Iniquity

I have been learning how to look at the Bible with a Hebrew mindset.  It's been challenging my theology and deepening my faith. 

For example, was enlightening to learn how the Hebrew language is written.  Instead of letters representing sounds like they do in English, each letter is symbol and the meaning of any Hebrew word takes the combination of each letter to make a meaning.  As one translator puts it “each Hebrew letter is a picture so each word is like a comic strip.”

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:6

In my Western mind, I usually group iniquity in with sin.  The two are pretty much Biblical synonymns to me.  But the combination of Hebrew letters used to form the word “ iniquity” translate to the picture “that which your eye hooks onto, multiplies.”

It's a principle that can be good or bad.  For example, back before the bite of fruit Eve saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye.  Her eye was hooked and it all went downhill after that.  The writer of Hebrews encourages us to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith."  Whatever our eye hooks onto multiplies.  Iniquity is a picture of the battle that rages in our mind.

...and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This is what clicked for me:  Jesus just didn't take on our fully realized sins, he took on everything back to the moment our eyes got hooked onto the wrong thing. It makes so much sense doesn't it?  If "you've heard it said...but I say..." took the meaning of the law deeper, wouldn't it be just like Jesus to take his sacrifice and provision just as deep?

This is going to sound silly, but when I realized that, I felt like I had just found a $20 bill in the pocket of my favorite coat.  I knew it would keep me warm, that extra gift just takes it to a whole new happy place.  Like I'd been struggling with how to pay a bill, when all along it's already been taken care of.

How great is this love that has been lavished on us.