We’ve barely begun to explore the exquisite excellencies of the gift of the Holy Spirit to us! It will take eternity to plumb the depths of this vast cosmos of the Spirit, “who knows the deep things of God.” While our journey in 1 Peter is delayed by needful construction, I’m delighted to return to revelations of the Holy Spirit I’ve received from God’s word. As mentioned before, we’ll take occasional rests from 1 Peter to take in fresh vistas of our rich inheritance of the Holy Spirit. My hope and prayer is that God may shape your walk with Him by it as mine has been.
We’re only two verses deep in the Bible, and the Spirit bursts on the scene!
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:1-2 ESV
I want us to pay particularly close attention to the Spirit’s collaboration that sprung creation into being.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The word for hovering is rāḥap̄ (raw-khaf’). Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon defines rāḥap̄ as “to brood over young ones, to cherish young (as an eagle), Deut. 32:11; figuratively used of the Spirit of God, who brooded over the shapeless mass of the earth, cherishing and vivifying.” The Spirit of God over the face of the deep impresses upon our imagination a mother bird brooding—warming, protecting, covering her young with her wings or body. Unlike the agitated, surging mass of chaotic waters below, the Spirit hovering above is relaxed and at rest, so rāḥap̄ conveys.
Did God have any specific bird in mind when correlating the Spirit’s activity to a mother bird brooding over her young? As God spoke by the prophets long ago, at many times and in many ways, His revelation progressively matured until He had spoken to us by His Son, Jesus Christ (Heb 1:1-2). The dim dawn of Genesis is outshone by the noonday sun of Jesus Christ and His apostles. Gaps and mysteries in comprehending these introductory sketches are filled in and solved for us. The Holy Spirit hovering over the waters as a mother bird brooding over her young anticipates a richer, fuller development.
Noah released a dove over the chaos waters of the Flood (of these things we cannot now speak in detail). All four Gospels compare the Holy Spirit to a dove coming down from heaven as Jesus emerged from the baptismal waters of the River Jordan. The Jordan is soaked with symbolism and historical significance, distant echoes of the primordial chaos waters at the beginning of creation (another story for another day). The grand storyline of the Bible portrays the Spirit of God hovering—rāḥap̄—over the face of the deep as a dove. The Spirit symbolized by the dove has been permanently etched upon our imaginations.
I want you to consider, though, another bird possibility, confirmed by later revelation. Rāḥap̄ appears two more times. It seems God has another bird on His mind besides the dove. As God speaks by His prophet Moses, this occurrence of rāḥap̄ opens up further insight:
He found him [Israel] in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters [rāḥap̄] over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him, no foreign god was with him.
Deuteronomy 32:10-12 ESV
Rescuing Israel from Egypt and shepherding them through the wilderness, the Lord likens Himself to a mother eagle caring for her young. That rare word rāḥap̄ is a flashback to the Holy Spirit fluttering—rāḥap̄—over the waters. Deuteronomy populates the Spirit’s indistinctness with an image of a mother eagle hovering—rāḥap̄—over her eaglets. This song also remixes a familiar melody of a more recent past, on the slopes of Mt. Sinai, as God prepared to announce the Ten Commandments. The song triggers remembrance of eagle imagery in the nation’s nearness to God:
You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
Exodus 19:4 ESV
So along with the dove, the eagle augments understanding of the Spirit’s warming, protecting, and covering over the deep. What does it mean for the Holy Spirit to be likened to an eagle? In Scripture, as lion is king of beasts, the eagle is prince among birds. Proverbs speaks of the mystery of the eagle’s way in the sky:
Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a virgin (Prov 30:18 ESV).
God accommodates us earth-bound creatures so dependent upon what our eyes can see. Scripture adapts to our sense of up—gazing toward the blue sky or starry heavens—as the place where God dwells. In an absolute, literal sense, God is everywhere present, “omnipresent.” But Scripture acclimates to our visually oriented existence of going “up” as to mean drawing closer to God. So when the patriarchs like Abraham and Moses climb up a mountain, they are drawing close to the Lord’s presence. We even say a “mountaintop experience” to mean a spectacular, experiential encounter with the living God. Conversely, to go down, such as to Egypt or Sheol, indicates relational distancing or estrangement from God.
Now, of the currently estimates 18,000 species of birds, the eagle stands out in the Bible for dwelling in the highest heights. So says Job, “Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?” (Job 39:27) When God wants to point out the pinnacle of false confidence, He says, “Though you make your nest as high as the eagle’s, I will bring you down from there, declares the Lord” (Jer 49:16). The familiar passage in Isaiah 40 speaks of those “who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles.”
The eagle is the bird that symbolically represents the closest access to God. So the eagle that soars the highest and dwells in the highest heights most fittingly pictures the Spirit of God. “Before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God” (Rev 4:5). The Holy Spirit (“seven” a symbol of completeness) lives in the closest proximity to God. The good news for us is that God’s Spirit lifts us up into the presence of the Lord Jesus! “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Ex 19:4). Now, whereas the eagle as usually going up (unless swooping down from the heights), the dove goes down. The Spirit as a dove descends to lift us up into the presence of the Lamb! “I brought you to Myself.”
The dove and the eagle are two sides of the same coin. As Jesus is both Lion and Lamb, the Spirit is both Eagle and Dove! The fierce, warlike eagle is the lion of birds and the gentle, peaceful dove is the lamb of birds. And just as the Lamb is Christ’s predominant characteristic, so the Dove is the Spirit’s.
Though much more can be said, I’ll end with this final thought that has enriched my intercessory life.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep [tᵊhôm]. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters [mayim].
The Hebrew word for “deep” is tᵊhôm (teh-home’), from the root word hûm (hoom), to make an uproar or agitate greatly. So tᵊhôm is an abyss, as a surging mass of water, especially the deep. Note the change, though, when the Spirit of God comes to brood over it. These same surging, agitated waters of tᵊhôm are called something else: mayim [mah’-yim], waters. As the six days of creation roll on, these mayim release the imprisoned dry land on the third day—resurrection—to flourish with the new life of vegetation, plants, and fruit trees. The Spirit’s brooding over mayim incubates it into an unbounded aquarium of abundant aquatic life—fish and squid and sharks and great whales. When the Spirit of God broods over tᵊhôm, miracles happen! He supernaturally transforms the dark surging waters of tᵊhôm into mayim, the Master Artist’s canvas from which springs forth a beautiful creation!
There’s more. Tᵊhôm depicts the human heart—dark, unruly, agitated, restless, formless, lifeless, dead. This is not just my idea. Paul made this connection between tᵊhôm and the sinful, stony heart, pointing out that God’s decree, “Let light shine out of darkness,” shone where? In our hearts (2Co 4:6). In Genesis 1, this light shone where? In the darkness “over the face of the deep [tᵊhôm].” Then, the light shone into the darkness that cloaked tᵊhôm. Now, the gospel light shines into the darkness of the human heart. Paul’s analogy is clear: the pitch black agitated abyss of tᵊhôm is a picture of my heart prior to new creation. It’s the ministry of the Spirit of God to brood over the sinner’s heart and birth from it thriving new life!
This has blessed implications for us! Rather than being repulsed the ugly, wretched darkness of a sinner’s heart, God’s Spirit is attracted to tᵊhôm. Like Jesus, He too is a friend of sinners. His attraction doesn’t condone darkness but lives in triumphant hope that light will overcome darkness. The Holy Spirit flutters over a sinner’s tᵊhôm as a mother eagle compassionately cares for her young. Compassion is one of the chief characteristics He wants us to know Him by. When Moses asked to see the Lord’s glory, He stashed him in a rock’s cleft, and “passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful…” (Exod 34:6). The very first characteristic about Himself was merciful, raḥûm [rakh-oom’], compassion. Raḥûm is birthed from a root word for womb, assimilating into itself the tender compassion a mother has for her newborn child. Before anything else, God wants us to see Him as a God of mercy. It is no accident, then, that the Bible’s first presentation of God’s character is compassion. His mercy is on full display in the Spirit of God hovering—rāḥap̄—over the face of the deep as the mother eagle caring for her young.
This has had amazing implications for me! Instead of the Spirit of holiness being repulsed by the sinful heart of man, mercy—raḥûm—draws Him near. Because of the Son’s shed blood, the Spirit of God approaches the lost sinner in hope, faith, and love. No spiritual darkness is too dark that the Spirit can’t hover over and the Word shine into. To cite a different metaphor from one of my heroes of the faith, Corrie Ten Boom, “There is no pit so deep God’s love is not deeper still.”
This insight has fueled a fresh motivation in me when I intercede for unsaved people. I now like to pray for a lost person with this image in mind, calling on the Spirit to brood over the tᵊhôm of his or her heart and make it His mayim canvas for a beautiful creation. I am confident this is His will. The timing is His, but the calling on Him is mine. The human heart is an untamed tᵊhôm, but when the Spirit is present, He tames it to be a mayim of creative beauty. I have many members in my own family, extended family, and others that I petition this same Spirit to hover over their tᵊhôm to re-form them and bear them up on eagle’s wings to their Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ! Amen!
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 