Divine Desire

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…

What Matters

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…

No Man’s Land

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…

Favorites

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/  …

Clothes Make the Man

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…

The Badad Boys

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…

Were You Paying Attention?

God heard the lad crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.  Genesis 21:17  NASB The lad – You know the story.  Sarah can’t stand the…

Alter-ations

indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.  Genesis 22:17  NASB Seed – The monumental work of Robert Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Bible reveals just how inadequate…

Boiled Eggs

“The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in the loftiness of your dwelling place, who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to earth?’”  Obadiah 3 Arrogance of your heart – What is arrogance?  Most of us have some cognitive picture about this word.  We…

Jeremiah’s Desperado

I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.  Jeremiah 24:7  NASB Return – Hauser makes me cry for the passion of music.  The Eagles make me cry for the pathos of living. …