The Lord hears the cry of the poor, and those bowed down in spirit He saves.
If Scripture reveals anything to us about God's relationship to mankind, it is that He is attentive to us and to our cries. Just as parents know intimately the voices of their children, just as parents are extremely sensitive to the cries of their children, so is God toward us. He hears the sound of our voices when we cry, and He is moved with pity toward us.
God spoke to Cain: What have you done? A sound---your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil! I wonder how many aborted babies have cried out from garbage cans and plastic bags; I wonder how many soldiers have cried out from ditches in Afghanistan; I wonder how many homeless have died in the streets of our cities.
God does not prevent man's violence on the earth, but He hears the ensuing cries of sorrow and grief. When Lamekh had lived a long time and had seen mankind's deep trouble and grief, he had a son whom he named Noah/ comfort, saying, "May this one comfort our sorrow from our toil, from the pains of our hands coming from the soil, which YHWH has cursed."
The soil, the earth, is cursed because of our violence, sometimes to the point where it can no longer bear fruit. Noah was sent by God to provide a refuge in the great destruction the earth was about to undergo. Throughout Scripture, we find God's attention and care for those who are burdened, afflicted, cast out, rejected by society, or victims of cruelty by their fellow men.
Hagar, the Egyptian slave-woman, was cast out into the desert by Abraham and Sarah. Sarah says to Abraham bitterly, "May YHWH see justice done between me and you!" But what God "sees" here is the outcast, the lonely one, the one without resources or hope---the pregnant servant girl in the wilderness. And His message to her is this: "You will bear a son; call his name Ishmael/ God hears, for God has hearkened to your being afflicted."
Hagar, Scripture goes on to tell us, "called the name of YHWH, the one who was speaking to her: 'You God of seeing!' for she said, 'Have I actually gone on seeing here after His seeing me?' Therefore the well was called: Well of the Living One Who Sees Me."
God sees. God hears. God knows.
Hundreds of years after Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, God hears the children of Israel groaning from their servitude in Egypt, "and they cried out; and their plea for help went up to God, from the servitude." The writer of Exodus without hesitation tells us, "God hearkened to their moaning...God saw the children of Israel; God knew."
Once again, as in the days of Noah, God prepared an escape, a way out, a refuge from their distress. On the back side of the desert was a man uniquely sent and prepared by God for his mission of deliverance/comfort to the Israelites. God's words to Moses were these: I have seen, yes, seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt; their cry have I heard in the face of their slave drivers; indeed, I have known their sufferings! So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of Egypt...So now, here, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. So now, go, for I send you to Pharoah--bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt!
In Psalm 139, David, who knew first hand from his many experiences in the desert the all-seeing, all hearing providence of God, cried out his response to the God-Who-Sees-and Hears:
How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly. I can't even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I awake in the morning, You are still thinking about me! Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts. Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
It is only when we fully realize "how many times a day" God is thinking about us, as David says, that we are finally able to cry out with David, "Search me and know my heart, test my thoughts...and lead me along the way of everlasting life.
And then....and then....we ourselves can become, like Noah, a comfort and like Moses, a deliverer, for people in anguish and toil.
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