Wings כָּנָף

We are rolling into chapter nineteen of Exodus with our word for today. כָּנָף wing, skirt, hem, edge, extremity. It is used 110 times in the Old Testament. Most of the uses of our word are in the sense of a moveable extremity for flying. Genesis 1:21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every כָּנָף֙ winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Job 39:13 The כְּנַף wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, though they cannot compare with the wings and feathers of the stork. 

Our word is used in the sense of God protecting like an Eagle would protect its young. Deuteronomy 32:9-12 For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its כְּנָפָיו֙ wings to catch them and carries them aloft. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. Ruth 2:11-12 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose כְּנָפָֽיו wings you have come to take refuge.” 

This is how our word is used in our chapter today. Exodus 19:4 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' כַּנְפֵ֣י wings and brought you to myself. Did you catch God’s motive? He wants to bring his people to himself. We find this imagery of parental love ascribed to God throughout the Bible. Psalm 17:8 Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of כְּ֝נָפֶ֗יךָ your wings. Psalm 36:7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of כְּ֝נָפֶ֗יךָ your wings. Psalm 57:1 Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of כְּנָפֶ֥יךָ your wings until the disaster has passed. Psalm 61:4 I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of כְּנָפֶ֣יךָ your wings. I’ll close with this great passage of God’s love seen in the prediction of sending Jesus to heal us from our sins that separated us from him. Malachi 4:2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its בִּכְנָפֶ֑יהָ wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.