Bible Research You Are My

Bible Research

You Are my Beloved - on Whom My Favor Rests

You are my Beloved

In the Old Testament, the blessed title "Beloved" was bestowed on only a chosen few. "Beloved" was the name by which God called Solomon (Nehemiah 13:26), "who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel." In return, Solomon called Benjamin "Beloved." In Deuteronomy 33, we find the blessings with which Moses blessed the children of Israel before his death. He gave different sons different blessings, but in Verse 12, to Benjamin he gave this blessing: "The beloved shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long and he shall dwell between his shoulders (in his heart)."

God loved His people, as well. In Psalm 127:2, the Lord tells his people to not rise up early or sit up late feeling sorrowful, for he gives his Beloved sleep.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for beloved, ?, (or DVD, which is also the Hebrew name, David) is appropriate only when referring to a male (the word also means uncle).

Beloved (? ) is not used when referring to a female. For a female term of endearment roughly equivalent to "beloved" one would use, ?, which is based on the Hebrew root for love. It is the name which the poet of Canticles called his love in Chapter 2: 16-17. This "female" word is used in the Song of Solomon, in descriptions of the beloved.

But in the New Testament, except for the time of Jesus' Baptism by John, when everyone present saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus and a voice from heaven calling him "My beloved son" (Matt. 3:16-17), and once more at the transfiguration, when Peter, James and John heard a voice speaking out of a bright cloud (Matt 17: 1-5), and God spoke of Jesus as his "Beloved Son," there are no other instances of anyone else receiving this title, until fifty years later, when Paul gave this term a special meaning.

Paul twice refers to his helper, Onesimus, as "Beloved" (Colossians 4:9 and Philemon 1:16). But then, in Ephesians, Paul begins to speak of all of those who have been saved as the "Beloved." This is the first instance of a group being given this special blessing. In Ephesians 1:5-6, Paul says that we have been adopted as children of God, by God's own free will and good pleasure and praiseworthy grace, and we have been accepted into the Beloved who have been redeemed by the Blood and forgiven of our sins.