Emunah : Faith and faithfulness in the Tanakh Emunah , faith or faithfulness, is about holding steady, holding firm, holding true to what is true: the faithfulness of God. There's a common misconception about faith: it's an idea or proposition to which you give assent. This is a half-truth. Faith is more than a proposition. It is a commitment to a promise: like the patriarchs and the prophets before us, we will live according to God's commandments, trusting in God's promises. In other words, biblical faith is faithfulness .
We find this understanding of faith throughout the Scriptures, including the Tanakh . I was originally asked to teach an overview of Tanakh. TaNaKh is an acronym for the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible: Torah means law or instruction, the first books or Moses, also known as the Pentateuch. Nevi'im means prophets, including Joshua through 2 Kings, because they include much prophetic material, as the major and minor prophets, except Daniel. Ketuvim means writings, including the poetry (Psalms, Song of Songs and Lamentations), wisdom literature (Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes) and histories (Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles).
The Hebrew Scriptures were officially recognized as a canon at Yavneh in 90 CE, where a Sanhedrin of early Rabbinical leaders convened after the destruction of the Temple . Scholars believe that a general canon was generally recognized much earlier. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, dates to at least 200 BCE. The Septuagint was the Bible of the Greek speaking diaspora and New Testament writers. It included all 39 books of the protocanonical Hebrew Scriptures, plus seven books that have come to be known as apocryphal or deuterocanonical (second canon) writings, all written during the period between Malachi and the New Covenant era. The Yavneh council did not include the apocryphal books and Protestant translations also do not include them; they seem to lack the inspiration of the protocanonical Scriptures. The Masoretic text is the Hebrew text of the Tanakh, preserved by Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes, from the first to tenth centuries CE. The Hebrew word mesorah (?????) means a tradition, that which is handed down. The oldest complete manuscripts of the Masoretic Text known to still exist date from approximately the tenth century, though there are a few earlier fragments.
The Masoretic text includes vowel pointings and concise marginal notes in manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, to help preserve the precise spelling and pronunciation of the text. The Dead Sea scrolls , dating from about the first century BCE, include at least fragments of all books of the Hebrew bible except Esther. Thus the Dead Sea scrolls confirm the historicity and accuracy of the Hebrew bible. Where there are discrepancies between the Masoretic text and Septuagint, the Dead Sea scrolls agree with the Masoretic version at least 95% of the time. The discrepancies are almost always minor, though there are a few interesting differences. Ps 22:13 in Jewish bibles is translated from the Masoretic text as “like a lion at my feet,” while Ps 22:16 in Christian bibles is translated from Septuagint as “they pierced my hands and feet,” which is more obviously prophetic of Yeshua's suffering on the tree. A Dead Sea scroll fragment supports the Septuagint tradition: “they pierced.” Tanakh is the foundation upon which Yeshua and his apostles built New Covenant teaching. Together with the Brit Chadasha or New Covenant, Tanakh is the foundation of our faith. Now I will trace the theme of faith through the Tanakh.
Genesis 15:6 says, “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” This verse should be familiar to readers of the Bible, because Sha'ul quotes it in Romans 4:3. The Hebrew word translated “believed” here is aman . aman can mean believe, trust, have faith; it can also mean support, nourish, confirm, make firm, make lasting. Derived from aman is the Hebrew word emunah , meaning faithfulness, trust. It conveys the idea of firmness, steadfastness, stability, steadiness, reliability, support. For example, in Exodus 17:12 , “12 When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up-- one on one side, one on the other-- so that his hands remained steady [ emunah ] till sunset. Does this verse give you an image of what emunah means in Hebrew? The hands of Moses remained steady, steadfast, with the support of Aaron and Hur at his side, upholding them. The children of Israel won the battle so long as Moses held his hands steady, because his faith strengthened their faith. Emunah implies perseverance, commitment: because God commands and promises, we will trust and obey. The word emunah is often attributed to HaShem himself.
Deut 32:4. “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” God is as firm as a Rock. A rock doesn't give way easily, it gives strong support to those who lean upon it. Like a rock, God endures, stands firm, and can be trusted. Deut 7:9 “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him.” God demonstrates his emunah by keeping his promises, his covenant of love to those who love him. Psalms 145:13 assures us, “The LORD is faithful to all his promises” Similarly, Revelation 3:14 declares, “These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation.” Who is the Amen, the faithful and true witness? Yeshua. Indeed, Yeshua is very faithful. Indeed, Amen is also a Hebrew word, derived from the Hebrew verb aman . These are the words of the Amen, because He is the faithful and true witness. When worshipers say “Amen,” they are affirming, endorsing, or supporting what they pray. We are saying, “this is worthy of trust, it is reliable, solid, stable, permanent, lasting; we affirm it as true; may God bring it to pass, we commit ourselves to trust and follow it.” Amen? 2 Corinthians 1:20 “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Messiah. And so through him the ‘Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Messiah.” Sha'ul understood that the Hebrew for “Amen” means to stand firm .
The word emunah is attributed to people as well as God. It refers to those who remain stable (i.e., faithful) amid any unsettling circumstances of life, because God's truth has established them. 1 Samuel 2:35, from the Nevi'im, says: “I will raise up for myself a faithful [ emunah ] priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always.” What does Hashem have in mind by an emunah priest? He will be faithful: he will do what God does, faithfully. What is God's promise to the faithful priest? “I will firmly establish his house.” This is a promise we can rely on. It is affirmed again and again in the Ketuvim. Psalms 31:23 “Love the LORD, all his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful.” Lamentations 3:22-25: “Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness [ emunah ].
I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."” In the midst of the great calamity , the prophet affirms Hashem's love and faithfulness, thus reaffirming and strengthening his own faith. This is emunah . Amen? So Psalm 18:25 says: “To the faithful you show yourself faithful .” God wants us to trust in his faithfulness, to lean on him for support when we need it. For a person to be faithful is not merely to believe an idea, but hold true to it. It is not a matter of leaning upon one's ideas or one's own strength, for God knows that we are but grass, like a reed swaying the breeze. Rather, it is a matter of faithfully leaning upon the word of God, which endures forever. As Isaiah 40:8 says: “Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
God is looking for people of emunah . Proverbs 20:6. Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find? Matt 7:22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” What is Yeshua looking for? Will he find faith on the earth? He says plainly what he wants to find in the next verse: 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” There's that rock again. God's word is like a rock, if you build your life on it. Note that Yeshua is not looking for people who lean upon themselves. It is not a matter of your own inner strength. It is a matter of your trust in God's strength , your willingness to put his words into practice, and keep putting them into practice, even when the storm comes.
Habakkuk 2:4 declares: “the righteous will by faith ( emunah )” Sha'ul quotes this text twice, in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11. It became the battle cry of Luther and the Reformation. Let's consider the original context. God revealed to the prophet that He would use one nation to punish another. This situation would require a firm reliance on God, upon his justice and wisdom in running the universe. Stability and support were needed if a remnant of God's people were to outlast and survive the impending “day of calamity.” They are needed to today in Eretz Yisrael. Amen?
The Jewish writer Leo Baeck describes emunah as the “inner firmness and peace, the strength and constancy of soul.” Habakkuk demonstrates this faith, this emunah, when he concludes his book, his meditation, “Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to go on the heights.” Can you do this? In time of crisis, when a fire tests you, can you make the Lord your strength?
Now, let's consider Galatians 3:11. “Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."” Is Sha'ul saying that faith is what we think? Not if we think something today and think another thing tomorrow. Rather, faith is what we believe and live by; faith is how the righteous live . The righteous live by trusting in the covenant faithfulness of God.
Perhaps in their zeal to avoid the works-righteousness that they saw in Medieval Catholicism, Luther and other Protestants may have over-emphasized faith as an idea or belief. Indeed, Luther regarded James as an “epistle of straw ,” questioning whether it should be included in the Bible, because Yaakov wrote, starting in chapter 2, verse 18: “ But someone will say that you have faith and I have actions. Show me this faith of yours without the actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions!” Apparently Yaakov was aware of a misunderstanding of what Sha'ul had taught earlier, perhaps due to the influence of Hellenistic philosophies such as Platonism and Gnosticism.
Separating faith and faithfulness makes no sense to a Jewish apostle. So Yaakov continues: 19 “You believe that “God is one”? [Thus affirming the Shema, the creed of Judaism.] “Good for you? The demons believe it too—the thought makes them shudder with fear!” [Demons understand the prepositional content of the creed, but they don't live by faith.] ”But, foolish fellow, do you want to be shown that such “faith” apart from actions is barren? Wasn't Avraham avinu declared righteous because of actions when he offered up his son Yitzchak on the altar? 22 You see that his faith worked with his actions; by the actions the faith was made complete; 23 and the passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled which says, “Avraham had faith in God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness.” Thus Yaakov clarifies what is meant by this verse. When Avraham headed up Mount Moriah , and told Isaac that God would provide the lamb for the sacrifice—that was emunah .
In the Tanakh and Brit Chadashah, the Word of God is more than an idea or proposition. In linguistic terms, it is a speech-act : an utterance with a force , intended to bring about an effect . God created with a speech-act: “ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.” Isaiah 55:11 says: “ so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” This isn't as mysterious as it sounds. Hashem backs up his word by bringing into effect. Sometimes there are conditions. He may want to bring his word into effect through our emunah . A promise takes effect when (and if) it is kept. A command takes effect when it is obeyed. A blessing takes effect when it is received as an inheritance. So when Isaac gave his blessing to Jacob, he could not retract it, no matter how much Esau cried, because the blessing has no meaning if it is not kept. There is no speech-act for un-blessing.
So the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words in the Jewish tradition) are not ten ideas or even ten suggestions: they are mitzvot: if we obey them, we will inherit blessings. (See the beitsimcha.com web site for the teaching on the Ten Blessings that I gave here a few years back.) So when you confess with you mouth that Yeshua is Lord, consider what it means to confess that Yeshua is Lord . Lord means you will obey his commands. So faith is not merely intellectual assent: it is keeping faith. It is covenant faithfulness.
In the Hebrew mind, emunah means confidence in God's faithfulness. So in Psalm 27:3, David declares, “Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.” How is David able to be so confident? Because he knows that “in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will … set me high upon a rock.” This knowledge requires perseverance. It requires hope. It worked for Joseph when he was cast into an Egyptian dungeon. It worked for Richard Wermbrandt when he thrown into a Communist dungeon. There comes a time when you need to lean upon the emunah of God. This is our faith.
People talk about a “leap of faith.” You may need to leap once in a while, like Habakkuk's dear leaping up on high places. But it is better to speak of a walk of faith. Hebrews 11 also remembers the faith of Abraham. (Luther didn't like Hebrews much either.) “8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” It was a long walk! A walk of faith, emunah . Hebrews 11:11 continues, “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.” What was Abraham's faith? “He considered him faithful who had made the promise .” Abraham trusted in the faithfulness of God, to keep his promise or covenant. This is emunah .
Once, God sent a prophet to me to promise me that through me he would form a community….I was a bit awe-struck when I received this word from this man, an elder from a covenant community in Minneapolis . Who, me? I was a computer science professor (still am!), not a congregational leader. A few years later, my wife and I started an informal Messianic Jewish fellowship in our house. Then we walked it out, by faith, one step at a time, as Hashem kept his word, taking a seed and making it and growing it into a community called Beit Simcha, House of Joy, rejoice….
God has been faithful to bring about the vision, through human faith and faithfulness. What has God promised you ? Be sure of it today. Be certain even if you do not see it yet.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Heb 11:1. Faith is being sure, holding firm to, holding true to what is true, to the word that God has given us. For his word is faithful and true. “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Heb 10:23. Amen? “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24 Amen? “For he will prove himself faithful to the faithful.” Amen!
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