Verbs and Paradigms

Now the hand of the Lord was on me there, and He said to me, “Get up, go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.”  Ezekiel 3:22  NASB He said – According to some researchers, the phrase “God said” or its equivalent is used 1900 times in the Bible.  When you think about it,…

Chiesa di Santa Croce, Parma

Well, we finally got into this church.  It’s closed most of the time.  But this day it was open–and packed with people.  We didn’t realize it was the day of first communion for many children, a very big deal in the Catholic faith, and the place was wall-to-wall people.  I got a few shots after…

Group Consciousness

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,  2 Timothy 3:16 Scripture – “But that’s how you read it, not how I read it.”  Ever heard that complaint?  Engage in virtually any controversial theological argument and somewhere along the way you’re bound to encounter the “this is what it…

Written?

“Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things that are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”  Luke 24:44 NASB Spoke – Yeshua followed the teaching technique of the rabbis.  He never…

A Bridge Too Far (2)

You have removed lover and friend far from me; my acquaintances are in a hiding place.  Psalm 88:18  NASB  You have removed – A short excursus into enemy territory followed by an immediate return to the major theme: God is sovereign.  This poem describes whatever happens as under God’s control and direction.  Therefore, even if “they”…

God the Problem (2)

They have surrounded me like water all day long;  they have encircled me altogether.  Psalm 88:17  NASB   They – Suddenly, a change.  Through seventeen verses the psalmist has decried God’s absence.  His lament holds Godresponsible for the sorry state of his life, for the nearly impossible burden he must carry, for the approach of death.  But now,…

Dead End (2)

Your burning anger has passed over me;  Your terrors have destroyed me.  Psalm 88:16  NASB Destroyed – Not just any trauma.  No, this is trauma of a special kind: bi·ʿûṯ.  “events that cause fear and destruction or death, with some focus on the wrath of the punisher.”[1]  What is the result?  ṣāmat The word ṣāmat occurs…

Slow Train Coming (2)

I was miserable and about to die from my youth on;  I suffer Your terrors; I grow weary.  Psalm 88:15  NASB From my youth – Some things stick.  Some experiences you had early on just remain, buried away in the subconscious of your worldview, coloring how you look at life.  Modern psychological theory, removed from the divine,…

A Stinking Mess (2)

Lord, why do You reject my soul?  Why do You hide Your face from me?  Psalm 88:14  NASB Reject – The Hebrew zānaḥ has two root meanings.  The first is as it is translated here: to reject, spurn, cast off.  But the second adds a bit to our emotional understanding of this word.  zānaḥ II means, “to stink,…