Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of man.” Genesis 2:23 ESV Woman/ man – Irregular plurals. That’s the description for the fact that neither ʾiššâ nor ʾiš have plural forms. The plurals are rather nashim and…
Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of man.” Genesis 2:23 ESV Woman/ man – We already know that something quite unusual, and spectacular, is happening in this verse. The first occurrence of both ʾiššâ (woman) and…
Now the man named his wife [a]Eve, because she was the mother of all the living Genesis 3:20 NASB Eve – But of course he did not name her “Eve.” I’m sorry, but the footnote in the NASB (“Genesis 3:20 I.e., living; or life”) is absolutely no help whatsoever. “Eve” is not her name. That word comes from the…
Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance. Psalm 78:25 NASB Bread of angels – If God provided you special nutrients directly from heaven’s kitchen, would you be satisfied? Asaph calls it לֶחֶם אַבִּירִים, translated here as “bread of angels.” But the translation is a later poetic interpolation. The words are literally…
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…
