Chapter 2
Ruach
“The Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” Another Hebrew lesson: ruach is the word for spirit. It has a story behind it. We translate it in three different ways: spirit, wind, and breath. Any of these three translations is correct, according to the context… right? It doesn’t make sense that the breath of God hovered, and it doesn’t really make sense that the wind of God hovered either…
Ruach (roo-ach) is thought of in Hebrew thought as this sort of energy. It isn’t so much spirit or wind or breath, but this energy of God that is laced through the fabric of space-time. When you look at the Hebraic thought, you find a translation of ruach as something much more like a tangible energy (like wind?) that is woven into the creation.
Ruach is in everything. For the living creature, ruach is considered to be the breath. At least, ruach imparts the divine image to man, thus resulting in the nishmath (breath) that Adam breathed. Another way to help understand the ruach is to look at what exactly it means that it “hovered” over the waters.
Rachaph
Martin Luther translated the verse as, “The Spirit of God hovered over the waters that were not yet divided into those of heaven and those of earth.” The reasoning behind saying hovered instead of brooded or moving (like the American Standard Version) is because of the one other time that the verb for hovered shows up.
There is only one other time that the word is used. Rachaph is the verb that means relax. The verb form that is used is the Piel feminine singular participle. For those who don’t know what that means, the Piel conjugation is an intensive form. “Moses broke the tablets” would become “Moses smashed the tablets.” You intensify the verb. A Hebrew participle is an adjective. The verb acts like an adjective. You find this in the statement “The loving man…” Love is a verb made into an adjective.
When Rachaph is intensified and then placed as an adjective, the only other place we see this is in Deuteronomy 32: “As an eagle stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings, He took them, He bears them on His pinions.” What is the Piel participle? The idea is that the ruach fluttered, or vibrating intensely, as to stir up its young. God’s ruach hovering over the waters is less about just moving over the waters or simply looking out at what there was, and more about causing the creation itself to bring about order and lesser degrees of entropy.
What shall we define ruach as? Is it wind? Yes. Ruach is that which causes the creation to be stirred, much like a wind or torrent. Is it breath? Yes. It is the very aspect of life in the universe. Ruach is the life force of the universe that is bringing more and more glory to it. Is it spirit? Yes. You can’t measure ruach. You can’t see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, or hear it. It must be experienced in a deeper form. I define it as energy.
The ruach of God isn’t natural (wind or breath) or spiritual (spirit-cloud-thing). It is both at the same time. It has a physical aspect of being in the cosmos, and then there is this mothering aspect of it birthing the creation of Genesis 1. This bigger concept of ruach helps us to see that God is within the creation. It also helps us to see that God is creator.
Lets start with a thought of ruach being within creation. According to Genesis 1, it would appear as though this ruach wasn’t contained to our physical realm, but at the same time it is woven into the fabric of space-time. My mind instantly asks the question: What do we know from science that would attest to this?
Science
So lets talk science for a minute. We all know that science has all the answers. (That was sarcasm, seeing as the “leading scientists” are devout on Darwinism and atheism.) There is a realm in the branch of physics that speaks about dark energy. Specifically, we read about these finding in cosmology and astronomy. Dark enegy isn’t something that we can give a one-sentence definition for. It is also a concept.
It was “discovered” that the universe is expanding. I don’t doubt this. There are Bible verses that say God stretched out the heavens. The “proof” and “evidence” used to support such claims is dubious and can be interpreted in other ways, but I’m going to give it to them. It was discovered recently that the universe isn’t merely expanding – the expansion rate is accelerating. There must be a force or energy that would cause the universe to expand at an accelerated rate. That is dark energy. The problem with dark energy isn’t the mathematics and science to show it must exist, it is that in all the tests and experiments ran, we can’t find it.
Dark energy is supposed to make up over 70% of all of the known energy in the universe, and yet we can’t find it. However, if the universe had a rapid inflation at the beginning (which I don’t doubt because I have my own theories on how the universe began), then it would take energy to do this. I think that (from verses like Genesis 1:6 where raqia means an expanse – translated firmament) the Holy Spirit that hovered over those waters entered those waters and created an expanse dividing the waters from the waters. This would be a rapid expansion of the universe.
From this rapid expansion, in order to conserve energy, planets, stars, and galaxies would be birthed out of the hearts of other galaxies. This is probably how God created the stars on day 4. The rapid expansion then ceased after God had finished His work with it, which is why we cannot find dark energy today. The very fact that it is being displayed in all modern cosmogony theories only goes to attest that there is evidence from science that this ruach does exist and is interwoven in space-time.
This is dark energy. We know it exists, even though we’ve never actually seen it. We’ve found it on our computers and in our formulas. We’ve seen it show up in data. Dark energy actually (supposedly) takes up about 70% of all the known matter in the universe, even though it is invisible. Suddenly, modern scientists are starting to sound like ancient Hebrew poets.
Dark energy and dark matter are perfect examples of ruach showing itself within the fabric of space-time. String theory speculates that if you were to break everything down to the most basic element, you would have 11-dimensional strings. We can’t comprehend 11-dimensional, nor can we truly prove its existence. Thus, another god has been created where many skeptics ask where the proof is. But my point is that these strings, these 11-dimensional strings, account for our laws in physics, how everything is sustained, and how everything began (so it is assumed.)
Behold modern science. It is ancient.
Now, when I talk about ruach, I don’t want to limit it to something like strings and dark matter/dark energy. Ruach is still something beyond that. When I talk about the ruach, I talk about the very essence of life. It is the most basic and primeval thing that gives order to the chaos and light to the darkness.
When the question arises on how we should translate ruach, we should say yes. Is it spirit? Yes. Is it wind? Yes. Is it breath? Yes. It is the very presence of God here on this earth. It is something that brings life and breath and hope. It is something that holds everything together. Ruach is a fascinating word that is expansive and doesn’t seem to be rightfully translated when we use small words like “the Spirit of God.”
Ezekiel
Lets look at another example of ruach. We find in Ezekiel 37 a story about some dry bones in a valley. This is a vision. The story goes that God asks Ezekiel as he is looking out upon these bones if they can live. They are “very dry.” A dry bone is very brittle, and powder rubs off of it. You can pass it around a room and when it comes back to you, you will only have a fragment of the bone you started with. It turns to powder.
These dry bones are in a valley, and God asks if they can live. Is it any wonder why the prophet seems to not have the faith necessary to say yes? He says, essentially, “God, only you can do that, and I’m not sure if you really want to.” God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the wind. The prophet does. And the wind blows, and the bones come together, bone to bone, and they form skeletons.
God then says to prophesy to the breath. Ezekiel does. Breath comes upon those skeletons, and they are transformed into a living breathing army. There is flesh and tendons and lungs and a nervous system and a digestive system and hearts and everything necessary to call these dry bones living breathing human beings. They stand, as it says, as an army.
God tells Ezekiel that these dry bones in the vision represent the whole house of Israel. Without getting too far into the eschatological meaning of the text, I simply want to point something out: the word used for both wind and breath is ruach.
Both times, ruach is used. Why is it translated as one word the first time, and another word the second time? One reason is because that makes sense. Another reason is because the translators lacked the Hebraic understanding to know that there is a deeper meaning to this. When something is repeated in Hebrew, it means that you need to pay attention to what is going on. It draws emphasis.
And here in Ezekiel, God says to prophesy to the ruach twice. The first time it had this effect; the second time it had a different effect. So what is essentially happening is that these bones are getting plugged into the ruach of the universe, and something tangible actually happens.
Let me ask about your testimony. When you came to Christ, did you wake up the next morning with an understanding that you didn’t have before? Did you wake up to a reality of morals and ethics that you didn’t see before? Was there something that when you woke up the next morning, or even as the week passed, that you realized you weren’t the same as you were before? Where did that come from?
I suggest that you were plugged into the ruach. Many times we’re taught that we found God, or God found us. The problem is that this teaches people God is outside, and we are inside. We have to open the door to let God in. The truth is that God is, and always has been, inside. We just haven’t realized it.
The fall was the disconnection from this understanding. There was the interconnection of all things through this ruach. The ruach of God was in all things, through all things, and around all things. You found God in your daily life, without Scripture. Why? Scripture wasn’t written. It didn’t need to be. They were in the Garden where the words of God were always around them and always before them. The ruach taught them and plugged them in. They were always tapped into this ancient energy of the universe that stemmed from the God who created it.
So when we go back to Genesis 1, and we read about the Spirit of God, and then the light, what are we reading? You guessed it: emphasis. It is more emphasis of the same thing being stated two different ways. God is the ruach, and God is the light that pierces the darkness. They are two ways to describe the same thing.
Then there is order brought about day after day until we reach rest. Lets not rewrite everything from chapter 1, but simply build upon it. When we’re saved, we’re tapped back into this ruach. This ruach is something that we walk in (the spirit), and it leads us into all truth. While we’re being led into all truth, darkness and chaos are taken out of our hearts and lives and characters. Death is replaced with deeper and deeper intimations of life.
The danger comes when we teach people about things like mountain top experiences and second or third or infinite amounts of works or grace or you’re saved, but your not filled… When we teach people that you have to plug yourself in over and over and over again, you are saying that you will eventually come unplugged. But that isn’t what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that you are plugged in and you stay plugged in. Even though we do journey and come to deeper and deeper stages of life, we aren’t supposed to go from mountaintop to valley to mountaintop. We are always in a valley pedaling up the mountainside. Sometimes the mountainside is steeper, and sometimes our legs are more tired.
Concluding Thought
I would like to spend the last segment of this chapter discussing that this is a stepping stone. I’m building something here. In order to best set ourselves up for the next step, I want to leave you with a good sense of ruach.
When we talk about God, we talk about a lot of character traits. We have almost unlimited sources about God. There are books, movies, articles, sermons, sermon series, notes, commentaries, and opinions all over the board. You have people who have these opinions, and then others who strongly disagree with those opinions. But in the end, we’re not really talking about who God is. We’re still only describing His scent.
So when we’re trying to know God, and I turn to something like ruach, I’m trying to express something bigger than character traits. God is communal. We know this from Genesis 1. He is one (elohim), but He is three. And these three never try to bring glory to themselves, but to the other two parts of the Godhead. Jesus always wanted His Father to get glory, and He spoke of the Spirit. He spoke of His Father intending to glorify the Son. Everything is communal in a way that God is always sacrificial to the other parts of His own being. That is the basis of the community God requests us to live in (John 17:11).
We also see something of God’s nature in that He is light. He always brings order out of the chaos and darkness. He always hears the cry of the oppressed. He always walks with us when all seems lost. When hope seems gone, God is willing to meet us there and walk through it next to us, not ahead of us asking us to come to Him.
This idea of God’s ruach brings about the understanding that God has always been with us. He longs to dwell in us. He longs to be with us. The whole point of the Tabernacle was that He would dwell in the midst of His people. He never says He is going to be in the Tabernacle or Temple. These are just buildings. He wanted to dwell with His people, and that was the only way they were willing to accept Him.
God is with us. He wants to be with us. He desires us. In a sense, He needs us. I know this will get me in trouble. We think that God doesn’t need us because He can exist apart from us, whereas we would not exist without Him. But in the same way that I need my wife, God needs His people. He longs for them. He longs to be with them. This is why Jesus had such heartache upon the earth: “Oh how I long to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks, but you are not willing.” Jesus says this as He looks upon Jerusalem.
It was supposed to be the holy city. It was supposed to be the place where people from every nation and tribe would come to see God. It was supposed to be the epicenter for God worship, but by Jesus’ time had far become corrupt. It wasn’t holy. And He cries out knowing what is to come, and how could God not weep?
This is the ruach. It shows us God’s heart toward us. It reveals His desire to be with us and in us and through us. This was the intent all along. The new creation is found in Genesis. That is why it is so perverted to then call a building church. That is why it is so wicked to then claim Christ and walk in darkness. He really wants to be with us, and there are so many people who are only willing for a Moses to talk to God. We’ll listen to Moses, but God speaking to us at Mount Sinai is just too much.
We can’t comprehend the magnitude of the implications that this brings. God is with us. Even if we aren’t with Him, He is with us. This explains why God can say that He is able to use the king of Assyria or Babylon to conquer Israel and Judah. This is why God is able to play upon the freewill of men. He is with us. He isn’t outside watching to see where the mice will go through the maze to find the cheese. He is in and moving and breathing and speaking and guiding. He is here, and spirituality is finding Him here and now. Spirituality is becoming more and more aware of His presence.
I don’t think that there is a contradiction between freewill and sovereignty. They go hand-in-hand. Understanding the Hebraic root helps to show the bigger picture of what is going on instead of being confined to trite discourses about historical interpretation versus exegetical interpretation. Understanding the root of who God is brings to shame all of our debates over the great questions of our day. How does evil exist if God is good? Armenian or Calvinist? Creation or evolution?
If we have the idea of God being with us, what does that mean for our salvation and testimony? Obviously, we know that God did intervene. He did “show up.” But maybe there was more to the puzzle. When it seems like God showed up, maybe God was actually there the whole time. We were suddenly aware, and now it actually matters.
Maybe this idea of God being willing to get into the darkness and chaos and actually walk through it with the creation while stirring it up to come into greater and greater degrees of light and order just explains a bit better why Jesus was always with the tax collectors and sinners. Maybe it is in God’s character, and it is shown through Jesus, that He wants to be with His people so much that He is willing to get in the midst of sin.
So, what about that verse that says that our sin separates us from God? Maybe it isn’t that God can’t be where sin is. Maybe sin can’t be where God is. Where Jesus finds Himself, sin can’t also hang its evil head. This would explain things like why the demons would cry out just by Jesus walking toward them. This would explain why blind men would cry out for the son of David to heal them. This would explain why a leper would ask Jesus if He was willing to heal, and Jesus not only says He is willing, but makes Himself unclean by touching the leper.
What if we’re supposed to be the kind of people who walk like this? What if we are supposed to live real flesh and blood lives that display this concept? Is that what happened in Mark chapter 2? These friends were tapped into the ruach, and couldn’t leave their paralytic friend in the dust, so they carried him. They tore apart a roof to get this man into a house to see Jesus. What does Jesus say? It is because of the friends’ faith that the man found healing.
Lets give a more modern testimony. I have heard the story of a Church that has people adopt HIV positive orphans. These are people whose hearts have just led them to adopt the underdog who no one else wants. For those who are unsure of what HIV is or does, it pretty much attacks your immune system so that you are always sick. It would be like a cancer patient having to take chemotherapy treatments two or three times a week for the rest of their lives.
And these people adopt children who have this disease. To use some terminology we just learned, these people would tap into the ruach by humbling themselves. They were and are willing to adopt the sick kid. Yet, something happens when you believe. Something happens when you aren’t looking for a miracle, but love someone as they are and are just planning on taking care of them, and let them know that they are loved. There is something powerful about just giving people love before they die.
God healed them. No HIV positive. By their faith, God healed them. But see where their faith was. It wasn’t in God’s miraculous ability. It was in the fundamental hope that God loves us in this way, and so I’m going to love others. In that, the miracle occurs. In this faith, beauty stems up.
Mother Teresa’s main mission was not to lepers. It wasn’t about giving the Gospel. She didn’t care about the four spiritual laws and five things God wants you to know. She wasn’t concerned with sharing her faith. She wanted to love them before they died. Mother Teresa only wanted to show the lepers that they aren’t hated or despised, but loved. It was God in her that caused her to show love to the loveless before their death. Who cares if they aren’t healed? It isn’t about healing; it is about the person.
Why is it that we see so many ministries and so many churches and so many foundations and so many non-profit organizations that are built upon doing good? We obviously see the need. We can obviously sense this ruach in each and every one of us. We don’t abandon it. We just don’t understand it. There is something more than doing good deeds. Good deeds are meant to be out of a heart that expresses love.
Read Proverbs chapter 8. This is a chapter explaining the Holy Spirit. More than the Holy Spirit, it reveals to us that this ruach and the Holy Spirit are synonymous. “Doesn’t wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice? She stands in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She cries at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the entrance of the doors.”
“I love those who love me, and those who seek me shall find me.”
“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or even the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth – when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave to the sea its decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delight was with the sons of men.”
“Blessed is the man who hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso finds me finds life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. But he that sins against me wrongs his own soul; all they that hate me love death.”
The 8th chapter of Proverbs really just seems to bring out the deepest aspects of the person and character of the Holy Spirit. I think that this is why Jesus calls Him the counselor, the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, and the comforter that comes from the Father.
May you walk, not after the flesh, but in the spirit forevermore. Amen.