Arise as a Call to Change

We have talked in previous weeks about God’s prescription for Elijah’s depression: “Arise and eat.” But why did God tell Elijah to arise or to “get up” in response to his depression? One of my favorite ways to dig deeper into Scripture is to do a word study, especially in cases like this one where our application of this concept hinges on a correct understanding of the sense of one word. So how would you define the word “arise”?

Most likely you came up with either the idea of “emerge” or “happen”—as in, “he had to handle the situation that arose” or the idea of “get up” or “stand up”—as in, “she arose from slumber at 8am.” These are the two main senses of “arise” in English, although in the context of 1 Kings 19, the second idea fits the best, considering that Elijah was sleeping when the angel touched him. However, each language has its own range of meanings for a word. Sometimes the Hebrew (or Greek or Aramaic) word used in Scripture could have the same range as our English word, but not always. Let’s see which case “arise” falls under. The Hebrew word used here is qûm. One of the best ways to see the range of meaning for a word is to compare how different translators have chosen to translate this word in different contexts. Here are 4 different ways to translate this word that represent the range of senses for our Hebrew word, qûm, when it is used as a command:

• 1. Joshua 7:10—The LORD then said to Joshua, “Stand up! Why have you fallen facedown?”

  “Stand up” is the literal sense of the word that indicates a change of position. If this sense is meant in a particular passage, there is usually some indication that the subject is sitting or lying down.

• 2. Genesis 19:14—So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were going to marry his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!”

  This sense of “get up” usually appears with a verb of travel, like “go up, cross over, come away, or, simply, go.” In these cases, qûm carries the sense of “Get up and get moving,” or as my mom would say, “Come on! We’ve got places to go and people to see.”

• 3. Jonah 1:2 (NET)—“Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people because their wickedness has come to my attention.”

  This sense of qûm occurs with a specific Hebrew word for “go” (halak) and adds a sense of urgency to the following command. Here, it is given the sense of immediately. (You’ll notice that I had you look at a specific translation because this verse is not always translated with this sense. Translators do not always agree on what a word means in a given context.)

• 4. 1 Samuel 16:12—So Jesse sent for him. He had beautiful eyes and a healthy, handsome appearance. Then the Lord said, “__________ Anoint him, for he is the one.”

  This sense of qûm emphasizes the beginning of an action, prompting the recipient to get busy doing the action of the following verb. You’ll notice in our example of this sense I left a blank to represent where qûm appears in this verse, but it is not explicitly translated. In cases like this, qûm serves as a magnification of the command that follows it. It is a way to add weight to the significance of the next verb. So here, it has the sense of telling Samuel to get busy anointing David.

If these four verses represent the range of possibilities, which do you think best fits in God’s command to Elijah to arise? If you are like me, it was probably difficult to decide between the literal sense of changing position or the emphatic sense that would add to the next command, “Eat.” When we first looked at this command, we addressed “arise” as a command to change position. Sometimes when you’re depressed, the hardest thing to do is simply to get up from that position of inertia. And I do think that Elijah needed a command to get up and change position when he was at the height of his depression. However, as I have meditated on how the command to “arise” might impact me when I am depressed, I do not think it is a coincidence that “arise” could carry the sense of getting busy doing _____. Later, we will investigate the significance of the command to eat and what it’s connection to arise means, but God’s command to arise here certainly involves an aspect of getting up from one thing in order to do something else.

In tracking this idea through Scripture, I have found many cases of where “arise” signified some kind of transition. I think these ideas add to the kaleidoscope of God’s command to arise and show other ways we can apply qûm to our lives. God often calls us to get up from one thing in order to do something else. These verses expand on specific situations God might be using the call to arise as a call for change in our lives:

• To get up from sickness to get to work (Daniel 8:27)

• To get up from falling in order to stand up and leave darkness for the light (Micah 7:8)

• To get up from collapsing to rise and stand firm (Psalm 20:8)

• To get up from weeping to help someone else up (Genesis 21:18)

• To get up from mourning and praying to wash, change clothes, and go to the LORD’s house for worship (2 Samuel 12:20)

• To get up from crying to encourage others (2 Samuel 19:7)

• To get up from weeping and falling down to be strong and take action (Ezra 10:4)

• To get up from fasting and mourning to bless the LORD (Nehemiah 9:5).

• To get up from sleeping to provide food for our household (Proverbs 31:15)

• To get up from sleeping to cry out to God (Jonah 1:6)

• To get up from death to praise God (Psalm 88:10)

• To get up from death to live in His Presence (Hosea 6:1-2)

• To get up from captivity to shake off the dust and remove the chains from our neck (Isaiah 52:2)

• To get up from darkness in order to shine (Isaiah 60:1).

Scripture teaches us that there is a season for everything under the sun (Ecclesiastes 3:1). God’s call to arise is His compassionate indicator to us that this season has ended. God does not allow us to wallow in our feelings. Rather, He calls us to wake up after sleep, to choose life after what feels like death, to let go after grief, to get up after falling down—to face those things that we need to heal. Depression can make it easy to succumb to any or all of these things just because we no longer care about the things that used to matter to us. When God commands us to get up, it is both a physical command and a spiritual one. God promises in Isaiah, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19). God wants to close the book on this chapter of overwhelming depression in your life and start a new one.  

When I had to drop out of college due to burnout and depression, I felt like I had to do everything I could to get my life back on track. What was the soonest I could go back to school? How could I make up for this massive failure? I had this picture in my mind of what God had called me to do, and that plan required me to go back to school. So I couldn’t understand why, when I went back to school in the fall of 2009, I had to drop out again only a few weeks into the semester. I still couldn’t get out of bed or make it to class on time. That second time of coming home pulled me further into my depression because it felt like God wasn’t letting me do the things I wanted to do for Him. It has taken me years to realize that God wanted me to follow Him, to depend on Him, rather than legalistically sticking to “the Plan.” His call for me to arise was a spiritual calling to get up from my way of doing things and to let that way die so that He could accomplish His purposes His way. In getting up, I had to let go of my old dreams and expectations. I had to forgive myself for my own failings. But it is so much easier to walk once you’ve learned how to stand up.

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. —Isaiah 43:19

What is one thing you can do today to “get up from” a negative habit, a trauma you have endured, or even, a good habit that has stopped being useful?

As surely as God calls us to arise from, He has a plan for what we are to get up to do. We get up to wash ourselves, to shake off the dust of captivity, to provide for our families, to help and encourage others, to pray and call out to God, and to worship Him. God’s command to arise calls us to get up and get busy taking action, to get up after falling and stand firm. While it may not always feel like these things are possible when you are depressed, I want to encourage you to take things one step at a time. If Scripture teaches that everything has a season, then, that is true for periods of recovery and healing, too. Your work or your responsibilities may look differently than they have in the past, and that is okay. I’ve had three different seasons of my life where I was not able to work at all. I had to depend on the support of my family and my husband to pick up the slack. However, getting up out of bed every morning and doing the small things I had the capacity to do helped me create routines that were invaluable later on in my healing journey. Remember, every small step of taking care of yourself is obedient to God’s command to arise.

There are habits we need to get up and move away from to make room for new habits. There are unhealthy relationships we need to set boundaries in so we can have the space to heal. There are losses and griefs we need to mourn so that we can comfort others with the comfort God has given us (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). While it might be easier to stay asleep and give up in the face of what feels overwhelming right now, God calls us to get up and take action so that we can move forward and heal. I am praying for you to see the fruit of obedience to God’s call to arise in your life today.