Unconscionable Lightness

“Cry loudly, do not hold back; Raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to My people their wrongdoing, and to the house of Jacob their sins.”  Isaiah 58:1 NASB Wrongdoing – What do you really want?  What is so important that everything else pales by comparison?  What is the one thing you absolutely must have…

Fear Not – Except (Once More)

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word: “Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name’s sake, . . .  Isaiah 66:5  NASB Tremble – Not very often, but when it happens—watch out!  That’s my advice about ḥārēdim, the Hebrew word translated “tremble.”  It’s only used five times, but…

Night Terrors (Rewind)

I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.  Psalm 34:4  NASB Fears – Have any of your really bad dreams turned out to be real?  Do you sometimes feel as if you are living in a nightmare?  Even a cursory look at human history will convince you that…

The Age of Silence

Certainly the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret plan to His servants the prophets.  Amos 3:7  NASB Unless – But Amos must have been mistaken, don’t you think?  Maybe what he said was true when the Lord actually appointed prophets for Israel, but today, well, today we live in a world of spiritual silence.  Oh,…

Plural Problems (4)

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of man.”  Genesis 2:23  ESV Woman/ man – Irregular plurals.  That’s the description for the fact that neither ʾiššâ nor ʾiš have plural forms.  The plurals are rather nashim and…

Plural Problems (2)

Now the man named his wife [a]Eve, because she was the mother of all the living  Genesis 3:20 NASB Because – What did we learn yesterday?  We learned that Genesis 2:23 recounts that Adam projects the woman’s function with a name, a name that intimately connects her existence to his own, ʾiššâ and ʾšh.  Subsequently, after the punishment…

Plural Problems (1)

Now the man named his wife [a]Eve, because she was the mother of all the living  Genesis 3:20 NASB Eve – But of course he did not name her “Eve.”  I’m sorry, but the footnote in the NASB (“Genesis 3:20 I.e., living; or life”) is absolutely no help whatsoever.  “Eve” is not her name.  That word comes from the…

Matthew’s Son of Man

And the Elect One shall in those days sit on My throne, and his mouth shall pour forth all the secrets of wisdom and counsel: For the Lord of Spirits hath given (them) to him and hath glorified him.  1 Enoch 51:3 My throne – Academicians recognize that the “son of Man” in the gospel…

(Not So) Pleasant Fictions (Again)

that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,   Ephesians 4:22  NASB Lusts of deceit – The odd translation of the NASB is revised by the ESV to read “deceitful desires.”  The NASB simply tries to more literally…