Will You do wonders for the dead? Will the shades arise and acclaim you? Selah. Psalm 88:11 (Robert Alter translation) Wonders – When is it too late? When does the power of the Lord cease to be effective? When you’re dead! Death ends it. As the Korahites sang, we can cry out to the Lord…
Abandoned among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You no longer remember, and they are cut off from Your hand. Psalm 88:5 NASB Abandoned – What an interesting choice of words! Sometimes translated “forsaken,” the Hebrew root is the verb ḥāpaš. Here it is ḥopšî, an adjective. What’s interesting is the basic…
Like sheep they sink down to Sheol; Death will be their shepherd; and the upright will rule over them in the morning, and their form shall be for Sheol to consume, so that they have no lofty home. Psalm 49:14 NASB Death will be their shepherd – Could there be any more chilling fate of the foolish? Psalm 23…
But man in his splendor will not endure; he is like the animals that perish. Psalm 49:12 NASB Animals – Do dogs go to heaven? What about cats? Do animals have a “soul”? At one point in human history, such questions caused considerable debate. However, it seems that the Bible makes a significant distinction between animals and humans—except…
For he sees that even wise people die; the foolish and the stupid alike perish and leave their wealth to others. Psalm 49:10 NASB Alike – “because the wise man, just like the fool, is not remembered forever; for, as the succeeding days roll by, both are forgotten. Alas, the wise man dies, just like the fool” (Ecclesiastes 2:16…
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4 NASB Mourn – Samuel Beckett’s play raises a critical question for humanity. It does so with a kind of dramatic insanity. “Vivian Mercier described Waiting for Godot as a play which ‘has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued…
My days are like a lengthened shadow, and I wither away like grass. Psalm 102:11 NASB Lengthened – For those of you who aren’t familiar with exposure problems in photography, let me explain HDR. High Dynamic Range is the situation where the light in the picture varies significantly between highs (whites) and lows (blacks). While the…
For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with weeping. Psalm 102:9 NASB Ashes – “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ominous words from Genesis 3:19. We don’t like to think about them, but we know they’re true for every one of us. The psalmist uses a little word…
Because of the loudness of my groaning my bones cling to my flesh. Psalm 102:5 NASB Loudness – Read this again. How can the volume of my groaning be the cause of bones clinging to flesh? Does sound have anything to do with the consequences of malnutrition? In fact, severely malnourished human beings, bones exposed because of…
“Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people.” Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian to execute the Lord’s vengeance on Midian.” Numbers 31:2-3 NASB The sons of Israel – Moses is about to die. …
