“He brings our chaos back into order, he makes the orphan a son and daughter…”
My husband and I are taking this AMAZING class (by taking I mean auditing, and getting to pretend to be a cool college kid with Starbucks coffee cups and new highlighters) that delves into middle eastern culture, specifically culture of the early old testament biblical peoples. its amazing how words, meanings, and depth get stretched, lost, and morphed when put into English. one particular mind blowing class dealt with chaos.
In the early times, the word “yom” which roughly translates to “salty walters” or “ocean” was meant to represent chaos. Chaos that threatened our way of life, and land-ultimately a representation of destruction. Chaos was constantly nipping at the world created, the same way the ocean hugs the shore. When Elohim created the world, he separated the waters in two to create land; he divided the chaos, and ordered it in a way that we could survive.
The Ancient cultures viewed Chaos, or Yom as constantly trying to take life as we know it- our order, our community- and destroy it. Community was defined as living interdependently- independent, but always with an open hand. You lived to take care of those around you, and your community was your family.
It’s funny to think that in this day and age, we look at having our own individual lives in order. We are so bound up with the idea that our own homes have to be a certain way, our jobs, family, and even bodies have to fit a standard- but none of this is for the betterment of our community. We let chaos into our personal lives, we don’t even realize the chaos that is ravaging our communities.