Hear my prayer, Lord! And let my cry for help come to You. Psalm 102:1 NASB Hear – If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear, does it make a sound? An interesting existential question. What is the relationship between a physical event and the perception of the event? If God…
A Prayer of the afflicted when he is weak and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Psalm 102 NASB Complaint – You’re praying. You feel oppressed and downtrodden. You acknowledge your total dependency on God. You’re weak; He’s strong. You kneel before Him—His servant, His child. And you complain? Before we tackle the noun “complaint” we…
A Prayer of the afflicted when he is weak and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Psalm 102 NASB Before – A curious thing has happened in this verse. The English order doesn’t follow the Hebrew order. In Hebrew, the phrase “before the Lord” comes after “is weak (is faint).” The Hebrew verse reads: “A…
A Prayer of the afflicted when he is weak and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Psalm 102 NASB Weak – Amazingly, our word “weak” isn’t found in the languages of Europe until the 12th Century. I guess before that people never knew what it meant to be physically exhausted (No, probably not. There are…
A Prayer of the afflicted when he is weak and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Psalm 102 NASB Afflicted – The Hebrew word ʿānî comes from a root that means “to force,” or “to try to force submission,” and “to punish or inflict pain upon.”[1] Here the noun describes someone who is feeling the…
Prayer of an Afflicted Man for Mercy on Himself and on Zion. A Prayer of the afflicted when he is weak and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Psalm 102 NASB Prayer – In the NASB, these two statements have no verse numbers. They are treated as introductory summaries before the text of the actual…
“ . . . and if I perish, I perish.” Esther 4:16 NASB Perish – Would you die for the cause? I imagine your answer will be conditioned by an assessment of the cause. Is it worth dying for? But what if you believe you will die either way? If you choose to stand up…
The wicked, in his haughtiness, does not seek Him. There is no God in all his schemes. Psalm 10:4 NASB electronic web edition Haughtiness – Haughty is not a common word in modern usage. We associate it with 19th Century English Romantic literature (like the book Pride and Prejudice). The synonym “proud” still finds a place in our speech, but…
For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with influences from the east, Isaiah 2:6a NASB Your people – A statement from Yehezkel Kaufmannn’s book, The Religion of Israel, caused me to pose a question to the rabbi of Parma. Kaufmann wrote: “After the prophet depicts the end-time, he turns to reproach…
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes 1:18 NIV Grief – It’s the weight that hurts. The deep sense of sadness. Not just about the world’s mad dash toward destruction. Not just the unspeakable evil perpetrated upon the voiceless masses. Not just the moral inequity of economic and…
