Quite the Opposite

BySkip Moen, Ph.D.

A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm.  Proverbs 11:17  NASB Cruel – Who is the cruel person?  The torturer?  The egotistic dictator?  Men like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin?  When we think of the antonym of “cruel” these days, what term comes to mind?  Kind?  Forgiving?  Merriam-Webster lists “tender, warm, warmhearted, charitable, clement, lenient, merciful, pitying, pacific, peaceable, peaceful.”  The…

The Spiritual Tautology

BySkip Moen, Ph.D.

A merciful person does himself good, but the cruel person does himself harm.  Proverbs 11:17  NASB Merciful – It should come as no surprise that the word translated “mercy” is really ḥesed.  The translation relies on the way ḥesed is treated in the LXX, but as you know, even there we find eight different Greek words for…