We are in Exodus chapter three with our word for today used for the first time in the Bible. מַכְאֹב pain, suffering, sorrow, emotional distress that is a fundamental feeling that people try to avoid. It is used 16 times in the Old Testament. Our word is used to point out that we can make our lives more challenging when we are engaged in sinful behavior ourselves. Jeremiah 30:15 Why do you cry out over your wound, your מַכְאֹבֵ֑ךְ pain that has no cure? Because of your great guilt and many sins I have done these things to you. Lamentations 1:12-14, 18 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any מַכְאוֹב֙ suffering like my כְּמַכְאֹבִ֔י suffering that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger? From on high he sent fire, sent it down into my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back...My sins have been bound into a yoke; by his hands they were woven together. They have been hung on my neck, and the Lord has sapped my strength…The Lord is righteous, yet I rebelled against his command. Listen, all you peoples; look on my מַכְאֹבִ֔י suffering. My young men and young women have gone into exile. He has given me into the hands of those I cannot withstand.
Not only do all of us have to deal with the consequences of our own sin but simply by being alive the corruption of this life affects us. The Holy Spirit speaking through Solomon makes an honest assessment of life here in this broken world because of sin that has corrupted it. And our word is used in this description. Ecclesiastes 2:22-23 What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and מַכְאֹבִ֗ים pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless. Ecclesiastes 1:17-18 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more מַכְאֽוֹב grief. This is sense of how our word is used in our chapter today. Exodus 3:7-8 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their מַכְאֹבָֽיו sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So God has a plan to rescue his people out of their sufferings. And we will see this plan as we journey through the words of the Bible together. The good news is that Jesus is the ultimate plan of God to solve our sufferings once and for all when he returns a second time. Revelation 21:3-5 “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them...‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” But for now we rely on God who can be trusted to bring this about. We can trust God because of how he has always been faithful to do what he said he would do. He brought his son into the world the first time who suffered for us as we can see from this prediction made 700 years before hand. Isaiah 53:3-4 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of מַכְאֹב֖וֹת suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our וּמַכְאֹבֵ֖ינוּ suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. Jesus the man of sorrows has truly carried our sorrows. I’ll close with this encouraging passage of God’s faithfulness and love. Psalm 32:10 Many are the מַכְאוֹבִ֗ים sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
