but deliver us from evil Matthew 6:13 NASB Deliver – But do we really want to be delivered? Delivered means facing reality as it is, no fantasies, no Band-Aids, no idol protection. Maybe we aren’t so quick to be delivered because it’s so frightening. Isn’t that exactly what happens when we turn back to the…
Redeem, God, Israel from all its straits. Psalm 25:22 Robert Alter translation Israel – The etymology of the Hebrew word yisra’el is unusual and important. TWOT makes the following observation: “The verb śārâ limits itself to contexts which discuss the struggle of Jacob as he wrestled with the Angel of Yahweh at Peniel in Transjordan,…
May uprightness, wholeness, preserve me, for in You do I hope. Psalm 25:21 Robert Alter translation Uprightness – “Two problems of ot theology concern the verb tāmam: self-righteousness and perfectionism. Illustrating the former, David expresses the resolve, ‘I will walk within my house with a perfect (tōm) heart’ (Ps 101:2b KJV, ASV margin and RSV…
Guard my life and save me. Let me be not ashamed, for I shelter in You. Psalm 25:20 Robert Alter translation Ashamed – You know it must be a big deal if David brings it up twice, once at the beginning and now at the end of his song. The word is bosh, and it…
See my enemies who are many and with outrageous hatred despise me. Psalm 25:19 Robert Alter translation Despise – Buried in the Hebrew text is a powerful repetition not evident in Alter’s translation (but clear in the ESV). “Hatred” and “despise” are from the same Hebrew root, sane. To hate describes an emotional reaction of…
See my affliction and suffering and forgive all my offenses. Psalm 25:18 Robert Alter translation Offenses – hatta’t is the predominate Hebrew word for “sin.” It is a picture of missing the mark, as if we each were shooting arrows at God’s target and missing the dead center bull’s eye. Livingston notes the following insight:…
What a great weekend teaching and sharing with the Torah group in Droitwich! I wish you all could have been here to see the enthusiasm and commitment. These are people we need to support as they try to make a real difference here in England.
The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. Acts 2:20 ESV More than nine hundred years ago, Maimonides, regarded as perhaps the greatest of Jewish expositor of sacred literature, wrote, “when the power of Edom [the Christians] and of…
You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Deuteronomy 4:2 NASB Add/take away – “Finally, there came a movement that made our lives bitter with all the methods it took over…
