We are in still in Exodus chapter one with our word for today used for the first time in the Bible in our chapter. חָמַל have or treat with compassion, spare, save, take pity. It is used 40 times in the Old Testament. We see it used in the sense of sparing or taking pity on the wrong people. This shows a lack of trust in God’s direction and understanding how dangerous evil really is. 1 Samuel 15:2-3, 10-9, 15 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not תַחְמֹ֖לspare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’…But Saul and the army וַיַּחְמֹל֩ spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed…Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they חָמַ֤ל spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.” Saul tries to justify why he disobeyed God but here is how Samuel replies. 1 Samuel 15:22-23 Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. This shows us that we are not in the best position to determine if something is good or evil. We need God’s direction and help. If someone is evil, we need not to spare it or have compassion on it. This doesn’t mean that someone will always stay evil so we have to be open to their change of heart and repentance. But until then we need to be careful not to allow them to corrupt us. James 1:27. But when someone or something is good we definitely need to show compassion. Here are a couple of good examples of this. 2 Samuel 21:7 The king וַיַּחְמֹ֣ל spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul. Joel 2:18 Then the Lord was jealous for his land and וַיַּחְמֹ֖ל took pity on his people. This is how our word is used in our chapter today. Exodus 2:5-6 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She וַתַּחְמֹ֣ל took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews' children.” And the rest of the chapter we see Pharaoh’s daughter acts on her pity and rescues Moses from his certain death by her father because he was one of the many Hebrew baby boys that were to be put to death. This helps us understand our word of compassion that takes action. Not just a feeling of wanting to help but the action behind the rescue.
When Jerusalem was finally taken into exile because of the sins of the people were so great. God reminds them and us of his great compassion and patience trying to get us to repent and come back to him before it is too late. God doesn’t just feel an emotion to help us but he acted on it sending people to offer this rescue countless times. 2 Chronicles 36:15 The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he חָמַ֥ל had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. God is still a God who has compassion and takes pity on us. I’ll close with this reminder that we need to be ready for Jesus to come back and encourage others also to be ready because at some point even though God is patient there will be a time when it will be too late. 2 Peter 3:9-12.
