I will keep Your statutes; do not utterly abandon me! Psalm 119:8 NASB Utterly abandon – The Hebrew text isn’t exactly like this English translation. The syntax in Hebrew is “not forsake me even with power.” “Utterly abandon” might capture the emotion but what’s interesting is the implication that God would deliberately, and with strength, leave…
The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:16-17 NASB The man – I’ve put “the man” in bold to call your…
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-12 NASB Cast me away – Broken…
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth! Psalm 57:11 ESV Over – As we know very well, in languages without punctuation, emphasis is indicated by word order. What matters most usually comes first. So when we translate Hebrew expressions into English, the word order is often rearranged…
“Fear not for you will not be put to shame; neither feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; but you will forget the shame of your youth, . .” Isaiah 54:4 NASB Neither feel humiliated – The translation of ve-al-tikalmi as “neither feel humiliated” shifts the paradigm from a Hebrew point of view to…
“My heart is turned over within Me, all My compassions are kindled.” Hosea 11:8 NASB Within – How much does God care about His children? If you struggle to find words big enough, deep enough, significant enough, you’re not alone. The message of the Bible is that God cares beyond anything that we can imagine. …
How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God. Psalm 146:5 Is In – It’s certainly commonplace for us to say we hope in the Lord, but we might be surprised to find the Jewish prayer book doesn’t render the thought this way. The same…
