Qerakh & K’phohr: As Cold as ICE!

ICE/FROST/CRYSTAL: qerakh, masculine noun (Strong’s 7140); k’phohr, frost, snowflake (homonym: a delicate bowl), masculine noun (Strong’s 3713).

Root: קֶרַח (qerakh), sounds like: kay’rakh.

Root: כְּפוֹר (k’phohr), sounds like, k’fore.

Today I fly out to Iceland! I’m catching up with my four closest friends from high school and we are celebrating a “banner year” birthday! I’m very excited for this time of friendship in a land known for its incredible natural beauty. 

I’m on vacation, but I haven’t missed a weekly posting since starting this blog in 2017, so I’m keeping it simple for the next few weeks. We’ll look at three rarer Biblical words that are associated with Icelandic tourism, starting with ICE/FROST/CRYSTALS. Iceland, of course, is not all ice, but it was given that name by the Vikings who marvelled at the Island’s vast glaciers and stunning icebergs. 

I’m a Canadian. Snow and ice are a naturally frosty part of life. But we may not think of such cold things when imagining the Holy Lands. Israel rarely gets cold enough to produce frost at night, but it does occasionally happen. A few northerly regions produce snow on the mountain tops. Any Israeli who wants to go skiing can pack up the car and head to Mount Hermon. There they will find snow, ice, and a  chill in the air. [For fun, check out this video to discover the wide range of climatic regions in Israel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTZNkuMSDHA&t=3s].

Ice in the Region of Aram

Qerakh generally is referred to as ice or frost. It is connected to the word qarah (Strong’s 7135), meaning cold. The first Biblical mention of qerakh comes when Jacob confronted his father-in-law (and also maternal uncle), Laban. Jacob had followed his father-in-law’s mundane rules for years and he had enough. He gathered his wives and his household, left the region of Aram and headed for Canaan. When Laban heard that Jacob had fled he pursued them, but God intervened:

Genesis 31:24

However, God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream of the night and said to him, “Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.”

So Laban found Jacob, confronted him, and then (after a strange little side story of searching for the household gods) listened to Jacob’s side of the story:

Genesis 31:40-42a

[Jacob to Laban:] “This is how I was: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night [w-qerakh ba-lai’lah וְקֶ֣רַח בַּלָּ֑יְלָה], and my sleep fled from my eyes. For these twenty years I have been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.”

Heat by day, frost by night… Jacob was saying that he was always working, barely sleeping, and at the mercy of the elements. Wherever Jacob was when he lived with Laban, evening frost was not uncommon. So where was Jacob? Laban, the Aramean, lived in Paddan-aram (Genesis 25:20, Genesis 31:18) which is along the Euphrates River in present day Turkey, near the Syrian border. This was north of modern day Israel where it, undoubtedly, got a little colder at night. Aram was closer to the current ski hills of Mount Hermon, giving it a much better chance of seeing frost on the grass or finding ice in the streams that were chilled with the melting snow from the mountain tops.

This phrase, heat by day and frost by night, was also used by Jeremiah when announcing the punishment that the evil Jehoiakim, king of Judah, would endure:

Jeremiah 36:30

Therefore this is what YHWH says concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be thrown out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night [w-la-qerakh ba-lai’lah וְלַקֶּ֥רַח בַּלָּֽיְלָה].”

From hot to cold, Jehoiakim would be left to the elements, indicating that the original readers of Jeremiah’s scroll were not unfamiliar with frost that came with the chill of the night.

Ice in the Land of Uz

Job was from “the land of Uz” (Job 1:1), but there’s a debate about its location. Scholars believe it was either South of the Dead Sea in the Kingdom of Edom or East of the Sea of Galilee in the Kingdom of (once again) Aram. If it was in the region of Aram, that means that all the mentions of ice and frost, apart from the mention by the prophets Jeremiah (above) and  Ezekiel (below), were associated with the slightly cooler northerly region of Aram.

Wherever Uz was, the book of Job talked about ice more than any other book (albeit, only three times):

Job 6:14-18

[Job:] “For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; so that he does not abandon the fear of the Almighty.

My brothers have acted deceitfully like a wadi, like the torrents of wadis which drain away, which are darkened because of ice [qarakh קָ֑רַח], and into which the snow melts. When they dry up, they vanish; when it is hot, they disappear from their place. The paths of their course wind along, they go up into wasteland and perish.” 

A wadi is a riverbed that is usually dry until the rainy season hits or the snow of the nearby mountain melts. Wadi’s are “deceitful”, like Job’s friends, because just when you think they are an abundant source of water, they dry up.

Job’s life had been dealt a cruel blow. His three older friends assumed he had done something wrong to deserve his fate and threw harsh words at him. But Job was innocent. Job’s “friends” were deceitfully dark, like the iced wadis, and inconsistent and unreliable. 

Although iced wadis paint a darker picture, ice, itself, must have seemed beautiful and refreshingly unique. When Job lamented about his situation, his youthful friend, Elihu, pointed out the majesty of YHWH and all His beautiful, natural, wonders, such as ice:

Job 37:10

[Elihu:] “From the breath of God ice [qarakh קָ֑רַח] is made, and the expanse of the waters is frozen.” 

YHWH, Himself, pointed out His wondrous works in a “ponder this, Job” kind of way:

Job 38:28-30

[YHWH to Job:] “Does the rain have a father? Or who has fathered the drops of dew? From whose womb has come the ice [ha-qarakh הַקָּ֑רַח]? And the frost of heaven [u-k’phohr shamayim וכפר שמים], who has given it birth? Water becomes hard like stone, and the surface of the deep is imprisoned.”

This is a masterpiece of Hebrew poetry. The striking image, of ice coming from YHWH’s womb and YHWH giving birth to the frost, is a delightful, shimmering, picture of creation . The poem described ice as rock solid water that imprisoned the depths of the sea, and all that resided in it, beneath its hardened surface. And through it all, God delivered!

In another stunning poem, the Psalmist expressed his gratitude for YHWH’s beautiful creation, including the snow and ice:

Psalm 147:12-20

Praise YHWH, Jerusalem! Praise your God, Zion! For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your sons among you. He makes peace in your borders; He satisfies you with the finest of the wheat. He sends His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly.

He showers snow like wool; He scatters the frost [k’phohr כְּ֝פֹ֗ור] like ashes. He hurls His ice [qar’khoh קַֽרְחֹ֣ו] as fragments; who can stand before His cold?

He sends His word and makes them melt; He makes His wind blow, and the waters flow. He declares His words to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. He has not dealt this way with any other nation; and as for His judgments, they have not known them. Praise YHWH!

K’Phohr: Snowflakes?

There is also the Hebrew word k’phohr which three times (Exodus 16:14, Job 38:29, Psalm 147:16) was translated as frost or hoar frost (although its homonym equivalent, meaning a delicate bowl, was the more common use of k’phohr). I would suggest this word might actually mean a snowflake (which itself could be described as a tiny little delicate bowl). In the above passage God scattered the “frost” like ashes. Visually that could look like snowflakes. In the previous Job passage, YHWH talked about the “k’phohr shamayim” (frost of heaven), which could be envisioned as snowflakes coming from the sky.

In the following Exodus passage, the culinary gift from God was manna and it was described as a fine flaky thing, like snowflakes (frost), on the ground:

Exodus 16:13-15

So it came about at evening that the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as the snowflakes frost [ka-k’phohr כַּכְּפֹ֖ר] on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” [literally ‘Man’hu (Manna)?”] For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread which YHWH has given you to eat.”

Snowflakes falling from heaven and snowflakes being scattered like ashes creates a visually stunning image that frost doesn’t quite encapsulate. Manna was a flake-like thing… what’s the most beautiful flake of God’s creation?… undoubtedly, a snowflake.

The Awesome Gleam of Ice Crystal

The final image of ice in the Bible comes in three visions of God’s heavenly throne room. The priest-prophet, Ezekiel, was shown an incredible image of God’s heavenly realm which included a crystalline expanse:

Ezekiel 1:4-11, 22-28

As I looked, behold, a high wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing intermittently and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like gleaming metal in the midst of the fire. And within it there were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had human form. Each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they sparkled like polished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them, their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved, each went straightforward. As for the form of their faces, each had a human face; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left, and all four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies…

…Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal [ha-qerakh הַקֶּ֣רַח], spread out over their heads. Under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body on the one side and on the other. And I also heard the sound of their wings, like the sound of abundant waters as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of a crowd like the sound of an army camp; whenever they stopped, they let down their wings. And a voice came from above the expanse that was over their heads; whenever they stood still, they let down their wings.

Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance; and on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man. Then I noticed from the appearance of His waist and upward something like gleaming metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His waist and downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him. Like the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of YHWH. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.

Ezekiel’s vision was an explosion of wild images which included an awesome gleam of crystal, glowing metal heated by fire, and glimmering rainbow radiance. Centuries after Ezekiel, the disciple John would envision a very similar place: 

Revelation 4:5-8

Out from the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God; and before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal [krystallo]; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature was like a lion, the second creature like a calf, the third creature had a face like that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, 

“HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, who was and who is and who is to come.”

Later in John’s revelation, he shared the vision of the conclusion to the Biblical human story:

Revelation 22:1-5

And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal [Greek: krystallon], coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever.

Ice is a stunning bit of creation! It’s beautiful, it shimmers, and it has a place in YHWH’s heavenly Kingdom. From a frosty Canadian point of view, I think that’s fantastic!

Iceland, here I come!

Next week: Waterfalls