Today’s Word
The Storm God
May their table before them become a trap, and their allies a snare. May their eyes grow too dark to see, make their loins perpetually shake. Pour out upon them Your wrath, and Your blazing fury overtake them. Psalm 69:23-25 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter Wrath – Here are your choices: wrath, fury, indignation, anger, judgment,…
What Is That?
They gave for my nourishment wormwood, and for my thirst they made me drink vinegar. Psalm 69:22 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter Wormwood – I’m guessing that you have no idea what “wormwood” is. And I’ll bet you’re no better informed about “gall,” the other English translation. But I’m pretty sure you’ve heard the verse before…
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…
Headliners
It is You who know my reproach, and my shame and disgrace before all my foes. Psalm 69:20 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter Reproach – “In a White House eager to distance itself from allegations of nepotism, corruption and grifting, Hunter Biden is the problem that simply won’t go away.”[1] We’re not so familiar with the word “reproach,”…
Reworking the Paradigm
Come near me, redeem me. Because of my enemies, ransom me. Psalm 69:19 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter Ransom – Let’s examine the implicit paradigm in this verse. Remember that the true role of the exegete is to interpret the text according to the thought patterns of the original audience and author. That means making crystal…
Express Delivery
And hide not Your face from Your servant, for I am in straits. Hurry, answer me. Psalm 69:18 [Hebrew Bible] Robert Alter Hurry – First we need to clear up an English rendering of צָרַר tsarar. Alter’s choice doesn’t fit the topography of Israel. The English “strait” is usually associated with a narrow body of…
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