Take away my disgrace which I dread, for Your judgments are good. Psalm 119:39 NASB Disgrace – by now we’ve learned that shame in the ancient Semitic world is not an inner psychological state. It is public disgrace. Now we need to know what “disgrace” means in this ancient world. The word is ḥerpâ. In…
Take disgrace and contempt away from me, for I comply with Your testimonies. Psalm 119:22 NASB Disgrace and contempt – How do you read this? Is the poet asking God to remove something that is happening to him, or is he asking God to removing something that he too often does? What is his situation? Are…
Because for You I have borne reproach, disgrace has covered my face. Psalm 69:8 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter Because for You – David makes an astounding claim, a claim that hardly seems accurate. He says that the damage to his reputation is due to his upholding God’s name. Has he forgotten his sins? How can…
Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the shame of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is called [a]Gilgal to this day. Joshua 5:9 NASB Shame – Recently we investigated the two Hebrew words, ḥerpâ (reproach) and gālal (to roll away). We discovered that the request to circumcise the male population a…
So their children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them along the way. Joshua 5:7 NASB They had not circumcised them – Who did (or didn’t) do what to whom? Careful. It’s a bit more complicated than it looks. In this story, Joshua…
At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make for yourself flint knives and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time.” Joshua 5:2 NASB Second time – Paradigms are limiting factors in explanation. That’s why a group of physicists who held tightly to the Bohr model of the atom (the nucleus being the smallest building block…
Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. Psalm 31:11 NASB Reproach– Are you the Mary Mallon of sin? Remember her? She was “the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic…
