Shema
Adam and Eve lived in the fullness of all that God spoke into being and that was good in His sight. What took them from this place of synchronicity with God was hearing the serpent contradict God’s Word. Hearing “you will not surely die” caused Eve to see that the fruit on the tree the Lord said not to eat from “appeared good” and was “pleasing to the eye.” The reason that hearing this so altered her view of the fruit is because God designed for us to taste and see the world in the context of our hearing. The Hebrew word for hear, which is “shema,” illustrates this perfectly. It is spelled with (from right to left) the Hebrew letters that depict teeth (shin), blood or water (mem), and the eye (ayin).
In the word itself, we see that hearing starts with the mouth releasing a stream that flows into how we see. Just as God spoke and saw that it was good, we were made to see based on His speaking.
Once Eve and Adam heard the serpent’s contradiction and sunk their teeth into it, their eyes opened to a way of seeing that was contrary to God’s Word. All of a sudden, they saw themselves, whom God had called “very good,” as naked and bad. They also began to fear God not because He had changed, but because they were aware of themselves as separate from His goodness. This is how we first got out of sync with Him: through hearing that what He said was not certain. Then we saw the fruit which was death to us as good, and saw the goodness of God who is life to us as bad and to be avoided.
What the Lord did by giving Manna was to re-establish in us the life that comes from eating in the flow of His Word. Unlike “yada” which is a way of knowing and insight that comes through our felt experience and the things we can grasp, “shema” is known from the mouth and in the heart. It is a deeper way of understanding; an inner knowing that comes from having internalized the Word. This was the reality that God imparted to us by tasting and seeing His goodness when we listened to His instructions. He wanted us to have this experience restored to us before arriving at the call to hear Him, the Shema, which we will come to next.
More to chew on: The Hebrew word for “ear” is a feminine noun; so the fact that the serpent approached the woman shows that he attacked the ear, the hearing of mankind. The other thing worth noting is that the devil wanted (and still wants) man to judge according to what is seen, based on appearance of good or bad, rather than relying on the Word of God. By faith we know that what is seen does not come from what is visible; and we who are righteous by faith, justified in our belief in God, live by faith not sight. (Hebrews 11:3 and 2 Corinthians 5:7)
