Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the Universe

Baruch atah adonai elohaynu melech ha’olam

 

I’ve been to enough Seder dinners to know that lots of traditional Jewish prayers start with this sentence. So in my book, I wanted to include it.  Now I don’t know that Daniel’s mom started her Shabbat prayer with these words exactly when she lighted the Sabbath candles, but I think it’s a safe assumption that she said something like that.  I got to thinking about the English translation – specifically “universe.”  Nowhere in the NASB do we have the word universe.  It doesn’t sound like a Bible word, does it?

If Daniel said, “Baruch atah adonai elohaynu melech ha’olam,” what was his understanding of olam?

Olam occurs 439 times in the Old Testament, and only 4 of those times does it refer to the physical world. All the other occurrences have to do with time —everlasting, forever, always, ancient, perpetual.  Thanks to Einstein we know that space is inextricably linked to time; nevertheless, the emphasis of olam is forever, not everywhere. Adonai elohim isn’t just Lord over everything, He’s Lord over every when, every where – Lord of ALL.  He’s King of the Universe – He created it.  He’s King of Forever – He created forever.  He’s Lord over every aspect of creation, transcendent.  He exists apart from and is not subject to His creation, and yet He chose to humble Himself and enter creation as a man. Why? To redeem us, certainly,  but also to make Himself known.

Like so many others, I’m doing The Bible Recap with Tara-Leigh Cobble. One of the daily prayers before you do your Bible reading is,

God, let me see something about you I’ve never seen before.

That’s a prayer God loves, don’t you think?  Because that’s what He wants for us.  The Lord our God, King of All, wants to make Himself known to us. What a privilege!