk about what grace means we could talk about the differences too. Yeah. Okay. So that was a bunch of nerdy like word studies. So nerdy, I'm lost.

I love the Hebrew. Uh, here, let's say here. So, you know, I just, I talked's all the Hebrew. Here, let's say here. So I talked about the root word. Let's go back out to English. Grace is a very common English word. However, do non-religious people use it that much? Oh boy, I don't know. I would imagine.

I read the Bible too much to know anymore. Maybe graceful. I read the Bible too much to like know anymore. Maybe graceful. I hear the word graceful. Graceful is normal English. Like a deer. Well, like a deer or a dancer. You would say a dancer is graceful. Gracious is normal, meaning kind, generous. I think it's kind of a synonym for kind, isn't it?

Yeah. I feel like when you say someone's full of grace in modern English, you tend to mean that they're gentle and they can read a room, they can they're delicate, they're others focused, there's just kind of this lightness about them. That's for whatever reason the things that come to mind when I think of that. It's interesting, you combine the few different things there. One is how they treat other people, like generous or kind, but then a couple words you chose were about how they present themselves, or how they are perceived by others, like light. Like graceful movement. If you're talking about a basketball player being graceful,

they're quick on their feet and their body is moving in such a way that almost feels like it defies physics. Yeah, maybe in English, there's a sharp difference between graceful and gracious. Mm-hmm. Like graceful describing the movement, gracious, being more the personality or character. So here's what's interesting,

and I mean, I knew this was a common word in Hebrew before I'd really studied it for the video. But Hebrew has that same kind of dual nuance of meaning that we use it in in English. In other words, in Hebrew you can use this Hanan root in that sense of graceful, just like you can in English. So it can describe somebody's character, gracious. It can also describe how something is perceived as being elegant or charming or graceful. Yeah, that's really interesting. So my hunch is that those two meanings

came into English actually through the different meanings of this word in the Bible. It's interesting. Yeah, it is. So those are maybe some common uses of the word. We should note also at the beginning, this is a very important religious word in Jewish and Christian tradition.

It's like the first thing you learn as a Christian. Yeah, salvation by grace, salvation by grace, by grace alone. And usually grace, and when we're talking about it in terms of Christian belief, it's set in opposition to works or earning. Right. So in other words, God loves you out of sheer grace. Yeah. Meaning there isn't something that you had to do to earn God's love. It's by His grace meaning free or un-earned. I think that's how how we usually use the word

in religious circles. So that too is rooted in this concept. So that's an important concept in the New Testament, famous Bible verses, you know, by grace you have been saved. And this not of yourselves, that is the gift of God that no one should boast. That's from Ephesians 2.

But all those ideas about salvation by grace are rooted in the use of this word and concept for God's character in the Hebrew Bible. And especially right here, it's actually, it's not the first time God shows grace right here next to it is 34, but it is the first time that somebody calls God, or God calls himself gracious. It's as if God is naming here explicitly for the first time a pattern of His behavior that we're going to trace up to this point. So it's an important word. But it can become overused and maybe lose some of its punch.

That's what I'm worried about is that I'm too familiar with the word. That I need to maybe start over and pretend I don't know the word at all. And I see how it unfolds. Yeah. We could also, I'm just going to take us on a tour guide through different types of uses of this word. And there were some new things I discovered that I have never noticed before. And it really helped me, yeah, kind of approach the

word. And therefore the concept of grace in it in a new way. Those are really helpful. I think something I'm curious about with the word grace is how much we can depend on this characteristic of God. So when we approach God, how do we can depend on this characteristic of God. So when we approach God, how do we know that his disposition toward us is grace or not? You know? That's a great question. So we're back to that.

My default assumptions about God's character will really shape how I try to relate to God. So if God says he's gracious, can you hold him to it? He always gracious. Well, and also depending, depending how the word is used, is it used? Like people earn grace throughout the Hebrew Bible or like how do people receive God's grace, I think,

as a burning question. Yeah. Well, we're going to look at examples. All right. Shall we dive in? Yeah. Okay, let's start with some examples of this word, grace, Hanan, Hanun, that surprised me. When I first started pondering them, I didn't quite know how to make sense of them, because it's not how we normally use the word.

So we're gonna be looking at different uses of the whole word group, not just Hanun, that's used in Exodus 346, but the whole word group. So Psalm 45 has an interesting use of this word. The poet begins by saying, my heart is overflowing with a good word. I speak my verses to the king. My tongue is the pen of a speedy scribe. So good. Doesn't that sound like somebody standing in a royal court about to read a poem aloud? Yeah, totally. I think that's the scene here. So how the poet begins addressing the king,

describing this poem, by saying, you are more fair than all the sons of Adam, all the sons of humanity. Chene is poured out upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. So it's a scene of a court poet, picture the scene, right? There's like minstrels and scribes. This is a song that it says it's to the tune of lilies. Yeah. It's actually like something you would sing. Yeah, it's a song.

Oh, yeah, but something a court, at least this poem begin life as a court poem, which is different than saying who put it here in the book of Psalms and how does it develop the line of thought in the Psalms, but what we're imagining is a little narrative right here, yeah, of a court poet before the king. Israelite, anointed king. You're so fair, O king, my heart is stirred with a good theme. And the first compliment, he gets to the King, is you are more fair than all the sons of humanity and chen. And it's our word. Graciousness, grace. Chen is poured out on your lips. You are more blessed than any other. So

this is whatever is being said here to say that Hain comes from somebody's lips. It is a real compliment. Well, he doesn't say it comes from his lips. He says it's poured out on his lips. That's right, that's right. So you have to get into the metaphor here. What would it mean to say that when I look at your lips, okay, what I see is grace poured out everywhere.

Because grace is coming out of his lips, it's all over his lips. Is that what I'm supposed to be thinking? So what do you do with your lips? Why, when you bring up lips, you are usually talking about somebody's speech. Speech, yeah, speech. So whenever this king speaks,

it's like he speaks chen, graciousness, which means that grace, chen, has been poured out on his lips because his lips just drip grace. I think your lips drip grace. So it could either be like his words are full of graciousness or that his words are really eloquent. What's interesting here is that, you know, the parallel line to it is you're more fair, you're more good looking than other kings. So we have beauty and value on the mind here. Your looks and your words give a gift of chen to the world.

So let's just sit with that. It's just a fascinating use that to me kind of became an icon of like, okay, I don't understand this, so let me look at other examples that maybe are similar and maybe it might help me understand. So similar to this is two times in the book of Proverbs, when the dad is giving speeches in the opening chapters to his son. He talks about how the wisdom that he and his mom are trying to offer to the son. He calls it a wreath or a crown of chen or a necklace of chen on the neck.

So in other words, if a son or daughter listens to the wisdom of their mom or dad, they are wearing a crown or a necklace of chen on their neck. Isn't that interesting? It is. So there's something in the Hebrew imagination that connects grace with aesthetic beauty. Yep. And there's one more example of this where in Proverbs, the poet's describing a deer like running up a hill and it's called a deer of Chene. A deer of graciousness. And this is what you were saying when you talked about us using the word graceful. Yep, that's right. That it comes from this Hebrew idea.

And all these cases, something that's that brings either visual pleasure, or in the case of Chene poured out from a King's lips, it brings pleasure to your ears. It's the idea that when something is elegant or beautiful, it can be called a source of Chien. But the point is that these are things that make the viewer or the listener respond with favor. It brings favor from the viewer or listener.

Therefore, it can be called a deer of chen, a graceful deer. And favor, when you say favor, you're talking about that same word. Yeah. Chen can be translated as grace or favor. Yes, oh, favor, that's right. That's right.

Yeah, what do you mean by favor? Yeah, it's somehow I give you the gift of my attention of my goodwill or some gift that I'm going to give to you. I see. So, when I watch a really wonderful basketball player move with grace and then dunk the ball over someone. That's a gift to me that I got to experience that. Yeah, it's a gift to you, and you've experienced it as a gift. I experienced it as a gift.

When I watch someone dance with elegance, it's a gift to me. If someone says something really wise and wonderful and helps me ponder something in a significant way, that's a gift to me. If someone says something really wise and wonderful and helps me ponder something in a significant way, that's a gift to me. Yeah, you would call it a slam dunk of Hain. Yeah. But then Tim, what you just said was that when somebody gives a gift like that, then the response is also grace or favor.

Exactly. Here's how I put it in my notes just because I was trying to understand this and separate it out. So the focus of the word, kein, then, isn't just on the beauty or elegance of the object, but it's about how the beauty or charm of that object is perceived in the eyes of the observer. And so, rein refers to something that's valuable, or that generates a favorable response. It generates favor. When I look at it, I'm like, I like that.

I'll do what it takes so that they can be more of that. When you see a beautiful necklace, you're like, ooh, I want to look at that some more. That's really beautiful. You get the idea. Yeah. Okay. It's just an interesting use of the word grace. It just really struck me. Yeah. But it's consistent with how we use the word grace. Graceful. Yeah. Graceful. Graceful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like when you see beauty, it both offers a gift to the

world, but then it inspires people with a gift-like response. Put you in a good mood. It makes you want to spread the love. So, so to speak. I don't know. Even as we go through these examples, I still have a hard time being really precise about it, but they stir my imagination. I think that reciprocal response is really interesting and it's also similar to compassion in that way. Like when you receive compassion or forgiveness or grace, then the appropriate response is to extend that. So it poses an interesting question though. When I show somebody, which is the verb, Hannaan, when I show favor or grace to somebody,

is that only because they are like an ornament of chene to me? In other words, do I only show favor or grace when somebody warrants that grace from me or generates that grace because they're nice or favorable? Or are there uses of word, this word, when people show chanan or grace and it has nothing to do with whether it's beautiful or lovely or warrants that response. So that's the next corner to turn then. What is it that warrants a response of Hain from somebody? Does that make any sense? It does but I want to make sure though because you said there's a response to Ken, but then there's also just an object or a person or an animal having the attribute of Ken.

And those two things are connected but separate. And the versus you read, it was always about the object or the person having chen, not the response. I think when you say that there's a necklace of chen or a deer of chen, you're making a statement about the thing, about the beautiful thing, but I don't think you would say it if it didn't generate some kind of favorable response in the viewer. Right. And that's what creates the reciprocation. It's a graceful deer that inspires a graceful favorable response from me.

And the question is, well, what about when something isn't beautiful? What about when something isn't that nice looking or seems to warrant a favor? Does that mean you don't show favor? That's the kind of question I'm after here. Yeah, okay. And well, it seems like you would say intuitively, no, you wouldn't automatically respond with favor to something that doesn't seem favorable, but that you could buy a trick of the mind or buy your own will decide to be to respond.

When I say respond with hand, I error grace. All I could think of is the meaning of grace, grace, shes, not graceful. So I want to make sure when we're talking about this, are we separating those two right now or are we thinking about as a package? Like, if I'm responding to something beautiful I experienced with it's triggering in me delight then I'm saying that thing has Ken and that's because it's triggering this delight so I'm favorable towards it. But when you ask the question, can I still have that response if the thing isn't triggering delight, it seems like a weird question because why would you have a response?

Exactly. That's right. Yep. Yeah. So maybe this flesh is out. It was a little parable or something. Let's say I go to, oh yeah, this could. There's a lot of like childrens and like young adult theater in Portland.

You know, it's a chance for kids to get an experience of being in a play and so on. So I went with my boys, I don't know, six months or so ago to a production of Annie, you know, the Broadway, I was from when I was a kid. You know, and it's like, all, it's like anywhere from eight to 15 year olds, putting it on.

It was very entertaining. Was it always great? No. Yeah. But charming. In fact, it was. There was a certain amount of rein to it. Okay. Even though it was, but of course it's kids. And so there was an element of rein. And so at the end, when they're doing their like fundraiser for, hey, help us, you know, keep the troop going and the theater space and we're accepting donations so we can keep doing these things. It generated a response of chan from me.

But let's say I went to, you know, not a kid's production, but like a production by adults of Annie. And let's say it. Like it was just really terrible. Like you were cringing the whole time, like when is this going to be over? Totally. Yeah. So then the question is, but what if they still do a fundraiser at the end?

Yeah. That's the question I'm after. What about when something doesn't seem to warrant a response of chan? If you just ask that question, you'll see some interesting patterns in how the word gets used as S we move on. Okay, so these are words where gracious or grace is used in a relational sense. It's something that one person gives to another or that one person does to another. And most often it describes actions that display generosity, gift giving, or a favor, is how the English translations throughout history have rendered it.

So, for example, in the book of Esther, there's multiple times where people are coming before a king to seek rein from him. It's a verb, a noun used in a request form, to get his rein. And so usually it gets translated to seek favor or request favor. So for Esther, all of the Jewish people in the city of Susa are going to be killed. And so Esther goes before the king to get rein from him. So there it's pretty obvious what she's asking for. Yeah, action on behalf of her people. Let's go back to our play then. So it's like somebody soliciting generosity or doing a fundraiser at the end of a play. Let's go back to our play then. So it's like somebody soliciting, you know, generosity or doing a fundraiser at the end of a play. But in theory, if the king has allowed these people to be decreed to be exterminated,

it's the equivalent of a really me sitting in a really bad play, right? Right. I'm not inclined to view this with Hain. Right. The king allowed these people to be killed. But yet she's going to ask him for Hain anyway. So what's interesting is the King doesn't view the Jewish people with Hain,

but does he view Esther? I guess you kind of have to know the story. You know, I mean, it was this Persian beauty pageant was how she became Queen anyway. So she's delightful to the eyes. Yes, he loves to look at her. So she is like a woman of rein, going in to ask for rein for people

that he doesn't have rein towards. Okay. And he says yes. But for example, when Joseph's brothers are found, you know, who come and appear to him years after they betrayed him, they beg that he shows them Khen. They begged for favor. Let's see. Proverbs 1431. This is a good one. The one who oppresses the

poor insults his maker. But the one who shows Khen to the needy honors is maker. Yeah, there isn't anything about being needy that is delightful. Yeah. Anytime you encounter someone in need, it's not like you feel all this, like whatever it is that you feel when a deer prounces through a meadow. Yeah, or like it's a beautiful thing or something. Yeah, that's right. So in other words, what we're noticing in examples

of when somebody shows favor, it's highlighting the disconnect. Or what it's highlighting is that this truly is an act of generosity, of favor, of something that's not deserved. I think we're starting to connect to our word grace. Now there are some things that make something worthy of chen. It's beautiful, like a deer, it's like a beautiful necklace. Like the king views Esther, he thinks that she's beautiful. But there are also, and you would say the most genuine acts of chen are when you show favor towards something that you don't, you're not inclined

or wouldn't normally think of as beautiful or favorable. Like brothers who betrayed you or that kind of thing. Yeah. Okay, I think what's clicking to me is then, there's this foundational idea that something can have the attribute of Chén. I'm doing such a bad job saying this word. Ken?

Did I get it at that time? Ken. I'm kind of like right at the top of the back of my throat. That's good. Okay, yeah. Okay, this is clicking into me that some things have an inherent attribute of grace, and that they're pleasurable and delightful.

And that when you experience those, you respond with favor towards those things. It's just a natural way the world works. However, if you decide to respond to something that is not delightful with delight, and you're still showing grace, but now there's this generosity to it. So when someone comes and asks God to have grace on them, or for a person to have grace

on them when they don't deserve it, what you're asking is, hey, see me as delightful and beautiful, even though I'm not. Yeah. Yes. Like a perspective, a perspective thing, to be viewed as something of value or worth, even though I'm not. Yeah, like a perspective, a perspective thing, to be viewed as something of value or worth, even if not. Yeah, those are great summaries. It's hard, as I've been pondering this,

it's hard to find one English word that can do all these things. To show generosity highlights the fact that it's kind of going above and beyond what is marited or warranted. But it doesn't speak to the delight factor or the beauty factor. So you could say to show favor, which kind of gets a bit more to that positive disposition or delight.

And I guess you can do a favor meaning kind of has Generosity in there. Actually I think favor gets us a lot of the way, which is why it's such a consistent. But favor in English also has this other meaning of like, hey, do me a favor. Yeah. Oh, actually, that works. That works. It's a gift. Do something that isn't merited right now. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

You don't know this to me, but can you do this for me? You know, it's interesting. Our English word favor then has two different nuances then. You can do one of an act for somebody that they don't deserve. Or you can say he had favor towards me, meaning he viewed me with delight. Oh, I don't think we use the second, really. Well what about like, I favor one child over another or something? Oh, there it is. There it is. Okay, we do use it. We do use it.

Yep. Yeah, he favored. Favorite. Oh, yeah. Well, that's just occurring to me in this moment. Learning things about a language that you've used your whole life. This phrase here, Tim, let me find favor in the eyes. You have that that's a really common phrase that's used. Yes, okay, so yeah, next step. And in this nuance of meaning for the word,

the most consistently used phrase is to find rein in the eyes of someone or to give someone rein in the eyes. Is it someone or to give someone rein in the eyes? So Joseph is a slave in the house of an Egyptian called Patefar, but he's hardworking and he's really smart and good looking. And so we're told that he finds rein in the eyes of Patefar. Now you could just think he's good at his job and Pate fire gets pleasure

by watching Joseph do a good job. But then, pot of fire, looking, right, having eyes that see Ren in Joseph generates a response of Ren, he makes Joseph his personal attendant, he appoints him over his whole house. So Joseph's favorable behavior generates favor and generosity in Potaphar. Yeah, this idiom, this figure of speech, favor in the eyes of his youth, 47 times in the Hebrew Bible. It's a really, really common phrase.

Well, it's kind of the most common, or it's the most used of our senses in terms of how we take in things. And so you're going to delight in what you're experiencing, you're likely taking it in through your eyes. And so that makes sense. Yep. Yep. This is still a common phrase in modern Hebrew. Like if you're talking about a city, if you said, like Tel Aviv finds favor in my eyes is how you would say, I like Tel Aviv, but I don't think it's used with people anymore. Yeah. And old English, I feel like maybe that's because of the Bible.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Sounds Shakespearean. So what's interesting, if you go through these 47 examples, you'll see a pattern that when somebody finds chained in the eyes of another, it's almost always that the person who finds chained is in a subordinate position, they're of low status, or they're vulnerable. And so to find chained in the eyes of someone means that you're being given a gift of generosity, kindness,

by someone who you don't properly deserve it or don't necessarily merit it. It's a gift. It's truly a gift. And that's a nuance of gift-giving that Western culture has really lost. Have we talked about this before? Gift-giving? Yeah, we have. Yeah, but it's a big difference between Western culture and most human cultures for most of human history. We think of the ideal gift as a gift given, regardless of merit. Also, we think of the ideal gift as being given without any strings attached.

Right. No obligation to give a gift back. No obligation. Whereas in most cultures or most of human history, gifts to find favor in the eyes of someone and to be given a gift puts you in their debt. It makes you obligated to them. There are strings attached, so to speak. And so in all these cases, to find favor in the eyes of someone, usually is connected to status or worth or becoming indebted or obligated to somebody. It's really interesting. So Potaphar gives favor to Joseph, and then Joseph becomes this personal attendant, as

we're earning the favor that has been freely given kind of thing. So that's a big category of these. Despite someone's lack of worth or worth, they find favor in the eyes. Okay, so how we done? Sorry Tim, did you say that when the phrase there was favor in their eyes, that when that phrase is used,

that means it's someone of a higher position, looking and giving a gift to someone of a lower position. Correct. In other words, you never find the phrase, give me rein in your eyes, or he found rein in the eyes. You never find somebody in a vulnerable position showing favor to someone of a higher position. So if someone came into a courtroom like that poet and said in that song, what was it, 45, and said, your lips are drenched with hen. He wouldn't say I find grace in my eyes looking at you,

O'King. He wouldn't say that. Yeah, in other words, he would not say, O'King, you have found Hain in my eyes. Right, okay. Yeah, what he would say is, okay, may I find Hain in your eyes and dare enter your court? That would be how you use it. Okay. So you're always, yeah, it's always talking about the favorable response that you are getting

or hope to get from, yeah, from a superior. Okay, so all of these examples I've been about humans and humans, humans to other humans. And of all of the 170 uses of this word, the human-to-human acts of chan account for only one third of those 170, meaning two thirds of those 170, which is gonna be about 110. Yeah. I'm shooting from the hip here.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Is about God, God showing chan where people find a Ken in God's eyes. Bible trivia, who is the first person who received God's Ken in the story of the Bible? Noah. Did you know that already?

Well, I did Google earlier today. Oh, by Google, I mean, Bible works. Wait, what? Bible works? It's like Logos Bible software, you know? Did a search on Ken to see, because works. Wait, what? Bible works? What's works works works works works works works works. It's like Lagas Bible software, you know, did a search on Hain to see, because I was curious, I was curious about when God shows, when Moses says, I found favor in your eyes. God, I was wondering, oh, did God say that he favored Moses,

what she doesn't, but he says he favored Abraham and before that Noah, that those two found favor in his eyes. Yeah, the first person to find Chane in the eyes of God is Noah. It's in Genesis 6, and it's the introduction to the flood narrative, and so the whole little opening paragraph is about what God sees, the eyes of Yahweh. So it begins in verse 5, Yahweh saw that the raw, the badness of humanity was great on the land. Every purpose of the thoughts of humanity's heart was only raw, only bad, constantly. And so God says, he regrets making humans, he's grieved in his heart. So God says, he regrets making humans, he's grieved in his heart. But we're told, verse 8, Noah found Chene in the eyes of Yahweh. The eyes of Yahweh see lots of badness, but then they find one person and that person

generates Chene in the eyes of God. And the next thing he says is build-nark as a result. So what this sets you up to see then is that the providing of the ark and the means of escape is an act of God's graciousness. It's God being gracious because it comes from someone who finds chen in the eyes of the Lord. Now, is there a distinction between

if someone, I don't want to use the word deserve, but oh, oh, yes. Because it seems like with Noah, and I, you know, I'm not the Bible scholar here, but it seems like there was something that he'd, and his character. Yep, you're right. Actually, the next thing it goes on is to say, in the next sentence, after Noah found rein in the eyes of Yahweh, these are the record of generations of Noah. Noah was righteous and blameless in his generation. Noah walked, walked about with God. Yeah, so God's looking across the cast of characters on the planet.

Yep. And he's like, this is horrible. Yes. Like, everyone's thinking evil thoughts all the time, and there's violence, and this is ridiculous. And then he sees Noah, and it's like this shiny, beautiful necklace. Necklace. Necklace of Hain. Yeah, the ornament of Hain.

And then there's favor in his eyes to Noah. And that's not how we generally think, how I generally think of grace, right? Because you think of it as like Noah didn't deserve it. But in this situation, there's a sense of, yeah, he merited that favor in some way. Yeah, that's right. It's actually an important part of the story, is the figure who is sheltered from God's grievous.

He's grieved, right? He pulls back the bounds of order from Genesis 1 that keep the waters above up there, right? He pulls back his power, let's the cosmos collapse in on itself. But he spares 1, and the one that he spares is righteous and blameless, and that one finds favor in the eyes. That's a key theological point of the flood story.

It's God spares his blameless one. Problem. There's not that many blameless ones around. Yeah, therefore welcome to the plotline of the Bible. So, okay, so here's Noah, and he finds favor in the eyes because he's righteous and blameless. All right, so that's interesting. Let's go to another use of God showing favor. It's a story of Jacob and Esa. It's a story of Jacob and Issa. What, let's just quick survey of Jacob's character. It's about his story. Deceiver.

Deceiver. Cheats people. Right? Complex guy. He's a complex guy. Yeah, sometimes he does the right thing, but most of the time, he's a schemer. A schemer. So, after spending 20 years in exile from his brother and his dad, because he cheated and

lied to them, he goes to a far country to live with his great uncle, a guy named Laban, and his great uncle cheats him out of 20 years of his life, and that's the whole story. But what Jacob does is cheat his cheating uncle. They end up like cheating each other and this whole thing with flocks of sheep and it's a whole story. Cheatception, does that work? Inception, cheating within cheating within cheating. So essentially what Jacob does is he schemes up this way to cheat his uncle out of his flocks. But yet when he talks about it to his family, he says it's God. God is the one multiplying my flocks, but then there's this whole narrative of how he sets up these fake sheep.

So that Laban sheep will mate with sticks, but his sheep will be the only sheep that actually mate. And this is the whole thing. And so he multiplies his flocks through this really dastardly scheme, as my son would say. And uh... Your son says dastardly? Yeah. Yeah, I taught him the word dastardly.

That's awesome. And he actually uses it and I love it. I have never used that word. No. I think that's the first time I've ever even said it, out loud. Really? Dastardly, dads. So Jacob comes back and he is trying to reintroduce himself to his brother.

And so he sends ahead of him hundreds of animals as a gift to try to find favor in his eyes, chained in his eyes. And then when they finally meet face to face, Jacob's urging his brother to take all these animals, and what he says is, listen, God has shown me chained. I have plenty. Keep the animal. So in this story, Jacob is looking to find chain in the eyes of his brother, older brother, and he says, God has shown me Hain by giving me all these animals, which,

you know, don't ask me the real story. So what's interesting here is Jacob is not a person who deserves anybody's Hain. That's the whole point here. But yet he's asking for it. And he says that God has shown it to him. And it's true, in the story, God really does go above and beyond to keep dealing with the deceiver Jacob, and to bring the Messianic line and promise through him, despite his dastardly deeds. So Noah and Jacob become contrast characters. Both people end up getting favor in the eyes of God or man. Noah deserves that. Jacob seems to never deserve it, but both

receive it. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, in both instances, the word is grace. Yep, yep, to give me Chacheng, grace in the eyes of. Yeah. Yeah, so Noah's life and family being saved is an act of God's graciousness. And Issa forgiving his brother, God protecting and giving Jacob an abundance is viewed as the grace, the grace gift. And is this another example then of receiving grace and then giving grace because of that? Since Jacob saying, God's shown me grace and I have plenty. So now I'm

going to give you this in hopes that you will also show me grace. There's like a lot of different reciprocal relationships. Yeah. So I think the key thing here, John, well, I think both of you drew attention to it. In English, to show grace to somebody usually means they've done nothing to merit or warrant it. And that's not how the word is used in the Old Testament. You can still show generosity to someone who deserves it and still call it graciousness. But you could say the most profound acts of graciousness are when somebody doesn't deserve it. You would say that's a more ultimate act of chin. But both are acts of chin. It's interesting when you put it that way because you could say the ultimate

chin is, the ultimate grace is when you've experienced something with ultimate beauty. And then you respond with this ultimate profound response. Yeah, that's true. But what you're saying is the opposite or different, which is that the real ultimate grace is responding to something that doesn't merit that response, but you do it anyways. Yeah. What could be more awesome than to show rein to this thing that finds rein in my eyes. You're saying that? That's a noble use act of rein. But there's something about showing rein But there's something about showing Che'en to someone who doesn't find Che'en in my eyes, but you do it anyway.

Actually, you know what? That's a uniquely, it's a uniquely biblical thing. That's a value. And I've only learned this by learning more about honor and shame, for example, in I know enrollment culture in the first century, to be indiscriminate in who you show favor to is to be a sign of a lack of

judgment. Yeah. Because why would you give gifts to somebody who could never give you a gift back? Yeah, same in our culture. Like if I want to give something of or from myself to somebody else. It's a risk if they are not deserving. Like there's some sort of inherent risk in that. Or why would you celebrate something that doesn't merit grace? Like, yeah, that's right. That's right.

That would just, aren't we then saying, it's okay to do bad things or to be in a bad situation? Yep. So here we come to, it's a unique contribution. I think that the Jewish and Christian story made to the world is to elevate acts of favor and rein and grace to people who not only maybe don't deserve it, but to people who definitely do not deserve it, like Jacob. And I mean, Jacob,

his name has changed to Israel. He's the foundation figure of this entire people group. So you're telling a story about how the founder of our people group was a... Is it Shmarme dude? Was it a... Dastardly, Rascal, who deserved nothing but exile and banishment.

And the God of Israel just loves to show chen to people like that. That was a scandalous thing to say in the ancient world. And when we're honest, it's still a scandalous thing to say if we have years to hear it. There is, though, and I don't know, maybe this is, it's maybe inherent to human nature or it may just be our culture though,

that when we see the kind of grace that's undeserved, it does elicit a response of joy and pleasure for us. And maybe not in every situation. Yeah. Obviously not in every situation. But if you just think of like, lame is a rob, and you think of just the classic

that that story of John Valjean getting from the priest, something he didn't deserve, it is so moving. You're right, yeah. Yes, it is. Yes. But the important thing there is

lame is a rob is a deeply Christian work of art. Yeah. Not that other cultures didn't have or know about the practice of giving, being generous to somebody who didn't deserve it, but to elevate it as one of the ultimate virtues and to tell stories about how this is one of the defining traits of our God. That's stuck out in the ancient world. And I think still marks the Jewish and Christian God

as unique. This is what God is communicating when he says to Moses, after forgiving the people on Mount Sinai, who just made the golden calf by not walking away from them and abandoning his covenant. It's not just that you get the power of it. What the people deserve is that the person who rescued them and just made a covenant with them should walk away given.

And what God chooses not to do is that. He shows grace because he is gracious. It defines his character. I'm going to go to the beach. You've talked a lot about honor and shame, and I hear that a lot, this idea of honor and shame cultures. And honestly, I've never fully understood what that means. Mm-hmm. We should make some videos about it. Yeah, really? Well, because it's important vocabulary in the Bible, yeah.

And so just quickly, help me understand what an honor and shame society is and how they would think about grace. Oh, I see honor, shame societies are societies where the public rank, the social rank, and public status of a family, and individual, is of ultimate value in your sense of worth and value in the world. American culture, and European culture has been shaped by an intellectual, cultural movement going back four, five hundred years that has relocated or at least attempted to relocate value and status

in the eyes of the beholder. And Walt Disney Studios is the epitome of this value, of this redefined sense of value. I mean, just think of every Disney movie made in the last 20 years, it's be who you wanna be. Don't let anybody else's estimation of you determine your value and who you really are. Where an honor in shame society is, let society decide how valuable you are.

Yeah, or just the status into which you are born determines your value. And there are ways to climb the ladder of social value, it's regaining honor. And there's all kinds of ways you gain honor, it differs from culture to culture. But you could say it's a more externally focused sense of value and public rank, whereas Western cultures are much more individualistic and where your honor and value is more subjectively determined. And there's a fundamental differences between Western culture and pretty much the rest

of human history. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. But it creates big stumbling blocks when we read the Bible. And I think it prevents us from being able to understand a lot of the grace vocabulary. Yeah, so then how does that relate to showing grace in an honor shame society?

Why would showing grace be seen as unwise? Oh, yes. So when you show favor to someone, what you're doing is you're associating yourself with them and you're declaring them in the eyes of the public, they are worthy of my generosity. And you're also putting them in your debt so that, because you think,

that would be a good person to show favor to Because if people see them showing a favor back to me that will increase my honor in everyone's eyes So a lot of the vocabulary of glory or honor in the Bible is all kind of shaped in this in the storyline for many many cultures to show favor or generosity line. For many many cultures to show favor generosity, rein to someone of lower social rank who doesn't deserve it could be really foolish. The Greek philosophers wrote whole training manuals for teaching young Greek and Roman men who to pick as the recipients of your favor. It was really important to learn how to

discriminate. And so this is why God's grace in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was so scandalous to Paul because it was given to people like him who was trying to murder the Messiah, or the followers of the Messiah, and yet God gave him the gift of grace anyway. Yeah, Paul's a really good example of grace being unmerited because he was killing Christians. In the Hebrew Bible, it seems like people, when they pray for grace, at least they're turned toward God. They're asking for favor. But Paul wasn't even, he wasn't even turned toward Jesus. He was killing his followers. Yeah, you could say he becomes the herald of radical scandals. wasn't even, he wasn't even turned toward Jesus, he was killing his followers.

Yeah, you could say he becomes the herald of radical scandals grace. So, and again, what Paul's experience of that radical generosity that has no regard for someone's value or social rank is it's like the blossoming of this character trait of God all the way back here in the Hebrew Bible that starts with the Noah story. It's where the firstoming of this character trait of God all the way back here in the Hebrew Bible. That starts with the Noah story. It's where the first time this word occurs,

but it keeps it's a pattern that God is continually more patient, more generous with people than they deserve. And so that's why we're making the Golden Calf story that X is 346 becomes another iconic narrative of that. And then that moment of asking God for grace, show grace to me. It's repeated so many times. I have all these Psalms posted here in the notes. Psalm 4, be gracious to me when I am in distress. Psalm 6, be gracious to me, O Lord, I'm languishing.

My bones are troubled. I like that. Psalm 25, turn to me. Be gracious to me. I'm, I'm languishing. My bones are troubled." I like that. Psalm 25 turned to me, be gracious to me. I'm lonely and afflicted. But then the, you could say, the more scandalous acts of grace are like Psalm 51. When David, after raping a woman and killing her husband, says, be gracious to me, according to your loyal, ooh, be gracious to me, according to your husband says, be gracious to me according to your loyal, ooh, be gracious to me according to your loyal love, according to your compassion,

blot out my rebellious deeds. He's just quoting three of the five in Exodus 346. Now, and all those Psalms, it seems like the word mercy would be more appropriate. Mm-hmm. And is there a Hebrew word for mercy? And does that mean more that I don't deserve it? Well, I was just thinking how the word compassion

in the Greek New Testament is often translated as mercy. The emotional response, yeah. That's kind of pity, is that? Yeah, well, yeah, well, there is a word for pity, hoose. Yeah. But mercy, it might be compassion or gracious, depending on the context. My observations about your word,

Chris, from the previous conversation, compassion was that it can refer to actions or behavior, but really focusing on the emotional response that generates a behavior. Gracious is not tuning into the emotions. No. I don't think so. Well, if you see something beautiful, I mean, that's an emotional experience.

Oh, I understand. Maybe more perception oriented than emotion oriented. There you go. I guess that's what I mean to say. When you view something as beautiful, it generates a responsive ch'en. But when you will and choose to show ch'en to something that doesn't have value to you, that's not highlighting the emotion as such. It's highlighting that you are treating someone as delightful, even though you don't have reason to view them as delightful. So, where compassion you have this emotion of, I want to help, I want to protect,

motherly kind of attitude, versus with grace when it's undeserved, you actually don't have that feeling of... It's not that you don't have it, it's just the word doesn't focus on. The word is focused on the behavior of generosity, the act of generosity is mainly what this word gracious refers to. So, could you say that being gracious is a choice to view somebody in a certain way? Is that, would you say that's true? It's a choice.

I'm just thinking about how we would extend grace to other people. Is it a choice to put on a certain lens to view people as valuable and precious despite anything else? Yeah, to answer that, let's go back to Noah versus Jacob. Noah is righteous and blameless. Yeah.

It's as if it wasn't that hard for God to show Henn to him. Jacob's another matter. That truly was an act of that generous will of God to show favor to someone who didn't deserve it. But what's interesting, remember, is that the words, the precise words from Exodus 346, compassionate and gracious, they almost always occur together as a pair. Yeah, right. Which means that it's as if the compassion is telling us that this is about an emotional care from God, compassionate, displayed with actions of generosity that may or may not

be deserved in that graciousness. So as a pair, it's really a kind of complete idea of God's character. Yeah. And it's probably why it's paired so much then. I think so. Should we do one last little nugget? Because our word studies often kind of retell the whole story of the Bible through the lens of one word, this concept of Jesus as the expression of God's grace is explicitly picked up on in the introduction to the Gospel of John.

We may have mentioned this. The Exodus 346 is quoted explicitly one time in the New Testament, and it's in the prologue to John. And so when John says that the word, the preincarnate Jesus, this verse 14, chapter 1 of John, when the word became flesh and set up a tent, a tabernacle among us, and we saw his glory, the glory of the only, the one and only from the Father. So when he talks about, we saw his glory. He's echoing the story of Moses seeing God's glory on Mount Sinai.

So that God's glory on Mount Sinai became human and set up a tabernacle among us. And that one, he says, is full of grace and truth. And he's quoting here from two of the five character traits of God, from the second and the fifth. Last. Yeah. Is that meant to encapsulate all five?

Yeah, that's interesting. Do you think it's highlighting grace and truth specifically? Oh, that's interesting. Well, you know, I think his choice of grace might be determined by what he says next. He goes on to say, for from his overflow, his fullness, and here he's quoting from Exodus 34, 6 again, because he's full or overflowing with loyal love and truth.

So he says, from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. The Father has been giving grace over abundantly, just overflowing with it. Everybody has received is a recipient of God's grace whether they know it or not. Grace upon grace. The Torah was given through Moses. Grace and truth are realized through Jesus the Messiah. Some people see those two things as in contrast to each other. Right. And our English translations put the word but. The Torah was given through Moses, but grace and truth, but there's no but there in Greek. I think it's actually building one act of grace

on top of the ultimate act of grace. Because what he just says is, we've been receiving grace from this God all along, grace upon grace. Ah. The Torah through Moses? That was a gift. That along, grace upon grace. Ah. The Torah through Moses. That was a gift. That was a gift of grace.

And the fulfillment of the Torah and the storyline of the whole thing, ultimate grace upon grace is that grace and truth became human through Jesus. I think that's what his point is here. Well, that also makes sense in light of Moses receiving this revelation of God's character and communicating it to the people. And now these are the same characteristics that are communicated through Jesus.

Well, I've never thought of that. You're saying the reason John brings up Moses also is because Moses is the one that these words are first said to. Yeah, maybe. He's like the intercessor of those words or the communicator, mediator. So what he's asking us to see is just as God viewed these covenant violating idolaters at the base of Mount Sinai who deserved what they merited was that God give up on them and walk away from the covenant. But God continued to pursue them in covenant partnership to fulfill his mission among the nations. And what John is saying here is that it's that

character trait of God become human. The name we have for that character trait become human is Jesus of Nazareth. That's such a beautiful, that's such a beautiful thing to ponder. It is. Do you think a way to paraphrase this verse then would to not put these two things at odds is to say, so there's this grace upon grace. The first grace is the law. The law was the beginning of God's grace and truth, but then Jesus is the realization, like the culmination of grace and truth. Ooh, we could even make these into points of a sermon. The Torah is the revelation of God's grace and truth. Jesus is the realization.

That's the creation truth. Yeah. One of the most important treatments on grace in the old and new testaments in an ancient world was actually a work released and written up by a scholar John Barclay, a couple years ago called Paul and the Gift. It is majestic and it is like 600 dense pages. That's the book you read, and then you wanted to talk a lot about gift giving.

Totally, yeah, I learned so much. So two things, he has, John Barclay is releasing in November 2020, a smaller, much smaller condensed version of the whole thing called Paul and the Power of Grace. It's gonna come out. And if you Google John Barclay and Grace, you'll find a number of times he's given one hour talks where he summarizes the whole 600 book, page book. It's powerful stuff, man. It'll really, it's both intellectually

exciting because he learned so much, but it's deeply moving. We really ponder the scandal and the power of God's reign, the fact that God loves to give gifts to people, whether or not they deserve it. Very cool. All right. I think that was it. Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project podcast. We want to let you know we're collecting questions for upcoming question response episodes in this series on the character of God. If you want to have a question on the episode, please record yourself asking question, try to keep it around 20 or 30 seconds, and then transcribe your question and send that to info at BibleProject.com.

Again, the cord yourself, transcribe it, send it to info at BibleProject.com. We also want to let you know that our video on the word compassion is out on our YouTube channel. This is the first attribute of God that he gives himself in this passage in Exodus 34. You can find it on our website, BibleProject.com, and on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Bible Project. Next week, we're gonna be back, talking about the next attribute of God that he is slow to anger.

It's the only one that isn't positive as such. It's addressing something about God, about how God responds. He does sometimes get angry. I'm going to just call this the problem of God's wrath for modern readers of the Bible. This language has caused modern readers of the Bible enormous challenges in trying to read the Bible. And there are some narratives where God gets angry and then he acts in some way that's

terrifying. And if you start to stack up these stories and take them out of context, you can end up with the pretty distorted portrait of God. Today's show was produced by Dan Gummel, show notes from Camden McAfee, and theme music from the band Tense. We're crowdfunded nonprofit,

we're in Portland, Oregon, and we make free resources. To show the Bible as a unified story that leads us to Jesus. Thank you for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Amelia and I'm from the UK. I first heard about Bible Project by watching some of their YouTube videos. I use Bible Project to help me understand in more detail certain aspects from the Bible so that I can deepen my faith and share the gospel in a more understanding way.

My favourite thing is how much detail and effort they put into their resources so that we can comprehend detailed Bible concepts easily and simply. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus where a crowdfunded project by people like me find free videos, study notes, podcasts, classes and more at BibleProject.com you