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Conjunctions
Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Psalm 51:11 NASB And – Oh, the extent of this mighty little letter. Attach a vav to a Hebrew word, and all kinds of things can happen. Here, in particular, we are faced with some significant translation choices. You see, vav can mean, “so, then, and, with, together, so that,…
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Retrofit
Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Psalm 51:11 NASB Your Holy Spirit – Well, if you wanted a prooftext for the Trinitarian view of the third person of the Godhead, you probably would include this verse from David.[1] After all, if David acknowledged the “Holy Spirit,” how could anyone who…
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Person
Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” Genesis 1:26 NASB Image/ likeness – How many times have we examined the implications…
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Who’s the Author?
So he said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth your slave. Now spread your garment over your slave, for you are a redeemer.” Ruth 3:9 NASB Spread your garment – One of the exegetical assumptions of both Judaism and conservative Christianity is that all of the biblical text is ultimately authored by…
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Wash, Dry, Fold
Create in me a clean heart, God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10 NASB Steadfast – There’s not much point in washing your clothes if you’re just going to jump back in the mud. They might be clean for the moment, but unless you stay away from the muck, you’ll be right back where you started—dirty. That’s the point of…
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Hapax Legomenon Exegesis
Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, camels were coming. Genesis 24:63 NASB 1995 To meditate – Hapax legomenon. That’s what the word śûaḥ’ is. A once only occurrence in the entire Tanakh. If you look in a lexicon, you will find…
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Inside View
When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. Genesis 37:21 NIV Tried to rescue – Jonathan Sacks makes an interesting comment about the literal Hebrew in this verse: It is at this point that the Torah does something it does nowhere else: It makes a statement…
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Two in One
Hide Your face from my sins and wipe out all my guilty deeds. Psalm 51:9 NASB Hide/ wipe out – Two actions are needed before we find relief from past mistakes. The first involves re-establishing a right relationship with God. For that to occur, God must take the initiative. Since He knows everything about us,…
