Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. Genesis 21:33 NASB The Everlasting God – In his article, “Genesis 21:33: A Study In the Development of a Biblical Text and Its Rabbinic Transformation,” Nahum Sarna examines several oddities found in this text. The problems begin with the…
having cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7 NASB Cares – If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: the fundamental message of the Bible is “God cares.” I believe it, but don’t ask me why. Don’t ask because I feel what the prophets discovered. “History…
The men of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over, ready for battle, in front of the Israelites, as Moses had directed them. Joshua 4:12 NIV Ready for battle – What does the odd Hebrew word ḥămūšîm really mean? In the NIV it is translated “ready for battle,” but in the NASB it appears as “in…
The men of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over, ready for battle, in front of the Israelites, as Moses had directed them. Joshua 4:12 NIV Crossed over – The auspicious day has arrived. The tribes are about to conquer the Promised Land. God has given them territories to occupy. Soon the nation of Israel will…
Stricter judgment – “Sometimes I feel like a guide escorting others through the rooms of their own house. What a treat it is to watch them open doors to rooms never before entered, discover unopened wings of their house containing beautiful and creative pieces of identity.”[1] Irvin Yalom’s comment stirred similar feelings in me. The…
Be assured, the evil person will not go unpunished, but the descendants of the righteous will be rescued. Proverbs 11:21 NASB Be assured – You remember the old hymn, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine.” Fanny Crosby clearly didn’t get the idea from this Hebrew verse. Why? Well, the…
A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm. Proverbs 11:17 NASB Cruel – Who is the cruel person? The torturer? The egotistic dictator? Men like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin? When we think of the antonym of “cruel” these days, what term comes to mind? Kind? Forgiving? Merriam-Webster lists “tender, warm, warmhearted, charitable, clement, lenient, merciful, pitying, pacific, peaceable, peaceful.” The…
A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm. Proverbs 11:17 NASB Merciful – It should come as no surprise that the word translated “mercy” is really ḥesed. The translation relies on the way ḥesed is treated in the LXX, but as you know, even there we find eight different Greek words for…
A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm. Proverbs 11:17 NASB Does himself good – Arthur Branch, the District Attorney in the television series Law and Order, quipped, “Sometimes the good you do doesn’t do you any good.” Regretfully, he seems to be correct. Human experience suggests that doing good doesn’t always…
I have informed you today, even you. Have I not written for you thirty things in good counsel and knowledge? Proverbs 22:20 Robert Alter Thirty things – “The Masoretic Text has shalishim (‘captains’?) in the ketiv (consonantal text) and shelishim (‘threes’?) in the qeri (marginal gloss). Neither makes sense, and the translation [here] adopts Michael…
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