The distress of my heart has grown great. From my straits bring me out. See my affliction and suffering and forgive all my offenses. Psalm 25:17-18 Robert Alter Distress – Life handed you baggage. Some of it becomes yours before you were born, but when you arrived, no one told you that you inherited your…
For they provoked Him with their high places and moved Him to jealousy with their carved images. Psalm 78:58 NASB Provoked/ jealousy – Yesterday we realized that the children of Israel turned back (sûg) toward Egypt in their hearts because they could not emotionally trust God. Their feet kept going forward, around and around in the wilderness waiting, waiting,…
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB Acknowledge – Let’s have some fun today. We want to think about the Hebrew idea of knowing. It’s not the same as our Western idea. To get the…
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:3-5 NASB Selfishness – Ah, it…
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB Acknowledge– I’m not sure this particular rendition of yādaʿ really captures what we need to know (ah, a pun). yādaʿ is the verb translated “acknowledge,” but “acknowledge” seems too weak. After all,…
My times are in Your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. Psalm 31:15 NASB Times– The obvious personal application question here is this one: Are your times in God’s hand? Maybe we should expand this a bit. Is your emotional wellbeing, your sense of personal safety, your reliance on physical sustenance, your…
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. John 14:26 NASB Remembrance – We often read this verse as if it is Yeshua’s eternal promise that the Spirit will somehow ensure we will never forget what…
The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Genesis 6:6 NASB Grieved – Does God cry? Is He distressed about our condition? Does He lament His decision to create this very broken world? Theologians struggled with these questions, not because the Scripture is ambiguous….
Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing. Psalm 100:2 NASB Gladness – Is David making a suggestion or issuing a royal decree? The verb is an imperative, so we may assume that David expects his subjects (and all his readers?) to comply. But how? How is it possible to command a…
There is a Jewish rabbinic legend that everyone is taught Torah in the womb, but the moment the person is born, all God’s instruction is forgotten. It takes the rest of our life to recover what we once knew before birth. It’s a very nice legend. It makes me feel as if I didn’t arrive…
