I learned a new Hebrew word today, “לְהִתְמַהֲמֵהַ“, which roughly means “procrastination”. It’s pronounced “lé–hitmahméah“.
Its root context appears in two stories in scripture that mirror each other. One is near the end of Genesis and the other is near the end of Exodus. If Genesis, Judah confronts his father, Jacob, in regards to procrastinating the decision to bring Benjamin to Egypt and in Exodus the word appears as the people are leaving Egypt (430 years later) in such a hurry they couldn’t wait (procrastinate) for the bread to rise.
In the first story, they regret procrastinating the inevitable while in the second story they wanted to procrastinate, but inevitably could not.
This lesson of procrastination and inevitability is an interesting one to take in, as the predestination turns out to be unavoidable and the consequence of each of our actions (or lack of action) doesn’t change that.
In modern lyrical context: “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”