Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: One of my absolute favorite hymns, and I'm so excited that we've just added it to our new resource of hymnals is Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: I love that one. I love it.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Why do you love it so much?
[00:00:10] Speaker B: I love the words, the music, everything. And the way I feel when we sing it.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: I'm the same way.
So this is a song that I would often work into some of my seminary lessons. And there's actually a recording of the BYU choirs singing it. And every time I show it, I cry. It's so I can remember one time showing it to my class. And when it got done, one of my students raised his hand and he goes, why is Ebenezer Scrooge in that song? And I laughed and I was like, oh, my goodness, you're right in the second verse. And I want to make sure I get it right. It says here, I raise my Ebenezer hither. By thy help I'm come and forever. I was like, why is the name Ebenezer in this sacred song about Jesus Christ? Then I came to finally understand something beautiful. And here's why we have these rocks.
So the word Ebenezer is first found in 1st Samuel, chapter 2, verse 17. You're going to read about it there. It's written into this song, and it's two Hebrew words, Eben and Azer, or Eben and Ezer, however you want to pronounce that.
Eben means rock, so know that have the rock have Eben, but Ezer, oh boy, is that word so awesome. I'm going to tell you what that word means and how it connects to Eve. Welcome to Jesus Christ in Scripture. Finding Christ on Every page. I'm Tammy Usalak hall with my friend Dr. Donald W. Perry, and. And grab your scriptures. You're going to want to turn to Genesis, chapter 2, verse 18. Let's highlight it. I'm going to read it and Don's going to teach us some really cool stuff about this. So verse 18 says, and the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him an help meet for him. Don, take it away.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: All right. We're going to continue with our discussion of Eve's sevenfold uniquenesses.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: I love showing how she's so unique. Down the road, we'll show people how Adam's unique. They're both vital, but they're both unique. But we also will look at how Eve is a type and shadow of Jesus. It's a powerful type, by the way. I love it. So the word help. This is important.
And I've noticed there are traditions and different faiths, but we'll stick with the scriptures and tell us what the Hebrew says.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Of all God's creative works, only Eve is called help. I want to emphasize that prophets, leaders, magistrates, judges, kings, in the Bible, none of them are called help. None of them. Only Eve. So of all the peoples, nations and important people, only Eve is called help. And then in a minute, we'll see that God himself is called help. God is help. Eve is help. So we'll unravel this a little bit.
The Hebrew word for help is. It's pronounced differently in different dialects, but ezer, and those that know Hebrew know how to spell it. And it means help. I use three lexicons, as you know, three different lexicons. And they also say help. It's not help meet. Help. Meet is. That's two words. And meet is Old English. And it's M E E T M e e T, help meet. It's not help meet. It's not help, mate, it's help. It's not helper. It's not subservient helper, girl, helper, lady, or the help. It's help. And we're going to raise the importance of her in just a moment. Scholars. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Well, I was going to say. So with that, in your scriptures, where you have right here a help meet mark the word meet, because that means suitable to equal with. That's the word meet.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: So now she is an ezer. She is a help. So suitable to Adam.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: So that's really significant.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: That's it. So scholars try to take this apart. And I've told you, the lexicons say help. Some of the scholars have said helper or partner or power or savior. They're just trying to grasp how important this is. In any case, never does the term ezer signify a lesser status to Adam. In fact, God himself is identified as a help or ezer in all these verses. I think they're like 15. I may not have listed all of them. So God's a help.
Eve is a help. If Eve is subservient, does that mean God is subservient because he's helped? No, it's raising Eve in this instance, up to God. Not equal to God. We're never equal to God, but.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Right. I think throughout history, that word right there has meant that Eve's going to help Adam, she's going to be his helper. But this new understanding makes it elevated, like no. And I Love how you pointed out no one else is given this title in Scripture. No one. This Ezer. So here's Eve being called an Ezer. God is called an Ezer. There's something significant about what they do as Ezers that we want to talk about.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Okay. So how is Eva Help? How is God a help? So first, he protects his creative works, male and female, from mortal destruction of many categories, Famines, savage enemies, death and the grave. He crushes their foes and strikes down their adversaries. How is Eve a help? She is a life giver, a life force, the progenitor of all living who saved humankind from mortal destruction and extinction. Eve thus is a shadow to God himself, who is also called Ezer. And we did the shadow in that one episode where it doesn't look.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: And we've got more on shadows coming up.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: This is the next one. Eve is Life.
So Genesis 3:20, for those that are in their scriptures, contains this kingpin statement.
Adam called his wife's name Eve. Now, Eve is a Hebrew word that means life.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Everybody write that down because we've translated Eve wrong. So right there, that's what it means. Eve means life.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: The word Eve does not mean the mother of all living, but she is the mother or the giver of life, of all living. So note Moses 4. 26. Adam called his wife's name Eve, and then this explains it, because she's the mother of all living. For thus have I, the Lord God called the first of all women, which are many. Moses 4:26. Notice this number one first statement explicitly identifies Eve as life. Second statement sets forth why she's life. Because she's the mother of all living. I hope everyone knows the difference here. I've heard people say Eve. Eve's name means the mother of all living. No, it means life, but it signifies the mother of all living.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Correct?
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Yep. The third statement sets forth that God formulated the name Eve, not Adam. That's an important point.
I've heard people say if you name something, you have power over it. Notice this. I, the Lord God called the first of all women.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Well, and going back to that last episode, he built her and he named her.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Very cool. Genesis, chapter three, verse 20. So you want to go there and make sure you mark this in chapter three, verse 20. And it talks about how Adam called his wife's name Eve. Eve is given the designation mother before she gave birth to her children. This is a quote from Sherry Dew. While we tend to equate motherhood solely with maternity in the Lord's language, the word mother has layers of meaning, she explains. We are all mothers in Israel, and our calling is to love and help lead the rising generation through the dangerous streets of mortality.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Don't you love that quote?
[00:07:10] Speaker A: I do love that quote. Because when you think about, Eve was built to build, and you automatically, I go to the ability of a woman to build a life within her. But for those women who don't give birth, you're still building. Women were built to build emotionally, emotionally, socially, all of those things. So I just think this is beautiful about how everybody is an Eve. Everybody can be a mother.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Very cool.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: So I've never told you this before.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: My mother, she's 98 years old. She's a widow for many years. When Camille and I go visit her and the children, if they're still around, mom says, teach me. Almost every time, every day, teach me something new. So I pull out my computer and I share a PowerPoint with her, and then we discuss it. We'll look at a screen, and it might be on any topic. And she loves, loves to learn. So she asked me, I want you to do some podcast.
See, I was. I've been so busy with publishing books and articles. I have a new textbook out on biblical Hebrew and so on.
And I've done some podcasts with you and so on. But she said, I want you to do some. And we're hoping that she's still around when these see the light.
But I want to tell one special story when I was about 10 years old, about my mom and how special she is as a mother. It's my mother, when I was about 10, I used to like. I like to make homemade cookies. Oatmeal raisin or chocolate chip. And I would make some. I'd always ask mom, and she'd let me. And then I'd eat some of the dough while I'm cooking the rest.
Dough with raw egg in it and so on.
And one time I made. Made the cookies. I followed the pattern and the recipe, and it didn't taste right. The dough was terrible. And I said, mom, something's wrong with the dough. So she came over and. And she tasted it and she said, how much sugar did you put in? I don't remember.
I put a half cup in. She said, how much salt? I said, half teaspoon. And I knew those terms and so on. She said, show me the sugar. So I showed her the sugar. I had put in salt, a half cup of salt and a half teaspoon. Of sugar. I switched it and she knew right off. She tasted it.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: She knew because it tastes like play doh.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: She said, we have to throw this out.
And I said, in my cleverness, in my Genius As a 10 year old, I said, why don't we just keep adding enough, make enough batches until we equal that much sugar? I mean, that would have been 50 batches or something. Yeah, I was really a dumb kid, as you can see. But she was so nice and thoughtful. And we started over. And that's just one of hundreds or thousands of stories of my mother and how sweet she is.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Oh, and what a great example. Like, you just shared the perfect story of a woman who built you.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: In so many ways. All the building. Wow, that's amazing.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: So I hope she gets to watch some of these.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: I do too. Let's give a shout out to your mom. What's her name?
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Elaine.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Hi, Elaine.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: She's up in Idaho.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: You did good.
He's a keeper.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: All right, ready?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: More on Mother.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Okay, here we go. Mothers are vital to society. This cannot be overstated. Some cultures celebrate motherhood with special days of observance such as Mother's Day and Mothering Sunday. Some religious communities employ honorific titles that include Mother, for example, Reverend Mother, Mother Superior, Mother of God, Mother Teresa. But the first and greatest title is recorded in the garden narrative. Eve is the mother of all living. As one biblical scholar concludes, Eve had the role as creatress of man, and she is exalted as the ancestress of all mankind. Oh, I like that quote. That is a good quote.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: That's a good one.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Very good quote.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Now we're going to look at the two significant Hebrew words. We've already looked at them briefly.
Both of these, ezer and the Hebrew word chava is help and life. And then notice this. Notice how important this is.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Wow. Eve is a type and shadow of Jesus. So both Eve and Jesus Christ are called life. Both Eve and Jesus Christ are called help. Beautiful.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: That really establishes Eve, doesn't it?
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: In the history of eternity and the future of eternity.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Well, this is a great way to end because then we just have to go back to the rocks with how we started.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: So I said they were two Hebrew words. And now you know what ezer is? So we have eben, which is rock, Ezer, which is help. Here I raise my rock of help, and it's saying Jesus Christ. And so this has been a beautiful discussion to see the connection that Eve is connected to the Savior, Jesus Christ. And here I raise my Ebenezer. And I'm sure there were many times in her life as she built people, that she called upon her Savior for his help, for his absolute health, help, for the lives that she was creating. So thank you, Dawn. What a great discussion. One of the best things I heard a scholar one time tell me is, whatever I give, I get back. And I understood what he meant, because he says, whenever I learn something and I teach it, I remember it. So our challenge is for everybody. Teach this, teach it in your classes, teach it to everybody, and you will remember it. And this is something you want to remember. So thank you, Don.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: It's been a great privilege. Thank you.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: So have a great week studying more about Eve. Shalom, and goodbye.
