Today’s Word
What Can’t Be Understood
Knowledge is too wonderous for me, high above—I cannot attain it. Psalm 139:6 Robert Alter Too wonderous – The translators have taken a bit of poetic license here by rendering pilʾîy-yah with the superlative “too.” The verb is simply pālāʾ, that is, “be marvelous, wonderful.” In the derivative, pilʾî, it means “wonderful, incomprehensible,” but as…
Transcendental Texts
I will not act in My blazing wrath, I will no more destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I do not desire to root out. Hosea 11:9 Robert Alter Not a man – Christian theology employs texts like this one to support its view…
Saving Grace
But God will redeem my soul from the [a]power of [b]Sheol, for He will receive me. Selah Psalm 49:15 NASB Will redeem – “I am redeemed,” said the new convert. “I am free at last.” Is that how you felt when you realized your sins were forgiven? Was there an emotional experience of relief? Did you feel like a new…
Lucky 7
Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. Joshua 6:4 NASB Seven – The numeral 7 in Hebrew is the word shiva. Like almost all Hebrew nouns, it has…
The Strange Death of Europe
And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘Let My people go . . .’” Exodus 5:1a NASB Go – A new Gregorian year begins. This wasn’t always the case. Until 1582 the Julian calendar was the common civil calendar. Even today, some religious…
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