We have become a disgrace to our neighbors, scorn and contempt to all round us. How long, O LORD, will You rage forever, Your fury burn like fire? Pour out Your wrath on the nations that did not know You and on the kingdoms that did not call on Your name. Psalm 79:4-6 (Hebrew Bible)…
May their table before them become a trap, and their allies a snare. May their eyes grow too dark to see, make their loins perpetually shake. Pour out upon them Your wrath, and Your blazing fury overtake them. Psalm 69:23-25 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter Wrath – Here are your choices: wrath, fury, indignation, anger, judgment,…
He who gives vent to anger commits as grave a sin as though he worshipped strange gods. Tractate Shabbat 105b Anger – Referring to Job 18:4, Luzzatto follows the Sages by connecting anger with idolatry. We don’t usually think like this, but perhaps we should. Stone’s commentary on Luzzatto shows us why: “[Anger] is the…
Because of Your indignation and Your wrath; for You have lifted me up and thrown me away. Psalm 102:10 NASB Indignation – I’m guessing that if I asked you for a definition of indignation, you’d stumble a bit. It’s not a commonly used word. We have some inkling of its meaning, but not precisely. If we…
The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds and multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and moaning. Lamentations 2:5 NASB Like an enemy – We live in the “God is Love” age. I’m not sure when we transitioned from “Sinners in the…
“Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them. . . And the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people and I am not your God.” Hosea 1:6, 9 NASB I am not your God – Hosea is a tragic book. It is…
“Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” Jonah 3:9 NIV His fierce anger – “A better god has been discovered who never takes offense, is never angry, never inflicts punishment.”[1] If Tertullian is right, then the king of Nineveh is grossly mistaken. Too bad he made…
O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger. Psalm 38:1 NASB Rebuke – How long is your fuse? How long can you hold out before that deep anger about the injustice in life explodes? Oh, I don’t mean all the social injustice we observe every day. I mean that sense…
Do not fret, it leads only to evildoing. Psalm 37:8 NASB Fret – Why is fretting such a bad thing? Don’t we all worry about the future? Certainly the news is full of things to worry about. That’s what sells newspapers. Why would the Psalmist say that fretting leads to evildoing? It seems to me…
Let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along, like the miscarriages of a woman which never see the sun. Psalm 58:8 NASB Miscarriages – I’m angry. Are you? I’m angry that the wicked prevail. I’m angry that I have to struggle while they seem to have lives of ease. I’m…
