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Our Torah portion this week, which is customarily read on the Sabbath following Tishah B'Av, says: "But you who have cleaved to the LORD your God are all alive today" (Deut. 4:4). The Hebrew word translated "cleave" is davak (דָּבַק), first used in the Torah to describe how a man would leave his father and mother to cleave to his wife so they would become "besar echad" (בָשָׂר אֶחָד), or "one flesh" (Gen. 2:24). The word is also used to describe how Ruth clung to Naomi (Ruth 1:14), how David pursued enemy armies (2 Sam. 23:10), how Solomon was attached to his foreign wives (1 Kings 11:2), how Job's bones stuck to his flesh (Job 19:20), how leviathan's scales were glued together (Job 41:17), how metal was welded together (Isa. 41:7), how the LORD cleaves to Israel (Jer. 13:11), and so on. It also is the word used to describe how Yeshua's tongue was so dried out that it stuck to his jaws as he agonized upon the cross (Psalm 22:15). Incidentally, in Modern Hebrew word for "glue" is devek (דֶבֶק), which also comes from the same root...
Another word that derives from davak is the noun form devakut (דְּבָקוּת), which means "cleaving" in devotion or attachment to God. Such cleaving to the LORD can be thought of as "stick-to-itiveness" or pertinacity, though it might better be understood as a form of clinging in dependency, surrender, and heart-desperation. So understood, devakut is a form of communion with and a reliance upon God for the blessing of life...
Cleaving to God is a day-to-day, moment-by-moment trusting of the heart. As Yeshua said: "Take therefore no thought for tomorrow: for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient for the day its own trouble" (Matt. 6:34). Live one day at a time. The LORD gives us daily bread (לֶחֶם חֻקֵּנוּ) so that we may persevere for this day. "For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand today -- if you hear his voice" (Psalm 95:7). Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart (Heb. 3:15). "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God, but encourage one another every day, as long as it is called "today," so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb. 3:12-13).
Hebrew Lesson
Deut. 4:4 Hebrew reading (click):
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