My soul is satisfied as with [d]marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips. Psalm 63:5 NASB Marrow and fatness – What does David’s poetry have to do with the official English Burial Service? Well, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” comes from the Burial Service, not the Bible. It is supposed to be derived…
So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. Psalm 63:4 NASB Bless You – You probably grew up in the ethos of the omnipotent, immutable God. You know, the God who can do everything and doesn’t really need anything. That is the philosophical epitome of a…
One of my readers replied to my recent article about “Losing.” I thought it was insightful enough to be widely published. Here it is: All the goings-on in the States reduces the society to the non-society of suspicion, slavery, spies, and policing, as you so well said. It is a repetition of pre-war and WWII…
Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You. Psalm 63:3 NASB Better – Let’s correct the syntax. ki-tov comes first. “Because good” Your ḥesed me ḥayyîm. The last phrase (me ḥayyîm) adds the “than life” part. Min is the preposition of comparison, in this case ki-tov me becomes “better than.” But min…
Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Psalm 63:2 NASB Have seen You – David’s parallelism explains why he didn’t die from divine exposure. “I have seen You” isn’t a violation of “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” because what David…
O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1 NASB Favorites Psalm 63:1 – Apparently I find this verse particularly important. I’ve written directly about it eleven times. Here’s the list: https://skipmoen.com/2019/07/parched-for-god/ …
We lost! I don’t mean Biden won or Trump won. It doesn’t really matter because the real loss is far greater than who will be President for the next four years. What we lost is bāṭaḥ. You know the word (I hope). It is translated “trust,” and in every circumstance except Proverbs 31:11, whenever it describes human…
Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of them and took their spoil and gave the changes of clothes to those who told the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house. Judges 14:19 NASB Spoil – Dictionaries make mistakes. That might…
I did not sit in the gathering of revelers to make merry. Because of Your hand, alone I sat, for with wrath You filled me.Jeremiah 15:17 Robert Alter Alone – Brené Brown convincingly argues that being human means being connected. The greatest punishment a man can feel is isolation: “ . . . the most terrifying…
Our recent trip to Venice confirmed that unless COVID restrictions are lifted soon, this wonderful experience will become a memory of the past. Virtually all the gondoliers are going out of business, many after generations of plying the waters of Venice.
