“The sum of Your word is truth,” Psalm 119:160 Words from a different World Word – What does God say? Words! But not the kind of words that we think of in our world. We think of words as symbols for the real thing. Our concept of “word” is essentially Greek. It is tied to…
“Then God said” Genesis 1:3 Getting Things Done Said – How do we get things done? The bottom line to most of our activity is that things get done by the application of some kind of force. Want to build something? Apply physical force. Want to buy something? Apply financial force. The human experience of…
“Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” Deuteronomy 6:4 What You See Hear – The great shema. Hear. In this pivotal text of the Old Testament, we are introduced to a different view of life. God’s paradigm is not our paradigm. Life is not based on WYSIWYG (What You See…
“By David. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.” Psalm 25:1 Praying Life, Breathing Soul Soul – Hebrew is a language of concrete images. It is not like the Western European languages that we use; languages full of abstract terms without physical references like “time” or “omnipotent” or “omniscient”. Hebrew deals with tangible…
“By David. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.” Psalm 25:1 The Context of Prayer Lift up – “To You, Yahweh, I lift”. The Hebrew verb is nasa. It has three categories of meaning: to lift up (literally), to bear or carry (used especially of carrying away guilt and sin) and to take…
“By David. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.” Psalm 25:1 The Intimate Dialogue By David. To You – David’s poem must become personal before you can understand it completely. The power in his poetry is discovered only when his emotional intimacy stirs familiar feelings in us. Perhaps the first step is to…
“I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the LORD,” 1 Samuel 1:15 The Prayer of Silence Poured Out – According to many Jewish sages, the prayer of Hannah is the epitome of human prayer. It is the prayer of a heart overwhelmed by distress and devotion. …
“When Solomon had finished praying this entire prayer and supplication to the LORD, he arose” 1 Kings 8:54 Turning the Inside Out Praying – The Hebrew verb for praying is reflexive. That means that the action described in the verb does a kind of 180-degree turn and acts on the subject. Most of the time…
“These men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.” Daniel 6:11 Are You Really Human? Making petition – Ancient Jewish tradition give us another insight into prayer with this word. While be’ah does mean, “to ask or request”, it is really another word for prayer. The word is used…
“Yet have regard to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which Your servant prays before You today.” I Kings 8:28 Lord, Teach Us to Breathe Prayer – According to Jewish scholarship, the root meaning behind palal is “to judge,…
