Today’s Word
Slow Train Coming
I was miserable and about to die from my youth on; I suffer Your terrors; I grow weary. Psalm 88:15 NASB From my youth – Some things stick. Some experiences you had early on just remain, buried away in the subconscious of your worldview, coloring how you look at life. Modern psychological theory, removed from the divine,…
A Stinking Mess
Lord, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? Psalm 88:14 NASB Reject – The Hebrew zānaḥ has two root meanings. The first is as it is translated here: to reject, spurn, cast off. But the second adds a bit to our emotional understanding of this word. zānaḥ II means, “to…
Defining Moments
But I, Lord, have cried out to You for help, and in the morning my prayer comes before You. Psalm 88:13 Help – English spells it out: “have cried out for help.” But all of that is really a single Hebrew verb— šāwaʿ. “The intensity of the action conveyed by šāwaʿ is aptly illustrated by the fact that…
The Purposeless Place (revised from December 23, 2016)
Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? Psalm 88:12 NASB The darkness – “Little doubt surrounds the meaning of this denominative verb coming from the noun ḥōšek (darkness). It occurs eighteen times, seventeen times in poetical books. Exodus 10:15 is the only occurrence of ḥāšak in…
Too Late for Me (first published October 19, 2016)
Will You do wonders for the dead? Will the shades arise and acclaim you? Selah. Psalm 88:11 (Robert Alter translation) Wonders – When is it too late? When does the power of the Lord cease to be effective? When you’re dead! Death ends it. As the Korahites sang, we can cry out to the Lord…
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