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Together in the Field

17 Monday Apr 2023

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing to look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.

I do apologize to anyone who has come across this post as your first on Renaissance Woman.  I do try to make each post stand on its own while at the same time building on everything that has come before.  This post does not stand on its own.  I would recommend reading last week’s post, The Seed Sown, before this one or there are going to be references that will make little sense. 

There are two main schools of interpretation when it comes to this parable.  The first says the wheat and the tares are two different kinds of people within the church.  They sit side by side in the pews and are indistinguishable one from the other until Jesus returns and His angels send the tares to the fire and gather the wheat into the barn.  The second disagrees with the first only in the location of the wheat and the tares.  The field is not the church, they say, but the world.  The wheat and tares represent believers and unbelievers which occupy the same world until Jesus returns and His angels send the tares to the fire and gather the wheat into the barn.

I can look at both interpretations and see where they are coming from.  If the wheat and tares are indistinguishable one from the other then it would make sense that Jesus is describing the church.  After all, can’t the argument be made that the difference between believers and unbelievers is obvious?  And yet, Jesus Himself interprets this parable in Matthew 13:36-43 and clearly says “the field is the world” and “the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom but the tares are the sons of the wicked one” so that ought to prove the second interpretation is the correct one.

I have come across a third interpretation put forward by a woman named Dora Van Assen which suggests the parable is a description of what happened in the Garden of Eden.  God created all things, including Adam, and saw it was all very good.  As God fellowshipped with Adam in the garden, He was planting His good thoughts and spiritual understanding in Adam’s mind.  But then, the Serpent came slithering and whispering into the garden and planted evil thoughts and understanding.  Both types of thoughts occupied the same field i.e. the mind of Adam.

This interpretation is very different from anything I have ever heard preached within the confines of Churchdom and it does not appear to be supported by Jesus’ interpretation.  But then, did Jesus truly make this interpretation or was it inserted into the manuscripts at a later date?  I found this assertion made when I looked up the parable in the Abingdon Commentary.  The copy I have was published in 1929 and states that “all scholars reject the genuineness of the explanation in vv. 36-43…”  I mentioned last week my skepticism antennae quivered at “all scholars” because I cannot think of one subject where all scholars are in agreement. 

I went searching for this assertion of “all scholars rejecting” the interpretation given in those passages and could not find a reference.  That doesn’t mean that there are not scholars rejecting said passages just that it has been difficult for me to find them over the last week.  I am thus left with a single resource stating the interpretation given for this parable in verses 36-43 is not genuine and, since our Bible warns against accepting the testimony of a single witness, I am shelving this.  I’ll keep my eyes and ears open and may circle back to it but, for now, will proceed in the acceptance of Jesus’ interpretation.

If Dora Van Assen’s interpretation relied on Matthew 13:36-43 not being genuine, I would dismiss it out of hand.  It does not.  Her interpretation is shared in an article by J. Preston Eby (linked below) and neither make mention of these passages not being genuine.  Both, in fact, treat them as being absolutely genuine.

Dora Van Assen writes, “Some may object to this interpretation of the tares, because Jesus in His explanation of the parable used the words, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one’ (Mat. 13:38). That does sound as if they are two different kinds of people.  And indeed they are!  If we will just stop for a moment and think this through, we must admit that God is an invisible spirit, and Satan is likewise invisible spirit.  Neither of these produce flesh and blood children of their own!  The new creation is formed in a people who are ‘renewed in the spirit of their mind.’ So the term ‘children’ must be taken as a metaphor.  The Holy Spirit deals with men in their minds and thoughts, and Satan can only attack man in his mind, giving false ideas and imaginations.  These thought-pictures are often called ‘brain children.’ And these determine what manner of man a man is!”

I am (so far) inclined to accept Dora Van Assen’s interpretation.  She points out that the tares never become wheat and the wheat never become tares.  If the wheat and the tares do indeed represent two different kinds of people, there is no hope for the tares.  They are similar in appearance to wheat but cannot ever convert into wheat.  If the interpretations stating the wheat and the tares are the converted and the unconverted or believers and unbelievers, then does it not follow that evangelism is the greatest exercise in futility?  You can share the gospel with another person until you are blue in the face but, if they are indeed a tare, all your sharing is for nothing because they cannot and therefore will not ever respond. 

If though, Dora Van Assen’s interpretation is correct and the wheat and tares are symbolic of thoughts occupying the same field of a person’s heart and mind, then the good seed is there and you can share the gospel in the hope that your words are water falling on that good seed.  I find her interpretation to be far more hopeful than any other I have come across.  But then, it wouldn’t matter how much I liked and preferred it if she was the only source of such an interpretation.

She is not.  I found her same thoughts echoed in the Commentary on this parable found in Barclay’s Daily Study Bible where I read: “It may well be said that in its lessons this is one of the most practical parables Jesus ever told.  It teaches us that there is always a hostile power in the world, seeking and waiting to destroy the good seed.  Our experience is that both kinds of influence act on our lives, the influence which helps the seed of the word to flourish and to grow, and the influence which seeks to destroy the good seed before it can produce fruit at all.  The lesson is that we must be forever on our guard.”

Earlier in this post, I asked if the argument couldn’t be made that the difference between believers and unbelievers was obvious.  I want to include one more quote from the Barclay’s Daily Study Bible: “it (the parable) teaches us how hard it is to distinguish between those who are in the Kingdom and those who are not.  A man may appear to be good and may in fact be bad; and a man may appear to be bad and may yet be good.  We are much too quick to classify people and label them good or bad without knowing all the facts.”  This is something valuable to keep in mind.

I will continue looking at this parable next week but do want to add this as my closing thought: I find interpreting the parable of the wheat and the tares as thoughts resulting from spiritual influences has a direct correlation to the passage in Ephesians describing the armor of God.  We believers are to take the helmet of salvation.  A helmet’s purpose is to protect one’s head and I see a clear picture of the necessity to guard our minds from attack.  But then, that is a subject worth many more weeks’ focus and so I will sign off with this prayer:

May the peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that belongs entirely to Jesus which He has freely given to us, guard each of our hearts and minds every moment of every day.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Matthew 13 – Barclay’s Daily Study Bible – Bible Commentaries – StudyLight.org

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

Tares (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

What Does Tares Mean? Bible Definition and References (biblestudytools.com)

Tares – WebBible Encyclopedia – ChristianAnswers.Net

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, The Abingdon Bible Commentary, Abingdon Press, Nashville •New York, 1929, Page 977

The Seed Sown

10 Monday Apr 2023

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Image by Petra from Pixabay

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am taking a look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares found in Matthew 13:24-30:

“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went on his way.  But when the grain had spouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.  So the servants of the owner came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?  How then does it have tares?”  He said to them, “An enemy has done this.”  The servants said to him, “Do you want us then to go and gather them up?”  But he said, “No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ‘ “

There are two major interpretations of this parable but, before I get to them, a brief lesson on tares.  The consensus is that this passage of scripture is referring to the darnel or Lolium temulentum.  It is a weed that grows among grain, especially wheat.  The grains resemble those of wheat and, since they are difficult to separate by sifting, are often sown with wheat and grow with it in the same field.  Since the darnel is poisonous, no one deliberately sows tares in a field but tares are difficult to distinguish from wheat as the two look similar until they come to full fruition.  Then it becomes easy to separate wheat from tares, to discard what isn’t fit for consumption, and to preserve the desired harvest. 

The sower in this parable made no such mistake.  The parable states he sowed “good seed”.  The poisonous seed was sown by an enemy but presence of the tares wasn’t discovered until the grain had sprouted and produced a crop.  I read that tares will often share the same root system as wheat and they are impossible to remove from a field without damaging the wheat.  It is best to let them both continue to grow together until the time of harvest so none of the wheat is lost. 

What does this parable mean?  There is an explanation given later on in the same chapter of Matthew.  In verse 36, Jesus’s disciples come to him and ask him to explain the parable of the tares of the field and he answers, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.  The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.  Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.”

Now onto the two interpretations of this parable.  The first says this parable speaks of believers and unbelievers within the church, sitting side by side in the seats with each other, indistinguishable from each other until Jesus returns and His angels separate the tares from the wheat.  The second interpretation disagrees with the first and says no, the field is clearly the world as stated by Jesus Himself in Matthew 13:38, therefore; this parable is speaking of the righteous and unrighteous living together in the world until the end of the age when Jesus returns and His angels separate the tares from the wheat.

There is a third interpretation of this parable which was new to me when I first read it so I feel safe in assuming none of you have heard it either.  It is found in J. Preston Eby’s Candlestick to the Throne study series # 173 entitled The Firstfruits, The Harvest, and the Vintage.  In this study, Mr. Eby quotes a woman named Dora Van Assen who wrote not only on the tares and the wheat but the wheat and the chaff.  I couldn’t remember exactly what was said so I got the teaching out and refreshed my memory.

One of the first lines that caught my eye was, “The wheat and the tares did not convert one another!  Wheat was wheat, the tares were tares, both growing up together just like the wheat and the chaff, until the time of harvest.”  This caught my attention because, in an article on Tares, which I found on the Jewish Virtual Library site and is also linked below, I had read the same thing.  Despite the similarities in the grains and immature stalks, wheat does not ever become a tare and a tare does not ever become wheat.  I read on.

“…I saw this was not a parable on soul-saving, nor was it an exhortation to scare the heathen or sinning Christians in the church into a conversion, but it was a parable dealing with the inner thought life of the believer himself.  In the context around the parable we find that Jesus was uttering, ‘things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world’ (Mat. 13:35).  In other words, by this parable, He was explaining in parabolic form something which had taken place from the beginning! I believe He was referring to what had happened in the Garden of Eden when sin entered into the plan of God.  There we find God fellowshipping with Adam in the cool of the day.  Certainly God was not standing there in bodily form any more than He comes in bodily form when we commune with Him and hear His voice.  By the Spirit God was planting His good thoughts and spiritual understanding in the mind of Adam.  But, while Adam was not aware of it, the adversary also came into the garden and whispered and planted evil thoughts and carnal understanding, causing a duality within, which led him to fall into a carnal mind.  This dual mind of both good and evil was a split personality within man, each capable of bringing forth a harvest of a certain kind of man (Romans 8:6).  The battlefield is in the mind!”

I found this interpretation absolutely fascinating and, the more I looked at the other parables, it isn’t as farfetched as it might at first seem.  There’s another Parable of Sowing at the beginning of Matthew Chapter 13 where the seed fell by the wayside and were devoured by birds, some fell on stony places and had no root so withered away, some fell among thorns and were choked, and some fell on good ground.  I don’t know of any interpretation that doesn’t acknowledge the “ground” mentioned here is a picture of the human heart.  I can thus consider the idea that the “field” mentioned in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares is the human mind (and heart-the Hebrew people did not separate the two “as a man thinks in his heart” [Proverbs 23:7]).

But, doesn’t Matthew 13:38 clearly say the field is the world and both the good and bad seeds are children?  Yes, it does but I just read something interesting about this passage.  The Abingdon Bible Commentary states, “All scholars reject the genuineness of the explanation in vv. 36-43 on the ground of its stilted style, and because the interpretations of successive details are mechanical; moreover, the presence of popular and conventional apocalyptic expressions, and the title Son of man, used of the earthly life of Jesus in v. 37 and then of his Messianic glory in v. 41 stamp it as secondary in character” (Abingdon, p. 977).

The moment I read “all scholars” I was skeptical.  There wasn’t one scholar publishing around 1929 who attested to the validity of this passage?  ALL scholars reject their genuineness?  Even so, I couldn’t help rereading the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares thinking, “what if the explanation isn’t correct?”  As I did so, I realized Dora Van Assen’s interpretation made sense.  Still, I cannot accept any interpretation that relies on other parts of scripture being declared invalid.  Does Dora Van Assen’s interpretation of this parable rely in discarding Matthew 13 verses 36-43?  It does not!  Which I will demonstrate in next week’s post.

Until next week, I pray for each of us-including myself-that the Holy Spirit continues to open the eyes of our hearts and grant us the gift of discernment as we face each new day.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Tares (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

What Does Tares Mean? Bible Definition and References (biblestudytools.com)

Tares – WebBible Encyclopedia – ChristianAnswers.Net

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, The Abingdon Bible Commentary, Abingdon Press, Nashville •New York, 1929

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

The Meaning of the Word

20 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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Hello and welcome to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am exploring another side path I encountered but steadfastly ignored during my study of Isaiah 45:7.

This side path presented itself during my study of the Hebrew word translated as “evil” in the King James Version but “calamity” in the New King James Version.  That Hebrew word is ra spelled Resh (ר) Ayin (ע) and does not necessarily mean “evil” in the way we think of “evil”.  In the word ra, we see the Resh which is a picture of bowing or a bent head, and the Ayin which is a picture of the eyes.  The head is bent to the eyes so those things that are “evil” in a Biblical sense are those things we do because they seem right in our own eyes.  In their study on Psalm 2:11, Chaim Bentorah and Laura Bertone have this to say about ra: “In Hebrew, there are about ten different words with a Semitic root of ra (ר), which is the basic word for “evil”.  However, ra (ר) does not necessarily have to signify something bad.  The Semitic concept of this word is an outside influence that causes us to react in a certain way in which we have little or no control over our actions.”1

As time passes, I am persuaded of the necessity of knowing what the original language behind our English words truly meant.  One such word is “evil”.  The Septuagint translated the Hebrew ra in Isaiah 45:7 as kakos but then translated “evil” (ra) in “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” as poneros.  These words do not mean the same thing in the Greek although at first glance the difference does appear slight.  George Ricker Berry says “These words may be used with very little distinction of meaning but often the difference is marked.  (G2556) kakos frequently means evil rather negatively, referring to the absence of the qualities which constitute a person or thing what it should be or what it claims to be.  It is also used meaning evil in a moral sense.  It is a general antithesis to agathos.  Poneros is a word at once stronger and more active, it means mischief-making, delighting in injury, doing evil to others, dangerous, destructive.  Kakos describes the quality according to its nature, poneros, according to its effects.”2 (Agathos [G18]: good, benefit, well)

I cannot repeat everything I learned about “evil” during my Isaiah 45:7 study but I will repeat how aware I am that everything I learned in this study only scratched the surface.  There is so much more to be gleaned from scripture regarding the meaning of “evil”.  This is true for so many other words as well.  One such I came across while studying ra and I was astonished as I began to look into its meaning.  That word is rasha (רשע) often translated by the English word “wicked”.

I was looking up ra in Benjamin Blech’s The Secrets of Hebrew Words and found this entry: “רע (ra) means evil.  What does the wicked person do in order to gain acceptance?  He makes central to his very being the appearance of ש (shin), the letter appearing on every mezuzah as the acronym for שדי   (ShaDaY), the name of God.  The reprobate will claim that holiness is central to his being. All of his actions are hypocritically assigned to “holy causes”…the only way to unmask the רשע (RaShA) is to remove his ש (shin), the letter of piety that he uses to disguise his wickedness.”3

I have no doubt that we all have a person or two who readily springs to mind as someone who is rasha or wicked.  Before we start pointing fingers and leveling accusations, I want to share one other entry from Benjamin Blech.  His very next entry on rasha asks the question “how does one explain why someone is wicked” and then quotes the second half of Numbers 15:39: “And that you go not about after your heart and your own eyes, after which you use to go astray”.4 Benjamin Blech then writes:

“The eyes ought not to be our rulers.  Samson followed his eyes to lust after Philistine women.  His punishment, measure for measure, was that he became blind.  Look in retrospect at the רשע (RaShA) and see that backwards we are told the story behind his aberrant behavior: ע (ayin) the eye, became his   שר (SaR), ruler.  A   ישראל (YiSRaEL) is one who remembers ראש לי (LiY RoSh): I possess a head, a mind, and an intellect that must control the desires stemming from sight.  ראש (RoSh) also has the consonants  שר (SaR), ruler.  But central to rule as expressed by the word is the letter א (alef), the One of the universe Who dictates the difference between right and wrong, between what my eyes see and desire, and what my head determines is suitable or off limits.”5

These two entries riveted me because I realized that whenever I read the word “wicked” in the Bible, I was picturing something different in my head than what was meant by the original language.  And, while I can think of one or two people who would fit the Biblical definition of “wicked” I cannot resort to finger pointing.  The roots of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil have penetrated deep into the soil of my heart.  I have both eaten its fruit and produced its fruit in my life.  Even after I knew Jesus and had determined to follow Him I still nibbled the fruit from time to time.  My early following of Him consisted in trying to do right, believe the right things, keep the right rules, and present myself to Him as a good Believer with an absolutely stuffed resume He could be proud of.  I did not know then that even the good I tried to do was evil because I was either doing what seemed right in my own eyes or, at times, doing what another person told me was right.  That person of course knew more than I did so following his/her dictates meant I was safe, right?

No.  The wicked person is one who covers his evil deeds with holiness and piety.  It may be that contained within the word rasha is the idea that this covering of one’s deeds with holiness and piety is deliberate. This is a word I need to spend some more time with. Whether it is or not, wickedness can be hard to recognize because, while “evil deeds” are those things done because they seem right in a person’s eyes, they oftentimes do appear to be good. Knowing for certain I have turned from wickedness to righteousness can be quite a dilemma but one which has a both remarkably simple and intensely difficult solution.

“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts…Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”  I am quoting bits of Colossians 3 verses 15-17 here and the Greek word for “name”, as in “the name of the Lord Jesus” is onoma (G3686).  It means “name” but also “authority, character”.  The Strong’s also has “surname” as a definition.  The word “in” is en (G1722) and it means “fixed position…a relation of rest”.

That’s it.  Rest in Jesus Christ.  Eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life which is Jesus Christ.  Let His life live in and through us.  It is at once utterly simple and the most difficult thing in to do.  There’s a scripture in the Book of Revelation which has often been quoted as something reserved for after this body dies.  The passage is: “Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, ‘Write: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” ‘‘Yes, says the Spirit, ‘that they may now rest from their labors, and their works follow them’” (Revelation 14:13).  I don’t think this scripture is describing a rest that happens after physical death.  I think it’s describing what it means to live the Christian life here on earth while still in this body. Jonathan Mitchell’s translation of the New Testament seems to say as much. Listen to the tenses: “Write: “From the present moment (from this time; from now; henceforth) the dead ones [are] blessed (happy) folks-those continuously dying within the Lord!” “Yes, indeed” the Spirit continues saying, “to the end that they may rest themselves from out of their wearisome labor (travail; toilsome exhaustion), for their works (actions; deeds) are continually following together with them.”6

“I die daily,” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:31.  We have died in Jesus Christ, were buried with Him, rose with Him, and are now seated with Him in heavenly places.  Even so, there is a law in our members that seeks to draw us away from His life in us and then to lead us onto a path where we declare we are the gods of our lives and can determine for ourselves what is good and evil.  This path is almost impossible to stay off of except we have the Holy Spirit living within us.  He teaches us who Jesus Christ is and teaches us who we are in Him.  By His opening of my eyes I see Jesus Christ, the Tree of Life.  By His working within me, I can recognize the fruit of the tree that led to death.  By His wisdom and the revelation He gives, I know I am dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.  By His power, I do refuse to let sin reign in my mortal body and can present myself to God as being alive from the dead (Romans 6:10-13). 

2 Corinthians 4:10 says, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”  This is one of those living in the New Covenant paradoxes: living in union with Jesus is wondrous beyond words and each one of us would declare there is no other life worth living, and yet it also intensely painful.  There are times the finger is pointed at me accusing me of wickedness. It cuts the deepest when that finger belongs to someone close.  I have no defense to offer.  I know His Life is in me and I am joined to Him through His Spirit.  Because His peace is alive in me and ruling in my heart I can say, “my conscience is clear but that doesn’t prove I’m right.  It is the Lord Himself who will examine me and decide” (1 Corinthians 4:4, NLT).

Amen.  So be it.  Come, Lord Jesus.    

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982  

  1. Bentorah, Chaim with Laura Bertone, Hebrew Word Study: Exploring the Mind of God, Whitaker House, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 2019, Page 246
  2. Walker, G. Allen, New Koine Greek Textbook Series Supplements, Berry’s Synonyms, Page 66
  3. Blech, Benjamin, The Secrets of Hebrew Words, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1991, Page 76
  4. Ibid., Page 77
  5. Ibid., Page 77
  6. Mitchell, Jonathan Paul, MA, The New Testament, Harper Brown Publishing, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2019, Page 629

References

Danker, Frederick William, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition (BDAG), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1957-2000

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

I Have Questions

13 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to another week and another post on Renaissance Woman.  This week I am going to venture down one of those side paths I did not go down during my Isaiah 45:7 study.  This path presented itself during my study of the Hebrew word bara which is most often translated by the English word “create”.

While studying bara, I had had a video shared with me where the meaning of bara was given as “to fill”.  I had found another video which expanded on that first one by pointing out that the Hebrew word bar meant “son” and thus bara not only meant “to fill” but also “to increase”.  I can’t say any of this is wrong.  The root of the English word “create” used to translate bara is kre and means “to grow”.  Filling, increase, growth…all of these ideas are contained within the word bara.  However, while none of this is wrong, perhaps it is incomplete.

Bar is the Aramaic word for “son”.  The Hebrew word for “son” is ben.  Bar in the Hebrew means “beloved, pure, empty, choice, clean, clear.”  The root barar means “to clarify, brighten, examine, select, make bright, choice, chosen, cleanse (be clean), clearly, polished, pure, purify”.  Bar is also used to mean “field” or “grain, in the sense of winnowing”.  All of these definitions are from the Strong’s concordance where I also find an entry for bar defining it as “borrowed from the Chaldean as a title, the heir, son, grandson”.  The Strong’s then says bar corresponds to ben: son.

The Young’s concordance concurs.  Both concordances show several different Hebrew words used throughout the Old Testament all translated as “son”.  Ben is used most often and there are pages of scriptures associated with that word.  Bar is also translated “son” in a few different passages.  But then, bar is also translated as “pure” and “clean” in other passages (See Psalm 19:8, 24:4, 73:1, Proverbs 14:4). 

All of this might just be a matter of interest in studying the Hebrew language if it weren’t for Psalm 2:12.  The King James Version has it as: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.  Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”  The Hebrew word translated “Son” in this passage is bar.  What interests me is that the English word “son” also appears in verse 7 of this Psalm: “…Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.”  In verse 7, the Hebrew word is ben.  I wondered to myself, why are the different Hebrew words translated with the same English word?  The Strong’s Concordance answers this question by telling me in this passage bar is “Son” in the sense of a title.  I checked and didn’t find anything in any of my reference books or any other Bible translation that suggested bar in this passage could or should be translated as anything but “Son”.

I looked up this passage in every Bible translation I have access to and didn’t find much variation.  The Young’s Literal has “Chosen One” in place of “son” and the New English Bible has “king” but the majority of the other translations all have “Son”.  Only two translations had footnotes associated with this passage that suggested there might be more to the standard interpretation.  One is The Complete Jewish Study Bible which states, “Regarding this verse, the Targum says, ‘Those who reject his instruction will incur his anger and perish but blessed are those who trust in his Word’.”  The second footnote appears in The Passion Translation which states, “Or ‘be ruled by the Son”.  The Hebrew word for ‘kiss’ is nashaq and can also mean ‘to be ruled by’ or ‘be in subjection to’ (the Son).  Yet another possible translation of this difficult verse is ‘be armed with purity’.”

I found other glimmers of possibility.  The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon did have “kiss purely, of sincere homage” under the entry for bar but none of this was enough for me to question how this verse has been translated.  And I did want to question it because the verse bothers me. 

“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.”  Every resource I have access to are in agreement this is a messianic Psalm and thus I have to ask myself whether this passage is an accurate reflection of the Jesus I read about in the gospels.  That Jesus came to save the lost, received and ate with sinners, and wept over Jerusalem.  He washed filthy feet and died on a cross.  Am I to expect that if I don’t kiss or show proper homage to that Jesus, He’s going to get angry with me and I’ll be left to perish?  That seems to be what this passage is saying and ending the Psalm with “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him” doesn’t really soften that blow.  Still, I couldn’t find anything that suggested there was any other possible interpretation for this passage and, since I agree with those who are saying we can’t make the Bible say whatever we want, I put all my discomfort with this passage firmly with the Holy Spirit and waited for what He would say.

I waited a while.  I did shift my focus from studying Isaiah 45:7 but my questions about this passage percolated in the back of my mind.  Then came the day when I happened to pick a Hebrew word study book off my shelves and found the last two studies in it were devoted to Psalm 2.  The book is Hebrew Word Study: Exploring the Mind of God by Chaim Bentorah with Laura Bertone and I ask you to imagine my surprise when I read someone else asking the same question I had asked.  Mr. Bentorah writes, “In Hebrew, the word for “sin” is ben (בן).  Only in Aramaic is the word bar (בר )used as son.  This passage was written in Hebrew, so why suddenly insert an Aramaic word?” (Bentorah, 248).  My question exactly, Mr. Bentorah!

He goes on to say that there is a basis for using the word “Son” and capitalizing it to imply a reference to Jesus.  Mr. Bentorah says that, because Jewish tradition teaches this psalm in a messianic context, Christians do have a legitimate basis for assuming the word bar is “Son” with a capital S and implying we are to kiss the Son of God-Jesus.  But then, he goes on to say, “I’m okay with this interpretation, except the idea that Jesus will become angry with us and we will perish if we don’t kiss Him is a little unnerving to me.  Out salvation has nothing to do with “kissing” Jesus. Additionally, Jesus threatening us to submit to Him doesn’t fit His character” (Bentorah, 249).

Mr. Bentorah points out that rendering nashaq as “kiss” is a later, postexilic use of the word and that nashaq, which is derived from an old Akkadian word, signifies a voluntary joining together or a desire to be joined together.  He also points out that if the New Testament attributes Psalm 2 to David (which does seem to be the case in Acts 2:24-26), then rendering the word nashaq as “kiss” postdated David’s time and we ought then revert to the original meaning of the word which is a voluntary joining together.  If we also use the Hebrew meaning for bar which is “purity” rather than translating it by the Aramaic “son”, then command in this passage becomes to embrace or desire purity in our relationship with God.  Mr. Bentorah goes through the other words in this passage questioning why ‘aneph is translated “anger” and “wrath” instead of “passion”.

Mr. Bentorah closes his study with: “By saying that ‘aneph ( אנף) does not refer to anger or wrath but rather to God’s passionate love for us, I know I am trying to put a positive spin on something that is traditionally read in a negative context.  That may be the case” (Bentorah, 252). 

As I said before, every Bible translation is consistent in the interpretation of this scripture.  I am not saying Mr. Bentorah is correct and everyone else is wrong and Mr. Bentorah isn’t saying that either.  What he is saying is that there is valid reason to take a deeper look at this passage, the ancient language it was written in, and to question the interpretation.  It’s okay to ask questions.

There was a recent post on a Biblical Archeology forum I follow that said the Bible had to be taken “as is”.  It is difficult to glean just what exactly someone means by a one sentence post so I can only speak to what I thought when I read it.  I hear Believers declare the Bible is the inerrant word of God.  This is said as if it’s the arguments to end all arguments.  The Bible means exactly what it says and the idea of questioning what’s written there is unthinkable.  Besides, the very act of questioning means you don’t have any faith and without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). I don’t agree.  I’ve found my questions about scripture passages are an invitation from the Living God to enter deeper into relationship with Him.

I love my Bible.  Reading it used to be a chore, a box I would tick to prove I’d done my Christian duty for the day.  Reading it was a chore because I’d finish with this sense of unease that my life was not quite measuring up to the standard set down combined with the certainty it never would.  It’s a great irony that, the closer I have drawn to Jesus and the Father through the Spirit, the more questions I have and the more I delight to read the Bible.  One of the greatest privileges of my life is being able to possess as many copies of it as I like.  And yet, I also never lose sight of the fact that what I possess is a translation.  The translators have done the best they could whether they sought to produce a literal translation or express what they thought the ancient languages were saying.  I agree the Bible is the inerrant word of God because the One who inspired it is inerrant and any interpretation of it is inerrant if the Holy Spirit is the One doing the interpreting.   

There is no relationship on earth that is formed without asking questions and I have not found my relationship to the God who loves me to be any different.  The Bible is a crucial way of getting to know Him.  When I have a difficult passage I present it to Him.  “This passage says this,” I say.  “Is this truly who You are?  Show me.  Help me to know You.”  I have found our God is delighted to answer my questions and draw me closer to Himself.  Does He answer everything at once in the way I expect?  No.  Sometimes His answers have been years in the receiving and I have found He had to teach me other things before I could understand His answer.  Doesn’t stop me asking.   

My precious fellow believers, Jesus Himself says, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Me.  But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39:40).  The Life we live in Christ Jesus is one of relationship.  His perfect love casts out all fear and I think that includes the fear of asking questions.

The Bible contains the promise of a day when we will know as we are known.  So ask.  Ask whatever you would.  He is safe.  He loves you.  He will answer you.

Amen. 

inerrant meaning – Google Search

Two Competing Philosophies of Bible Translation | Patterns of Evidence

References

Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

The Comparative Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

The Complete Jewish Study Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2016

The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970

The Passion Translation, Broadstreet Publishing, Passion & Fire Ministries, 2018

Bentorah, Chaim, with Laura Bertone, Hebrew Word Study: Exploring the Mind of God, Whitaker House, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 2019

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody Massachusetts, 2018  

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1970, 1976

Peterson, Eugene H., The Message, NavPress, Tyndale House Publishers, 1993, 2002, 2018

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

Wilson, William, Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts

Young, Robert, Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts

Young, Robert, Modern Young’s Literal Translation: New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs, Greater Truth Publishers, Lafayette, Indiana, 2005

Requiescat in Pace

06 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

This post is the conclusion to my study of Isaiah 45:7 which I began in January of last year!  I don’t know that I’ve ever devoted so much time to one single passage of scripture but, every time I began to look at a single word, vistas opened up before me so vast I still have not fully comprehended them.  I could continue in this single passage of scripture for the rest of my life, I think.  I have merely taken a peek beneath the surface with this study and do look forward to exploring the depths in later studies.  For this post, let us take one more look at Isaiah 45:7:

“I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.”  That’s from the New King James Version.  The Amplified renders it: “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace [national well-being.  Moral evil proceeds from the will of men, but physical evil proceeds from the will of God], and I create [physical] evil-calamity; I am the Lord Who does all these things.”

I mentioned in one of those early posts how the Amplified translation bothered me.  It seemed to me that stressing God created physical evil rather than moral evil was not only splitting hairs but a heavy-handed attempt to let God off of a hook He seemed to put Himself squarely on.  No such distinction was made in how the Hebrew word for evil was used in other passages so either God created darkness and evil or there was a terrible misunderstanding of this particular passage.  Coming back to the Amplified version of this passage after the last year of study, I find it still bothers me but for different reasons. 

Whether physical rather than moral evil is meant, we are still left with a problem with God creating any sort of evil at all.  Even translating the word as “calamity” rather than evil has caused a twisted view of God to permeate the church.  Malcolm Smith addresses this in his booklet No Longer A Victim.  In the chapter entitled “Confronting God”, Bishop Smith talks about the evils and sufferings people have endured and the question that arises: “how can a loving God allow this?”  He relates what one woman he was counseling said, “…I am the victim of the Almighty God Himself.”  Bishop Smith then goes on to say:

“Historically, the Church has not helped us here, for we have been taught that this is indeed the way things are.  We have been told that every cruel and vicious evil to rake across our lives is God’s strange strategy of love.  The Church has taught the world to label every tragedy caused by nature on a rampage as ‘an act of God’, while telling those inside the Church that the terrible tragedy is ‘the will of God’.” (Smith, 30)

I can see why the translators of the Amplified Bible chose to make the distinction between moral evil and physical evil.  The Bible does make clear there are those evils that flow out of the darkened hearts of mankind.  I was recently reading a study and came across Jeremiah 19:5: “’(they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to all, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind)’”.  I have shared scriptures in previous studies about the heart of humankind and Paul has his list of “works of the flesh” in Galatians 19:21 so both the Old and New Testament do make it clear there are many “evils” that cannot be blamed on God but that human beings are responsible for.

While I do understand the distinction, I’m not convinced it would have been necessary if the translators had taken a close look at the meaning of “create”.  If the translators define create as “to make something out of nothing” then this passage is definitely a problem and caveats do need to be made to attempt to clarify the difference between the evil that originates in the heart of humankind and that which would come from God.

I found no basis for defining “create” as “to make something out of nothing” in the original Hebrew nor the English definition found in the dictionary.  When I look up “create” in the New World Dictionary, I find the base of our English word is kre and means “to grow” or “to cause to grow” like cereal.  The entire definition of “create” is as follows: 1) to cause to come into existence; bring into being; make; originate; esp., to make or design (something requiring art, skill, invention, etc.) 2) to bring about; give rise to; cause [new industries create new jobs] 3) to invest with a new rank, function, etc., 4) to be the first to portray (a particular role in a play). 

A simpler definition I hold in mind whenever I read the word “create” after conducting this study is “to cause something new to come into being and grow towards a specific purpose”.  It is a definition that fits every occurrence of the word in the Old Testament from Elohim creating in Genesis 1, to the Sons of Eli creating in 1 Samuel 2:29, and to the Israelites creating in Joshua 17:17-18.  Applying it to Isaiah 45:7 I find there is no basis for thinking this passage is saying God “creates calamity” in that He is the origin of it.  I find no scriptural basis for calling physical evils like tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes “acts of God” and claiming they arise from His will.  In this, I am in agreement with Bishop Smith who writes: 

“Instead of slandering God by placing the cries of this world’s anguish at His door, we must take the sin of man seriously…mankind fell, that man sinned, and he is now set against the love plans of the God who created him.  By default, man is now fighting the blueprint of his architect-and he is pursuing a pathway of self-destruction.  The truth is that outside of the salvation that comes to us from God in Jesus Christ, we will all destroy ourselves and our neighbors.  The tornados, hurricanes, volcanos, floods, and earthquakes are merely a physical expression of the spiritual state of man, who is the lord of the planet.” (Smith, Page 33)

I am aware of the Bible recording an instance where God did cause a flood and volcanoes and upheaval to deal with the evil of humankind.  This is a vast and complex subject I would like to devote a future study to and I am also aware I cannot possibly discuss it in any detail here.  I would like to point out the story of the flood was an instance of God having to drastically intervene in the history of mankind.  Amos 3:7 says, “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” and I find the story of the flood is no exception.  Noah was the human instrument in that situation.  It took a great deal of time to build the ark and, while the Bible is not explicit in Genesis, I imagine doing so caused some curiosity.  2 Peter 2:5 describes Noah as a “preacher of righteousness” so I find there is enough evidence to suggest the Biblical flood was not something that happened without warning.  His covenant also still stands that He will never allow a flood to destroy the earth (See Genesis 9:9-17). I do not see that this story of the flood provides us with a Biblical basis for assigning all floods as well as volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. to God. Especially as they tend to happen without warning and the Bible is clear: God never does anything unless He first reveals His secret.

We do not need to go looking for a prophet in this day and age. The Book of Hebrews opens with, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (verses 1-2).  This speaking to us through His Son is what I find prophesied in Isaiah 45:7. Instead of a picture of God claiming calamity as His own creation, I see a glorious picture of the heart of our God and how He has chosen to deal with humankind.

Let us look at this passage again and see it as a prophecy of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the one in whom “was life and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5).  He is the light of the world appearing in the very midst of darkness.  He is also the peace made.  At His birth all of creation echoed with the cry, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men! (Luke 2:14).  The Hebrew word translated “peace” in Isaiah 45:7 is shalom and doesn’t just mean “peace”.  It means “completeness, soundness, welfare, peace” and we are, each one of us, made complete in Him (Colossians 2:10).

I see no reason to interpret this passage as God stating He is the one who creates the calamities that befall us.  I definitely see no reason for the Amplified to have said the “peace” Isaiah 45:7 speaks of is “national peace.”  That is an unnecessary addition in my opinion.  What I do see in Isaiah 45:7 is a foreshadowing of the truth expressed in Galatians 1:3-4: “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father”. 

Humankind is still so darkened in its understanding.  As those around us continue to live as beings independent from God determining for themselves what is good and evil, we will live in the midst of great evils.  We do not live here alone.  The Holy Spirit is the presence of God in the world today and He brings Jesus and the Father right into our hearts and therefore in the midst of whatever circumstance we find ourselves.  We walk in darkness.  Jesus is the light in our darkness and, as the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see Him more and more every moment, He causes something new to come into being and grow until there is no more darkness.  The same is true for whatever evil that might befall us.  He is our peace, our completeness, our welfare, our very life in the midst of the greatest of evils and He causes something new to come into being and grow until death itself is swallowed up in His life.

Jesus Christ is the One who spoke to the tempest and calmed the raging storm.  Since John 1:18 says, “No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him,” then Jesus Christ is the will of God.  The will of our Father as revealed in Jesus is love-union with Him, light instead of darkness, perfect peace, deliverance from all sorts of evils, and a calming of the storms.  To say devastation is His will for us is a terrible slander.

Let us rest in the Peace that Jesus Christ is: the Peace that only the Lord can give.  May that peace flow out of us to the world around us.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

The Comprehensive Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody Massachusetts, 2018

Smith, Malcolm, No Longer A Victim, Pillar Books and Publishing Company, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1992

Strong, James, LL,D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990