I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, Psalm 88:4 NASB Down to the pit – “Modern man’s greatest fault, Kierkegaard maintains, is his total self-reliance. It is his nineteenth-century delusion that he has progressed beyond his ancestors. This conceit derives from egotism. There is but…
For my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol. Psalm 88:3 NASB 1995 Has had enough – Is your life filled to the brim? Oh, I didn’t ask if it is filled up with good things. I just asked if you feel as if it is up to the top. Yes, it’s…
Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! Psalm 88:2 NASB Incline – “The 215 occurrences of this verb, excluding derivatives, are translated some thirty-five different ways in the KJV alone. The ASV and RSV add other renderings to this wide range of English expressions.”[1] That’s not very comforting, is it? If…
Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! Psalm 88:2 NASB Let . . . come before You – The first thing you should notice is the change in syntax. In Hebrew the verb comes first. So, it reads, “Let come before You my prayer.” The action is the important thing. What…
Lord, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. Psalm 88:1 (English) NASB Cried out – “The phone’s ringing. Answer it!” Do you find it difficult not to answer a call? Are you annoyed with people who just let the phone ring but don’t pick up? For decades…
Lord, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. Psalm 88:1 (English) NASB Lord, the God – Make sure you realize why both of these words are found at the beginning of this poem. YHVH, of course, and ʾĕlōhîm. Today we consider both of these as designations of…
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. For the music director; according to Mahalath Leannoth. A [a]Maskil of Heman [b]the Ezrahite. Psalm 88:1 (Hebrew) Music director – Of course you know that many of the psalms (mizmôt) are really lyrics for songs. No news there. But some of these songs are particularly interesting—and troubling. This…
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. Genesis 1:3 NASB Let there be – I suppose this is a bit better than Paul McCartney’s version (“Let It Be”), but it still sends us in the wrong direction. The English suggests that God was involved in some kind of command bringing light into…
And all the people were watching and hearing the thunder and the lightning flashes, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it all, they trembled and stood at a distance. Exodus 20:18 NASB At a distance – It’s a nice translation but it doesn’t really tell us what happened. In order…
And within it there were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had human form. Each of them had four faces and four wings. Ezekiel 1:5-6 NASB Human form – With the verse, Ezekiel begins to share his visions. Commentators and end-times prognosticators have had a field day with Ezekiel’s descriptions. Maybe that’s because they…
