Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Genesis 32:24 NASB Man – In one of the strangest verses in Scripture, no clue is provided about the identity of the “man” who wrestles with Jacob. He suddenly appears. No history. No motivation. No name. We are immediately cast into the world…
God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Numbers 23:19 NASB Not a man – Thomas Aquinas would have gladly endorsed this claim of Moses. …
Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Genesis 32:24 NASB Left alone – Who is the “man” Jacob wrestles? Perhaps we need to listen to another story of psychological isolation. “You are the man!”[1] As I have explained in my book Crossing, Jacob isn’t wrestling with some apparition nor with the supposed pre-incarnate Christ nor with YHVH. Jacob…
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9 NASB Desperately sick– It’s the adjective that is bothersome. ʾānaš is the word in the Hebrew text. It means, quite simply, “sick.” It’s used once in Job, five times in Jeremiah, once in Isaiah, and once in Micah. You can see…
Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.” Genesis 4:1 NASB The man– We’ve looked at this Genesis story many, many times. Perhaps you’ve read my book[1]about it. In the book, I didn’t spend time looking at this…
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; Genesis 1:26a NASB Image/likeness – As we begin another “eternal return”[1] cycle, perhaps we should start with a decidedly different view than the one behind a New Year’s pagan festival. The OT recognizes man’s total dependence with great clarity. Man is a creature…
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Genesis 2:23 NASB This is now – Sometimes the smallest words require considerable investigation. This is one of those times. We’ve looked at this verse over and over. We’ve…
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26 NASB Our image – We just…
Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Mark 2:27 NASB Made for man – Because we have so little working knowledge of the rabbinic material, we often think that Yeshua was the original author of many apparent modifications of biblical regulations. That actually isn’t the case,…
Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 NASB Man – Sometimes Christian theologians argue that because man was created first, men have primacy of authority over women. Bruce Ware makes this argument is his…
