Today’s Word
The Two-Directions Word
You have put me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the depths. Psalm 88:6 NASB Put – The Hebrew verb šît comes with some very odd translation history. Occurring eighty-five times in the Bible, it covers the range from commitment (“to set the heart on”) to enemy opposition (“set against me”). It is also used for…
Does God Forget?
Abandoned among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You no longer remember, and they are cut off from Your hand. Psalm 88:5 NASB No longer remember – zākar. What an important Hebrew verb! Zākar means “to remember,” but the same consonants in noun form also mean “male.” It seems to me that…
Free At Last
Abandoned among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom You no longer remember, and they are cut off from Your hand. Psalm 88:5 NASB Abandoned – What an interesting choice of words! Sometimes translated “forsaken,” the Hebrew root is the verb ḥāpaš. Here it is ḥopšî, an adjective. What’s interesting is the basic…
The Necessity of Despair (December 7 2018)
I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, Psalm 88:4 NASB Down to the pit – “Modern man’s greatest fault, Kierkegaard maintains, is his total self-reliance. It is his nineteenth-century delusion that he has progressed beyond his ancestors. This conceit derives from egotism. There is but…
The Abundant Life (December 19, 2017)
For my soul has had enough troubles, and my life has drawn near to Sheol. Psalm 88:3 NASB 1995 Has had enough – Is your life filled to the brim? Oh, I didn’t ask if it is filled up with good things. I just asked if you feel as if it is up to the top. Yes, it’s…
Make Your Choice
Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! Psalm 88:2 NASB Incline – “The 215 occurrences of this verb, excluding derivatives, are translated some thirty-five different ways in the KJV alone. The ASV and RSV add other renderings to this wide range of English expressions.”[1] That’s not very comforting, is it? If…
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