Today’s Word

God the Problem (2)

They have surrounded me like water all day long;  they have encircled me altogether.  Psalm 88:17  NASB   They – Suddenly, a change.  Through seventeen verses the psalmist has decried God’s absence.  His lament holds Godresponsible for the sorry state of his life, for the nearly impossible burden he must carry, for the approach of death.  But now,…
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Dead End (2)

Your burning anger has passed over me;  Your terrors have destroyed me.  Psalm 88:16  NASB Destroyed – Not just any trauma.  No, this is trauma of a special kind: bi·ʿûṯ.  “events that cause fear and destruction or death, with some focus on the wrath of the punisher.”[1]  What is the result?  ṣāmat The word ṣāmat occurs…
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Slow Train Coming (2)

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,…
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A Stinking Mess (2)

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 stink,…
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Defining Moments (2)

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…
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The Purposeless Place (2)

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…
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