Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am wretched. Heal me, for my limbs are stricken. Psalm 6:2 Robert Alter My limbs – On the 30th of April of this year, I wrote a piece about the excruciating pain I was experiencing in my left knee. I asked for your prayers (thank you). I wrote…
Your wrath has rested upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah Psalm 88:7 NASB Wrath – God is good, right? Good all the time, right? Then why do we resonate with the thought in this verse? Why do we sometimes feel as if we’re under God’s thumb? “Your wrath” is from the Hebrew…
You will arise and have compassion on Zion; for it is time to be gracious to her, for the appointed time has come. Psalm 102:13 NASB Be gracious – “Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth;’” (Exodus 34:6). What’s number 2 in God’s self-disclosure? The first…
“Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Would that I had died and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been, carried from womb to tomb.” Job 10:18-19 NASB Had not been – The story of Job challenges the belief that God is just. All…
“And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” Matthew 25:40 NASB The least – Benevolence toward others without any expectation of gain. That’s the idea. …
Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. Romans 15:2 Please – Negotiating for one’s own good. That’s the idea behind the classical Greek use of aresko. It is essentially a passive act, that is, an action that reflects back on the subject. It isn’t passive in the sense that…
