One or Two

I sought Your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to Your word.  Psalm 119:58  NASB Sought – The Hebrew verb here is ḥālâ.  Fairly straightforward.  Except – except that ḥālâ has two different semantic domains.  ḥālâ I means “to become sick, weak, diseased,” while ḥālâ II means “to beseech, entreat, pray.”  How can we tell the…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide (17)

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?”  Matthew 6:25  NASB Do not be worried – We often read Yeshua’s words in…

Head Trip

And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.   Jeremiah 29:13  NASB Seek/search – “The modern scholar thinks that he must find religious answers to his critical questions by means of peshat exegesis. In contrast, the sages believed that answers to critical questions should be proposed by means of derash.  Like…

Prediction and Control

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Matthew 6:33  NASB Seek first – We live in a world that relies on a magnificent lie.  That lie is fundamental to our way of life.  It gives us the illusion of control, the expectation of a better future, the hope…

Silence of the Lambs (5)

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. Lamentations 3:25  NASB Discovering Despair – Hebrew Scripture uses two words for the concept of seeking.  Translated identically, they actually have important differences.  The two are bāqaš and dāraš.  TWOT notes: Our word is distinguished from its frequent parallel and equivalent bāqaš (q.v.)…

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Babylon (6)

“Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce.   Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease.   Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you…

Known by Synonyms

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple. Psalm 27:4 NASB Meditate – David wishes to complete two actions in the full…

The Good Shepherd

“As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so I shall seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they are scattered in a day of cloud and thick darkness.”  Yehezqel 34:12  ISR Seek out – Watch out!  God is after you!  The…

God-consciousness

“But seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.”  Matthew 6:33  NASB Seek – The word used in this quotation from Yeshua means “to deliberately strive and desire something as an act of the will.”  It is the Greek verb zeteo.  Here the context implies putting your…

What’s Happening Here?

And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s slave-girl, where did you come from and where are you going?”  Genesis 16:8 Where – You will recall the difference between ‘ayyeh and ‘eypoh.  ‘ayyeh (short form ‘ay) is “where” as a statement of surprise, like “Why aren’t you here where I expected you to be?”  ‘eypoh is “where” like…