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may connote not only “finding” a subject in a location, but “finding
something” in an abstract sense. This idea is demonstrated clearly by Gen. 6:8: “But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” He found—“received”—something he did not
seek. This sense also includes “finding” something one has sought in a spiritual or mental
sense: “Mine hand had gotten much …” (Job 31:25). Laban tells Jacob: “… If I have
found favor in thine eyes, [stay with me] …” (Gen. 30:27). Laban is asking Jacob for a
favor that he is seeking in an abstract sense.
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can also mean “to discover.” God told Abraham: “If I find in Sodom fifty
righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes” (Gen. 18:26). This
same emphasis appears in the first biblical occurrence of the word: “… But for Adam
there was not found a help meet for him” (Gen. 2:20). As noted earlier, there can be a
connotation of the unintentional here, as when the Israelites “found” a man gathering
wood on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32). Another special nuance is “to find out,” in the sense
of “gaining knowledge about.” For example, Joseph’s brothers said: “God hath found out
the iniquity of thy servants …” (Gen. 44:16).
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sometimes suggests “being under
the power” of something, in a concrete sense. David told Abishai: “… Take thou thy
lord’s servants, and pursue after him, lest he get him fenced cities, and escape us” (2
Sam. 20:6). The idea is that Sheba would “find,” enter, and defend himself in fortified
cities. So to “find” them could be to “take them over.” This usage appears also in an
abstract sense. Judah told Joseph: “For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not
with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father” (Gen. 44:34). The
word
therefore, can mean not only to “find” something, but to “obtain” it as
one’s own: “Then Isaac sowed in that landand received in the same year …” (Gen.
26:12).
Infrequently, the word implies movement in a direction until one arrives at a
destination; thus it is related to the Ugaritic root meaning “reach” or “arrive” (
). This
sense is found in Job 11:7: “Canst thou by searching find out God?” (cf. 1 Sam. 23:17).
In a somewhat different nuance, this meaning appears in Num. 11:22: “Shall the flocks
and the herds be slain for them, to
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them?”
FIRE
( , 784), “fire.” Cognates of this word occur in Ugaritic, Akkadian, Aramaic,
and Ethiopic. The 378 occurrences of this word in biblical Hebrew are scattered
throughout its periods. In its first biblical appearance this word,
represents God’s
presence as “a torch of fire”“And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it
was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a [flaming torch] …” (Gen. 15:17). “Fire” was
the instrument by which an offering was transformed into smoke, whose ascending
heavenward symbolized God’s reception of the offering (Lev. 9:24). God also consumed
people with the “fire of judgment” (Num. 11:1; Ps. 89:46). Various things were to be
burnt as a sign of total destruction and divine judgment (Exod. 32:20).
“Fire” often attended God’s presence in theophanies (Exod. 3:2). Thus He is
sometimes called a “consuming fire” (Exod. 24:17).
The noun
, meaning “an offering made by fire,” is derived from
.