Basic HTML Version
TO SET IN ORDER
(
, 6186), “to arrange, set in order, compare.” While it occurs some 75
times in the Hebrew Old Testament, this root is also found in modern Hebrew, being
connected with “editing” and “dictionary.” The word is first found in the Old Testament
in Gen. 14:8: “… They joined battle [literally, “they arranged,” referring to opposing
battle lines].…” It is used in this way many times in the record of the battles of Israel.
A common word in everyday life,
often refers to “arranging” a table (Isa. 21:5;
Ezek. 23:41). The word is used several times in the Book of Job with reference to
“arranging” or “setting” words “in order,” as in an argument or rebuttal (Job 32:14; 33:5;
37:19). In Job 13:18, Job declares: “Behold now, I have ordered my cause [literally, “I
have set my judgment in order”].…” “To arrange in order” makes it possible “to
compare” one thing with another. So, to show the superiority of God over the idols, the
prophet asks: “To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto
him?” (Isa. 40:18).
TO SET ON, SET UP
A. Verb.
(
*
, 7760), “to put, place, set, fix.” This word also appears in Akkadian (as
$
), Aramaic (including biblical Aramaic), Arabic, and Ethiopic. It appears about
580 times in biblical Hebrew, in all periods, and almost exclusively in the primary stem.
In its first biblical appearance
means “to put or place someone somewhere”:
“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom
he had formed” (Gen. 2:8). In Exod. 40:8 the verb means “to set up,” in the sense of “to
place or put something so that it is perpendicular or vertical”: “And thou shalt set up the
court round about, and hang up the hanging at the court gate.” Other things are “set up”
in a figurative sense, like a wall. So Micah speaks of “setting up” a siege, a wall, around a
city: “… He hath laid siege against us …” (Mic. 5:1; cf. 1 Kings 20:12). This image is
also used figuratively of a human wall in one’s path: “I remember that which Amalek did
to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt” (1 Sam.
15:2).
-
is used sometimes in the sense “to set over, impose on” (negatively): “Therefore
they did set [imposed] over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens” (Exod.
1:11). A more positive use of the word in the sense “to appoint” (where the appointment
is pleasing to the wards) appears in 1 Sam. 8:5—the elders of Israel asked the aged
Samuel: “… Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” In such usages one in
authority determines or is asked to determine something. This is the focus of the word in
Num. 24:23, where Balaam said: “Alas, who shall live when God doeth this!”
This verb means “to make,” as it does in Zeph. 3:19: “… And I will get them praise
and fame [make their shame into praise and fame] in every land where they have been put
to shame.”
In some passages
is used in the figurative sense of setting something or putting it
before one’s mind: “… They have not set God before them” (Ps. 54:3). The same phrase
is used in a literal sense in Ezek. 14:4 (cf.
NIV
).