S7 Episode #9- Jehovah Shalom
THE ONE WITH Jes + Jehovah Shalom
This week on The Collected Podcast, Jes is sharing Part 11 of our Names of God series! Over the past few years we have been highlighting different names and character attributes of The Lord. Understanding who God is and who we are in Him are vital parts of walking in freedom and remaining rooting in who we are created to be. This week we are learning about Jehovah Shalom– The Lord Our Peace. Through the study of the life of Gideon, we learn that nothing surprises God or is too hard for God. Join Jes as she dives into the passage and shares fresh insights to deepen our understanding of God as Jehovah Shalom– the true source of lasting peace.
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SHOW NOTES
It’s part 11 of our Names of God series! We are highlighting different names and character attributes of The Lord. Understanding who God is and who we are in Him are vital parts of walking in freedom and remaining rooting in who we are created to be. This week we are learning about Jehovah Shalom– The Lord Our Peace.
Whenever I begin my research for each of the different names that we are studying, I like to take time to pray and reflect on times when I have experienced that character trait of God in my own life. As I was looking back through old prayer journals, I was reminded of a brutal 10 days that I experienced in April 2020. I had an aggressive autoimmune flare up that among other things included fever, chills, and upwards of 50 ulcers in my mouth and throat. The pain was excruciating. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t eat or swallow, every breath was painful. All I wanted to do was cry, but I didn’t even have the energy to do that. There were about three days where all I could do was try to lay as still as possible. Listening to worship music and the Psalms carried me through. Psalm 4 was my greatest comfort…
Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer.
How long will you people turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
Know that the Lord has set apart his faithful servant for himself;
the Lord hears when I call to him.
Tremble and[d] do not sin;
when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.
Offer the sacrifices of the righteous and trust in the Lord.
Many, Lord, are asking, “Who will bring us prosperity?”
Let the light of your face shine on us.
Fill my heart with joy when their grain and new wine abound.
In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Even in the middle of the pain, God’s peace sustained me. I was forced to be silent before The Lord and the peace I experienced didn’t take away the pain, but it carried me through. The peace of the Lord is one of His greatest gifts to us in this life and it is something that the world cannot take away. We may be shaken, but His peace can still remain.
LET’S MEET GIDEON
The first time that we see the title of Jehovah Shalom– The Lord Our Peace– used in the Bible is in the book of Judges. This book records a period of 350 years in Israel's history after they have conquered the land of Canaan. The people are now living in the land that God has promised them, but they are not upholding their end of the Covenant. As they continue to fall into patterns of sin and idolatry, God allows them to be conquered by foreign nations. After each period of oppression, the people remember the One True God, they cry out to Him, and God sends a deliverer, bringing peace back to the land. This cycle would happen 12 times throughout the book of Judges.
Our study today takes us to Judges 6-8, when the nation of Israel has been conquered by a fierce nomadic tribe called the Midianites. They were oppressed under Midan control for seven years before God called the judge Gideon to free the people.
Gideon’s background stood out to me. His father was a worshipper of Baal, and yet Gideon still chose to believe in and follow the God of Abraham. This feels like a significant detail that could encourage someone out there who feels very alone in their faith. If this is you, then please keep this detail at the back of your mind as we learn about Gideon. My hope is that you are encouraged by the way that God sought Gideon out and used him in mighty ways– even though he often felt alone and afraid. The thing in is his life– his faith– that must have felt difficult and isolating as he was growing up was the very thing that allowed him to become a nation-changer.
When we first meet Gideon in Judges 6:11, he is threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. You may not know alot about threshing wheat (I sure didn’t)... but apparently it is something that would have typically been done in large open spaces or on a hill-top so that the wind could separate the chaff. Threshing wheat in a winepress wasn’t effective. Gideon was responding to the aggression of the Midianites by living in fear and hiding. We could argue that this was justified– listen to what Judges 6:2-6 tells us about the oppression that the Israelites were facing:
“Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.”
The sins of the Israelites had led to their destruction and forced them into hiding in caves. Is there any sin in your life right now that is forcing you into hiding in one way or another? Maybe you are living with shame or fear or guilt from something you’ve done. The Israelites were waiting and crying out for someone to save them, but the massive difference in our lives today is that we’ve already been saved. The work that Jesus did on the cross is enough to cover anything you’ve ever done and anything you could ever do. Freedom from sin, guilt, shame, and fear is yours to access by simply calling on the name of Jesus. You are already forgiven and you no longer have to hide in your metaphorical cave.
If this hits home for you, I want to pause and encourage you to spend some time today in prayer, don’t put it off. Confess to God and accept the forgiveness that He offers. Release the shame, guilt and fear to Him, and praise Jesus for the work that He did on the cross so that we can walk in freedom!
Ok, back to Gideon hiding out in the winepress. It is in this place of darkness and confusion when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, saying, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
I love that God calls Gideon a “mighty warrior”. There is nothing that Gideon has done up to this point that would indicate that he is a mighty warrior, but The Lord sees who He created us to be and He speaks to us the truth of who we are. Even though Gideon couldn’t see that in himself, God saw it and called him by his true identity.
The first part of the greeting is equally– if not more– important: “The Lord is with you, Mighty Warrior.” Gideon’s ability to become the mighty warrior that he was created to be is rooted in the fact that The Lord was with Gideon. Gideon could not step into his true identity and calling on his own. The events that were about to take place would only be possible with the help of The Lord.
The fact that The Lord was with Gideon– and that The Lord is with you– is the source of all strength, joy, provision, wisdom, freedom and– as we will see today– peace.
Let’s continue with the story… Next we see that Gideon asks for a sign to confirm that it is truly The Lord who is speaking to him. He places goat meat and unleavened bread on a rock and covers it with broth. The angel of the Lord then touches the meat and bread with the tip of his staff and fire flared from the rock, completely consuming the meat and bread.
Verses 22-24 explain what happen next:
“When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!”
But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”
So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace.”
I love that Gideon builds the altar to Jehovah Shalom before he knows what is in store. God will end up reducing Gideon’s army, military strategy, and weapons. And yet, Gideon will still believe and trust in God.
God sees the full picture of the battle that would lie ahead for Gideon, and the battles that are still in store for us. He will often give us what we need before we even realize we need it. God may be teaching you something now because He knows you will need it for what is yet to come. Great peace can be found in knowing that nothing surprises God.
There is also great peace in knowing that nothing is too hard for God. In Judges 7, we see that Gideon is setting out for battle with 32,000 men. He may already feel outmatched by the 135,000 Midianite. And yet, God makes him cut down his numbers 3 times until Gideon is down to only 300 soldiers. In their own strength, the Israelite army would have no chance of defeating the mighty Midian army. But God. God brought about the victory with this small group of faithful warriors.
In The Enduring Word Commentary, David Guzik explains, “If we really believe the principle, not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts (Zechariah 4:6), then our smallness does not matter. If we really believe the principle, some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the LORD our God (Psalm 20:7), then smallness does not matter.”
The size of your bank account, the size of your confidence, the size of your community does not matter when God is on your side. Even when you feel small and insignificant. He can make a way and sustain you with peace as you face a seemingly impossible situation.
A NEW VIEW OF PEACE
This season of Israel’s history could easily be described as one of turmoil, hardship and oppression. Yet, in this season, God reveals himself as Peace. This leads me to believe that God does not define peace as we would traditionally define peace. So, what version of peace do you expect God to bring?
I think I often associate words like comfort, tranquility, ease, and quiet as synonyms of peace. Yet Biblical history shows that peace can be found in the loudest, hardest, most uncomfortable, most challenging, chaotic times in the lives of Christ followers.
In John 14:27 Jesus, The Prince of Peace, says, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, not let it be fearful.”
In these words, we see that the peace of God does not ensure outward peace. Rather, it is an internal peace of freedom from fear and anxiety. These words of Jesus presented a radical new way of thinking about peace to his audience. At this time, the Israelites were under the control of the Roman Empire and they believed that The Messiah would come to free them from Roman rule and would reestablish Israel as a sovereign nation. As we now know, this earthly peace wasn’t Jesus’ main objective. He came to bring eternal peace with God.
This same chapter in John opens with Jesus urging his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” However, Jesus had just given them a decent amount of troubling information– one of his disciples would betray him and one would deny him. So Jesus is proclaiming that even in the middle of troubling situations, our hearts can still be at peace. This contradicts the natural tendencies of mankind.
I love the way that David Guzik explains this in The Enduring Word Commentary. He says, “Jesus never wanted us to have life without trouble, but He promised that we could have an untroubled heart even in a troubled life.”
Throughout all of Biblical history, man’s expectations rarely line up with what God had planned. God’s ways are higher than we can imagine and the peace that He is bringing is a spiritual peace. It may also lead to outward peace with others, but that is often a byproduct of peace with God.
A LITTLE LESSON IN HEBREW
I am by no means an expert on the Hebrew language, but I wanted to dig deeper into the Hebrew word shalom to see what else we could learn. According to The Rosen School of Hebrew, “The Hebrew language exhibits a pattern of stems consisting typically of “trilateral”, or 3-consonant roots, from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed.The vast majority of words in the Hebrew language can be boiled down to a three-consonant root word. The root contains the essence of the word’s meaning. Hebrew words are formed from roots by changing vowels and by adding a wealth of prefixes and suffixes to that root.”
The Hebrew word shalom, often meaning peace, wholeness or completeness, comes from the roots of the 3 consonants sh, l, and m. These root consonants were then combined with various vowels to create words with similar meanings. Some other Hebrew words with this same root pattern are: hishtalem ("it was worth it"), shulam ("was paid for"), meshulam ("paid for in advance"), mushlam ("perfect"), and shalem ("whole").
Looking at each of these words, I love how they complement each other perfectly, and add such rich meaning to the title of Jehovah Shalom. God as our peace makes whole that which was broken by sin. He brings peace between the natural and the supernatural through the complete and atoning work of Jesus on the cross. We can experience complete, perfect peace because He paid for it in advance and it was all worth it for the saving of even one life.
Charles Stanley describes it this way, “God’s peace is not an escape from reality. We are not transfixed or somehow mentally ‘removed’ from feeling pain or struggling… Rather, peace is an undergirding rock-solid foundation so that no matter the tears we cry or the sorrow we feel, deep down inside we know with an abiding assurance that God is with us. God is in control, and the joy of the Lord is going to emerge far greater than any depth of agony we may be experiencing.”
The difficult situation that you are facing right now might not change, but you are never alone. The Prince of Peace paved the path of reconciliation so that you are no longer an enemy of God. Rather, you can rest in the peace of being His son or daughter and knowing that He will never leave you nor forsake you.
NEXT STEPS
Here are a few action steps to help you dip deeper this week!
If you are hiding in a “cave” of sin right now, spend time in prayer confessing to God and accepting the forgiveness that He offers. Release the shame, guilt and fear to Him. Praise Jesus for the work that He did on the cross to bring us freedom from sin!
Look up the verses listed below. Reflect on what each one teaches us about the peace of God.
Hebrews 13:5-6
Romans 5:1-5
2 Timothy 1:7
Thank you, as always, for listening! Please remember that everything we do is funded by those who benefit from our ministry. Our ministry a 501(c)3, so your contribution is tax-deductible.
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The Collected Podcast is produced by Jes French and edited by Jacob Early. Cover art designed by Ben Biondo.