Pain Management

Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great. Job 2:13  NASB No one speaking a word – In the last verse we discovered that nûd and nāḥam are really circumlocutions for what really…

What Friends Are For

Now when Job’s three friends heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, they came, each one from his own place—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him.  Job 2:11  NASB Sympathize/ Comfort – “It’s just too much to…

English Nuances

Reproach breaks my heart, I grow ill: I hope for consolation, and there is none, and for comforters, and do not find them.  Psalm 69:21 [Hebrew Bible]  Robert Alter Consolation – Look at this verse in two other translations (verse 20 in English Bibles): Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair.  I looked…

God in the ER

“Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them. . . And the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people and I am not your God.”  Hosea 1:6, 9  NASB I am not your God – Hosea is a tragic book.  It is…

Do You Know God?

Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land, because there is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land.  Hosea 4:1  NASB Knowledge of God – “Hosea’s central complaint against the people is that they do not…

Stand By Me (5)

Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, Philippians 2:1 NASB Compassion – Sympathy comes last. Oiktirmoi is the Greek term for “sympathy.” Translating it “compassion” might be stylistically acceptable, but it obscures the fact…