Pay It Forward

With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of Your mouth.  Psalm 119:13  NASB I have told – Oral transmission.  How often we forget that Israel’s ancient cultural was oral.  Yes, of course, the fundamentals were written on those stone tablets, but the transmission of the message, the training in righteousness, the legacy and history…

The Straight and Narrow

I will give thanks to You with uprightness of heart, when I learn Your righteous judgments.  Psalm 119:7   NASB Uprightness – It’s not a familiar English word although we have no trouble reading it.  But what exactly does “uprightness” mean?  Alter translates yōšer as “honest.”  That’s better if we understand the literal meaning of the term….

I Just Can’t Imagine

How has the faithful town become a whore?  Filled with justice where righteousness did lodge,  and now—murderers.  Isaiah 1:21  Robert Alter How – אֵיכָכָה (ʾêkākâh) how?  There doesn’t appear to be anything remarkable about this, right?  It’s just an interrogative.  After all God’s pleading with Israel, it doesn’t seem strange to ask how all this…

Say What?

Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?  Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.  For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is…

Neighborly

For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a person and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor follow other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I…

Mystery Parallelism

Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.  Psalm 97:2  NASB Righteousness and justice – Do you know the mystery of righteousness and justice?  Oh, we’re familiar with the Hebrew words, no doubt.  ṣĕdāqâ (righteousness) and mišpāṭ (justice—but a lot more than our idea) are words we have…