REPROACH

These terms carry the thought of reproach, defamation, disgrace or scorn.—Compare Genesis 30:23; Psalm 69:9; Luke 1:25; Romans 15:3.

Momentarily he weakened and considered stopping his prophetic work because of the unceasing reproach and jeering.

Jehovah set Israel “as a reproach to [her] neighbors, a derision and jeering to those all around” her, justly so, because of her own waywardness and disobedience to God, even to the point of bringing reproach upon God’s name among the nations. (Ps. 44:13; 79:4; 80:6; Ezek. 22:4, 5; 23:32; 36:4, 21, 22)

The psalmist was moved to write: “We have become a reproach to our neighbors [a plural form of sha·khenʹ], a derision and a jeering to those round about us.”

He prayed: “Repay to our neighbors [a plural form of sha·khenʹ] seven times into their bosom their reproach with which they have reproached you.”

First of all, he destroys his relationship with God, the most valuable possession; then he brings reproach upon his family and destroys family relationships.

A plague and dishonor he will find, and his reproach itself will not be wiped out.

Contrariwise, those who take a wrong course and show despite for Jehovah’s love, who bring reproach on his name and cruel suffering to others, cause Jehovah to ‘feel hurt at his heart.’—Gen. 6:5-8; Ps. 78:36-41; Heb. 10:38.

Such sanctification would require a cleansing of the Name of all reproach and false charges, that is, a vindicating of it.

It was at this point that Moses made the most important decision of his life: “By faith Moses, when grown up, refused to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, choosing to be ill-treated with the people of God rather than to have the temporary enjoyment of sin, because he esteemed the reproach of the Christ [that is, of being God’s appointed prophet] as riches greater than the treasures of Egypt.”

In that way Moses was “the Christ” of that time; but in order to come into that privileged position he had to give up the “treasures of Egypt” and let himself “be ill-treated with the people of God” and thus suffer reproach.