With St. Louis getting their first snow of the year, I figured it would be a great time to share what I’ve learned about snow recently!
The other day, my Hebrew word of the day was snow. I’ve really enjoyed diving deeper into Hebrew and Greek root words from scripture. When you know what the word is getting at and the deeper connection, it’s pretty mind-blowing and gives you a whole new perspective on a passage.
While reading the word of the day, I’m sitting in this coffee shop thinking about home and how I won’t see any snow this year. The idea of a pristine, untainted layer of a light and pure white fluffy substance that has yet to be touched is my idea of beautiful. As I’m reading more about a passage in Job, I’m floored at the depth of a simple word; snow.
Something to note about scripture is that not everything, in fact many things, could not be perfectly translated in English because we just don’t possess the words to do so. The passage that I’m looking at here is Job 38:22. For instance, in ESV (the version I use) it uses the word storehouses and in KJV it uses the word treasures to replace storehouses. In a way, it’s kind of cool that we can’t translate everything. It gives this all a little mystery and requires faith in the promises we do know for certain. We cannot even grasp what we’re missing because we don’t even know something could be missing! So, I’d encourage you to study the Hebrew and Greek root of any given passage if you’re looking for the most clarification of the meaning of it.
When I think of snow, I think pure, innocent, clean, whitest of white. Beyond hearing it in songs, I didn’t ever think much of snow. But, allow God to blow your mind for a second.
In Hebrew, each word has a numerical value. This word, snow, in particular has a numerical value of 333. The first thing observed was the significance of that number alone. First, the number 3 represents God. And second, it’s a picture that could stand for the Godhead 3-in-1. While the number itself stands for a lot, it doesn’t even scratch the surface of what else surfaces from this. To me, it’s the other words with the same numerical value, 333, that make the word snow so profound. One of the other words is hope.
I think I correlate that word with something someone wants. “I hope blank happens because I want blank to happen.” But, I knew that God had so much more for that word than just the concept of wanting. So, I went to the expository dictionary and got the Strong’s concordance numbers on hope. They are as follows:
1679-to expect or confide (trust). ***Go reread John 5:45 and 2 Corinthians 1:10 and replace hope with this definition (to expect or to confide/trust). It’s pretty sweet.***
1680-to anticipate, usually with pleasure. Expectation (abstractly or concretely) or confidence–faith, hope. ***Go reread Romans 8:24,25 with this in mind.***
4276-to hope in advance of other confirmation–first trust. (Check out Ephesians 1:12).
560-to hope out, fully expect or hope for again.
Hope in the dictionary:
Verb: to desire w/expectation of fulfillment.
Noun: trust, reliance/ desire accompanied by expectation of fulfillment/ one that gives promise for the future.
Good stuff. But it doesn’t stop there! Another word with the numerical value of 333 is forgetfulness. I love the perplexing significance of this picture. So, when snow falls it covers everything under it. If there is trash or filth, the snow covers that too. What are you left with? A clean sheet of pure white snow—no matter what was there before.
All this to say: What do you think of when you see the word hope? How does hope actually play out in your life? What do you think God was intending when putting the words snow, hope and forgetfulness together with 333?
I personally liked 4276 the most, the idea of first trusting. For me, I tend to hope for things I feel like I have at least a teeny tiny chance of getting. But how would my life look if I hoped for things before any kind of confirmation? Would I hope on a larger scale? Would my trust run deeper? Not sure, I guess only time will tell!
So, I’m still in this coffee shop. There is a giant TV caddy corner to where I’m sitting and of all things to be playing, guess what it is? Tom and Jerry! It got me thinking, this is a universally liked cartoon, but there aren’t even any words. The fact that actions can be enough to tell story and a story that can be told the same in any culture or place is astounding. Full circle: snow. Snow, while not the Word itself, tells a unique and unfathomable story of hope and redemption.
Cue the music: “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”
This is from my balcony and that down to the left with the green roof is the coffee shop I sit in everyday!
