I read a lot of books about God, Jesus, faith, pretty much anything theological I can get my hands on. I know, that’s a shocker coming from a pastor, right? Because of all that reading though, it’s hard for me sometimes to find brand-new ideas about God. That is not to say that I never find brand-new ideas about God in my reading, I just find them a lot less than I used to before I had a plethora of books in my background. I recently read a book called “The Source” by James Michener. I won’t bore you with the details of the whole book, but Michener did share a brand-new idea about God I had never heard before.
Michener asserts that the word “Hebrew” comes from an ancient middle eastern word, “Haribu.” (pronounced harry-boo). I can’t remember what language Michener said “Haribu” comes from, but it was one of the languages of the ancient middle east that was alive and well during biblical times. The word “Haribu” he says, meant “donkey driver” or “animal driver.” In other words, the Hebrews were called “Hebrews” because they were a nomadic tribe that made their living driving animals to and fro across middle eastern deserts, always searching for better pasture, and never making permanent homes in one place.
Michener then makes the claim that God chose these “Haribus” (Hebrews) as the nation through which He’d reveal Himself to the world because out of all the tribes of the middle east, they were the most open to believing the simple fact that God is one. Why were they open to that fact? Because they were nomads, constantly moving around, rarely making their camps in the same place twice. In all other ancient middle eastern cultures, gods were always tied to static locations. There was a god of that mountain, and a god of that river, and a god of that field, and a god of that hill. The Edomites had a god in their country, and the Hittites had a god in their country. If you left your mountain or river or farm or country, your god couldn’t go with you because the gods were tied to static locations. For the nomadic Hebrews, however, such ways of thinking were impossible. They had to be open to one God who was everywhere because they went everywhere. And so, according to Michener, of all the tribes in all the world who might be open to experiencing revelation from the One, True God who exists in all things, in all places, and at all times—who is in the places they go before they get there—the “Haribus” (Hebrews) were likely the tribe most open to such revelation.
How about that? God may have chosen the “Haribus” (Hebrews) simply because they moved around a lot.
I don’t know how you react to that thought, but for me, it is both anticlimactic and delightful. Its anticlimactic because I’d expect more from God. Wouldn’t he want the best nation? Wouldn’t he want the most morally superior nation? Wouldn’t he want the mightiest nation? The wisest nation? Nope. He chose the nation that… moved around a lot.
But it’s a delightful thought too. Who knows what incredibly arbitrary, inconsequential, seemingly unimportant attribute of our own selves might just fit perfectly into some grand scheme God has for the world. That need to keep all the food on your plate from touching because mixing food items is gross—that might someday reveal a grand insight into the nature of God himself. That tendency to fill the gas tank right after it gets below the halfway mark—as if hitting empty breaks some unspoken 11th commandment—that quirk might one day open up truths about God that folks riding on empty will never understand.
At the very least, Michener’s insight tells me that God loves quirky people, and our quirks might be telescopes through which we peer into the Divine. At the most, Michener’s insights tell me that God is paying attention to the tiniest, most arbitrary details of our lives & wondering how He can use even our arbitrary oddities as vehicles into our deeper selves.
Thank God for new insights and the people that bring them.
