Remember This! (Genesis 30-31)

My sister came to visit me last weekend and it was delightful.  We are really close and I just love hanging out with her.  The key to our successful sisterly bond is that we do not share a husband.  Thankfully!  Because I would so be the Leah in that triangle; Jamie is waaaaay cuter and more fun than I.  Not to mention several years younger.  I wouldn’t stand a chance!  Poor Leah.  Poor Rachel.

In these two chapters, the word that most sticks out to me is in chapter 30, verse 22:  “Then God remembered Rachel….”  I don’t much care for it, to tell you the truth.  Doesn’t that imply that for a while God forgot about Rachel?  And isn’t being cast aside and forgotten one of our biggest fears as Christians?  It is for me.  I’m really banking on God’s promise to hear my every prayer and never leave my pitiful side.  Plus, God is God; He can’t forget!

When I checked other versions, almost all use that scratchy word. (NET uses, “took note” but that isn’t much better.)  So, I Googled it up.  An article at http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Manasseh.html  was supremely helpful in breaking down the Hebrew word nasha (to forget).  My favorite blurb from the article was this: “The antonym of forgetting is remembering, and since God can not forget the way we do, He also doesn't remember the way we do. When God remembers someone, He pulls that someone close (Genesis 30:22).” 

The other websites I checked concur.  God remembers us!  He pulls us close and answers our prayers and I knew it all along.  Sometimes I just like scholars to tell me a word means something more in a language I don’t know.  But now that I know?  I definitely will not forget it.