Tag Archives: Biblical Greek

Times of Harvest

01 Monday May 2023

Posted by in Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Image by Gerald Friedrich from Pixabay

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

This parable is found in Matthew 13:24-30.  This same chapter of Matthew records Jesus giving an explanation of the parable in verses 37-43.  I asked several questions in last week’s post and the one I am focusing on this week is what did Jesus mean when He said the harvest is at the end of the age?  There are two main interpretations of this parable in Christian circles and both say the “end of the age” as recorded in verse 39 is referencing a future date when Jesus returns and His angels reap.  I disagree.  For one thing, I don’t agree the wheat and the tares are referring to two different types of people because there is no possibility of conversion between wheat and tare: one cannot become the other.  Knowing this, it makes no sense that the call made by both Jesus and John the Baptist is “Metanoia!” which means “Think differently!” or “Change your mind!”.  I agree with the interpretation of this parable by Dora Van Assen shared by J. Preston Eby in his The Firstfruits, The Harvest, and the Vintage article which I have linked below.

Ms. Van Assen points out that the wheat and the tares did not convert one another and then says she “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.”  She goes on to say that the context of the parable shows that Jesus was uttering things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world (Mat. 13:35) and then says she believes this parable is a picture of what happened in the Garden of Eden.  God created mankind and said they were very good but then the enemy enters the garden and sows seeds of the Lie in the minds of our ancestors.  The owner of the field does not allow the bad seed to be yanked out of the ground but rather lets both grow together in the same field, lest the good seed be damaged and the fruit of it lost.  Thus was and has been the state of the carnal mind throughout the generations. Ms. Van Assen says, “The harvest reveals what sort of seed was planted in our earth, and how they have matured in areas of our lives.  Only the mature know the difference!  And only by harvest conditions can the Lord bring the separation.” 

Mr. Eby is quoting Ms. Van Assen’s interpretation within the context of Revelation 14:15-16 and says, “When the Son of man as the crowned Reaper sends His sickle into the earth, all things will have come to full maturity.  The age has witnessed the sowing and growth and development of the Son of man, and also the sowing of the adversary, and there has been no conclusive divine dealing on earth to make manifest the judgment of God as to what has resulted.  But the harvest is the end of the age!”

What Mr. Eby is saying here makes perfect sense because who can deny there doesn’t appear to have been any sort of definitive harvest.  History records great and terrible evils done since Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, and ascension so it follows that the “end of the age” in Matthew 13:39 is referring to some future date.  However, I have found there is enough evidence that the “end of the age” in this passage is referring to the age that ended with Jesus’ death, resurrection, ascension, and the giving of the Holy Spirit.  There are two passages in the book of Hebrews that come to mind. The first is Hebrews 1:1-2 which states, “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.”

The Greek word translated as “worlds” in this passage is aion (G165) and means “an age.”  This is a complicated word in the way it has been translated throughout the Bible and is one of the reasons why I suggest everyone who wants to understand what the Bible is really saying get an Interlinear Bible.  The word appears in Jesus’ interpretation of the wheat and tares parable in Matthew 13.  I am going to quote verses 38-40 from the King James Version and include the Greek words for every English occurrence of the word “world”.

“The field is the world (kosmos); the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world (aion); and the reapers are the angels.  As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world (aion).”  Reading this in the King James, I can understand why the major interpretations of this parable say this is speaking about a future date when the world is brought to an end because it is obvious the world has not ended.  Other Bible translations have tried to do a better job: the NKJV, Amplified, New American Standard and New International versions all have “age” as a translation for aion but I haven’t seen that these more accurate translations have had much effect on how this parable has been interpreted.

The truth is something much deeper.  My second scripture from the book of Hebrews is 9:26 which states, “…but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”  The Scriptures are clear.  The coming of Jesus in human flesh, His life here on earth, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and the pouring out of His Spirit at Pentecost all heralded the end and consummation of the ages.  There is no reason to think either the parable of the wheat and the tares or the explanation given is describing a state that is continuing on until some future date.

All four gospels record Jesus mentioning the harvest as being ready, ripe, plentiful, and immediate.  Matthew 9:35-38 records Jesus saying to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”  John 4:35 says, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” Luke 10:2 says, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”  Mark 4:29 speaks of the ripe harvest within the context of a different parable but says, “…the harvest has come.”

The Book of Acts records times of great harvest.  One the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on those gathered together, “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them” (Acts 2:41).  Acts 4:4 record the number of those who believed coming to be about five thousand.

I believe the scripture record is clear: Jesus was manifested in the consummation of the ages.  There was a great harvest recorded in the book of Acts and I don’t deny there is something greater coming.  “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).  I do expect something incredible at the end of this age and I don’t quibble with it being referred to as a harvest.  What I do quibble with is the idea that there is only one harvest and it has yet to happen.

If the “harvest at the end of the age” mentioned in Matthew 13:39 is indeed some far off future date then there is no hope for the Christian life except stagnation.  If the wheat and tares representative of thoughts sown in the fields of our hearts and minds, then they both are growing together and there is nothing to be done about it until that far off future date.  I don’t see this is the message of the New Testament.  We are to be “transformed through the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2).  We are to grow up into the Head, that is Christ (Ephesians 4:15).  We are transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).  Jesus told his disciples His Father was honored and glorified when they produced much fruit (John 15:8).  He also said the branch that abides in Him would bear much fruit and that every branch that bore fruit would be pruned that it would bear more fruit (See John 15:1-2).       

 In 1 Corinthians 10:11, Paul describes us as the people “on whom the end of the ages (aion) has come”.  Jesus was manifested at the consummation of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself but not only to put away sin: He came so that we would have life and that more abundantly (John 10:10).  One of the names of Jesus given in Isaiah 9:6 is “everlasting Father”.  That would be better translated “Father of the Ages” and, again, Hebrews 1:2 states Jesus is the one through whom God made the aions.  Ephesians 1:9-11 states the mystery of the will of God is that in the fullness of time all things are to be consummated in Christ and that we have obtained an inheritance in Him.

In Christ.  All things were created through Him and for Him, He is before all things and in Him all things consist (Colossians 1:16-17).  We believers know that we abide in Him and He in us because of the Holy Spirit (1 John 4:13).  This is the truth now.  We experience time in a linear fashion and so it is easy to look at our daily lives and think we must continue on as we are until some far off future date.  We don’t.  We are in Christ.  Our lives bear fruit now.  The harvest was not some one-time thing in the first days of the early church nor is it something reserved for some far off future.  Every age, past present and future, has its consummation in Christ.

There is still so much to be gleaned from this parable and so I plan to continue studying it next week.  Until then, may the eyes of our understanding continued to be enlightened that we see we are in Christ and it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us.  He is the one who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, and will also supply and multiply the seed we have sown and will increase the fruits of our righteousness (2 Corinthians 9:10).

Amen

References

Kindgdom Bible Studies Revelation Series (kingdombiblestudies.org)

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

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible, Volume 4, Authors For Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1976, 1985

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Image by Smim Bipi from Pixabay

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

There Is No Substitute

20 Monday Feb 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing my study of Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things” (NKJV).

I have not fully plumbed the depths of the meaning of “calamity” in this passage which other translations have as “evil”.  I have no doubt I’ll be looking at the Hebrew ra and the Greek kakos and poneros again in other studies.  I am moving on in the study because I have answered one of my questions to my own satisfaction: when God says, “I create darkness…I create calamity” does that mean neither existed until He created it and thus He is the source of both? 

My study has shown me that answer is no.  The Hebrew word bara translated as “create” does not mean “to make something out of nothing” and, in some passages where the word is used, it cannot possibly mean that as those “creating” are doing so out of something that already exists.  There is no reason to apply the “make something out of nothing” meaning to this passage in Isaiah and I have found it borne out by many other passages in the Bible: God is not the source of darkness nor evil.  However, He is found inside the darkness that is mankind’s resulting state after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I also find calamity, badness, and circumstances “injurious to happiness” (which are all better definitions of ra then “evil”) are used by God to instruct and correct His people and to bring about His will.

Which does, I think, raise another question: is our God a trustworthy God?  Of course every Believer cries a resounding “yes!” but let’s pretend we don’t know God.  Our eyes have not been opened by the Holy Spirit to see Him as He really is.  Let’s pretend we do not know the Father in the face of Jesus.  Is the same Lord who says, “I, the Lord, do all these things,” One who can be trusted?  The second part of Isaiah 45:6 says, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.”

I think that, to a one, every Christian would agree there is only one God.  And yet, I do not see that belief upheld by what I hear Christians saying and what I read in the books they are writing.  Christians really do believe in two Gods.  There’s the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but then there’s His opposite.  Perhaps that god only warrants a little ‘g’ but he is as omnipotent as God, and is in many ways more powerful than God.  God had a plan you see, and the little ‘g’ god came and messed it up in the Garden of Eden so badly big ‘G’ God is salvaging what He can.  Little ‘g’ rules the underworld and will have untold numbers of the people of God enslaved in his domain where he will torment them for all eternity.  Sound familiar?

This is not a post on the existence of hell or even the meanings of the words translated “hell” on the Old and New Testaments.  I am going to take a moment to point out a few matters of interest.  The word for “hell” in the Hebrew is sheol (H7585) and is translated as “hell” in various passages in the KJV.  It is translated an almost equal number of times as “grave” and then three times as “pit”.  There are three words in the Greek translated as “hell”: geenna (G1067) though most of us are more familiar with the words Gehenna or Hinnom or Ge-Hinnom, hades (G86), and tartaroo (G5020).  Hades is also translated once as “grave” in 1 Corinthians 15:55 (though two different Greek words are used for “grave” in other passages) and tartaroo only appears in 2 Peter 2:4. 

“Doesn’t matter”, I hear my Christian brethren say: the words all mean the same thing.  I put it to you they cannot possibly mean the same thing.  Open your concordance to the entry for “Hell” and look which Greek words are associated with “burning” or “fire”.  To a one, that Greek word is geenna.  Even James 3:6 has geenna rather than hades.  Then, take a look at Revelation 20:14: “Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.  This is the second death.”  It does not make sense that hell, which is a place already on fire according to the words of Jesus Himself, would be cast into the Lake of Fire.  Those same believers will insist hell is a place of separation from God forever with no hope of escape but then one has to consider these passages (quoted from the KVJ):

“For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell” Psalm 16:10

“…Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell” Psalm 86:13

“…if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou are there” Psalm 139:8

“The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath” Proverbs 15:24

Again, this is not a post arguing for or against the existence of hell.  What I am saying is how extremely important to heed the words of Paul: “Test everything.  Hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).  When I began questioning what I was being taught from the pulpit, looking up the passages that described the hell I was so afraid I’d go to if I ended up backsliding, I found much of what I was told was NOT AT ALL backed up by the Bible.  I recently read an article where the author quoted Gleanings from Gussie by Patricia “Gus” Nolan Savas where she writes, “whereas many Roman Catholics worship their religion, many Protestants worship the Bible” (Savas, xiii). I also recently heard the term “Bible Preach”.  As I am always looking for Christians to say something along the lines of “Holy Spirit lead, teach, comfort, interpret, and guide”, this did not set well with me.  And yet, since the majority of Christian denominations have sidelined the Holy Spirit and pay Him little more than lip service, “Bible Preach” is the best they’ve got.  Very well then, let your Bible Preach.

Ask questions.  Look these passages up for yourself.  See if what you are being taught is the truth.  Does the Bible really teach this destination theology, i.e. you’ll either go to heaven or hell when you die?  Or, does it teach us of the fruit-filled and fruit-bearing, overcoming, peace in the midst of tribulation life we have in Jesus Christ right this moment through His Spirit dwelling within us?  When you’ve done that, look up the passages that mention the Holy Spirit and see if what you’ve been told about His vanishing from the world the moment the Biblical canon was finalized can possibly be the truth.  When you’ve done that, ask Him to open your eyes to the truth that only He can tell you.  Ask Him to guide you into all Truth, the truth that is Jesus Christ alone. 

Test everything.  Hold fast what is good.  The Greek word for “good” in this passage is kalos (G2570).  The Strong’s concordance defines it as “beautiful, good, valuable, virtuous, worthy”.  The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament goes a bit deeper.  While its definition for kalos does contain “beautiful-being attractive in outer appearance” it also defines kalos as “pertaining to being in accordance at a high level with the purpose of something or someone” and “morally good, pleasing to God, contributing to salvation.” I also hear the accusation made that those who are questioning and refuting are choosing only those scriptures that they like or make them feel good.  I don’t doubt some are but I do not allow accusations and mockery to stop me from working out my own salvation with fear and trembling (which is not describing terror of God!).   

Knowing our God, living in vital union relationship with Him is a matter of life and death and that not reserved until after our body dies but life and death right this moment.  Just because someone tells you who God is or writes a book or has a vision, does not mean what they are saying, speaking, or seeing is the truth.  Test everything.  Hold fast what is good. If the underworld we’ve been taught to believe in is not upheld by the Bible, there needs to be a thorough look at the idea of a little ‘g’ god of evil.  Which I intend to do next week.

References

Danker, Frederick William, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinios, 1957,2000, Page 504-505

Savas, Patricia Nolan, Gleanings from Gussie, CSN Books, San Diego, California, 2009

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

Walker, G. Allen, Koine Greek Textbook, Volume IV-V, 2014-2017

Not Ruled By Sight

19 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello and welcome to another post on Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7 and specifically my study on the meaning of “evil”.

I recently read a teacher of biblical languages describe Greek as a very precise language and Hebrew as ambiguous.  I thought about this as I looked at both Greek words the Septuagint has in place of the Hebrew words translated “evil”.  The Greek word translated “evil” in my study passage of Isaiah 45:7 is kaka (from kakos) while the Greek word translated “evil” in Genesis 2:9 is poneros.  I’ve already shared how these two words have different meanings so won’t repeat that here but I do find it interesting that the Hebrew makes no such distinction.  The Hebrew word translated “evil” in both of these passages, as well as in many passages throughout the OT, is ra. 

Ra is a fascinating word.  For one thing it’s only two letters and the majority of Hebrew root words are three.  But then, ra is not the root.  Ra’a is the root word and ra is the masculine form of the noun, the feminine being ra’ah.  While this is interesting, I can’t say I’ve gleaned any deep insight.  Perhaps with further study.  The definition for ra found in the Strong’s is also of interest.  The Strong’s number is 7451 and ra is defined as “bad, evil, adversity, calamity, grievous harm, mischief, misery, wretchedness” etc.  Again, this is interesting and I find I can’t disagree with the translators who have rendered the latter part of Isaiah 45:7 as “I create calamity” but this is not what fascinates me.

What fascinates me about ra is that it is spelled Resh Ayin (רע).  Both of these letters are ones I’ve already looked at in previous studies and, as those studies were so very positive both in the meanings of the letters themselves and the word pictures painted, I did wonder how these same Hebrew letters could end up meaning something as negative as “evil”.  I didn’t find anything negative in the meaning of the letters themselves but the word picture was eye-opening.  The word Resh is identical to the word Rosh which means “head, leader, principal, commander, ruler, or prince.”  Resh also means “poor one” and the shape of the Resh is one bent under a burden or one bent over at the head.  The word Ayin means “eye, sight, sparkle, and gleam.”  It also means “spring” or “fountain”.  The shape of the Ayin is like two eyes on a stalk.  In the word ra we see the head bent toward the eyes.

As I began this study, I went down the list of scriptures in the Strong’s containing the word “evil” and read each one of them.  I was struck with how often the scriptures describe evil springing forth out of the hearts of mankind.  Genesis 8:21 records the Lord Himself saying “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” and the book of Jeremiah contains several references to mankind having an evil heart.  The book of Jeremiah also contains that oft quoted verse: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (17:9) 

King Solomon writes an admonition: “Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23) and Jesus, in speaking to the Pharisees, said: “How can you, being evil, speak good things?  For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things” (Matthew 12:34-35).  I understand the importance of guarding our hearts in a way I didn’t before because, if every imagination of our hearts are evil, how can we expect the world to be any other way than it is?  How do we make sure the treasure of our hearts is good rather than evil?

The answer to why the imagination of our hearts is evil is found in the word ra itself.  Back in the garden so many eons ago, when the mother of us all “saw the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.  She also gave to her husband with her and he ate” (Genesis 3:6).  Our parents partook of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and scripture states “the eyes of both of them were opened” (verse 7).  To what?  Scripture doesn’t say they were both flooded with wisdom and knowledge but rather they knew they were naked.  Directly on the heels of their eyes being opened came the fear of the One who had made them and walked in the garden with them.  Not only was the relationship with their Creator destroyed but so was their relationship to each other. Their eyes were opened to a new way of seeing but they were now limited to the confines of the flesh. Their judgments were based on external appearances and they became darkened in their understanding.

This judging by the sight of the eyes is described in scripture. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Proverbs 16:2 says that “all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits”. 1 John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.”

As Benjamin Blech says, “The eyes ought not to be our rulers…I possess a head, a mind, and an intellect that must control the desires stemming from sight” (Blech, page 77).  It is important to remember the Tree imparted the knowledge of both good and evil and I do not deny there are those who have little or no knowledge of the God and Father of Jesus Christ who still do great good in the world.  They have their own moral code or laws that they live by.  I have heard people claim to be Christians who have little use for Jesus but find Christianity to be a wondrous set of moral values to pattern one’s life by.  Scripture itself says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).  Does that mean that’s all we have?  Try hard to keep the rules, be a good person, do what we believe is good to our fellow humans, and hope that good ends up being enough to triumph over evil?

I say a resounding no!  The life we have in Jesus, the Christian life, is so much more than rules and moral codes.  We do not have to allow our eyes to be our rulers but neither do we have any longer to fight so they will not rule over us.  “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).  Our eyes, the lamp of our bodies, can be so full of light that our bodies are also full of light. (See Matthew 6:22-23)  This is possible because we see Jesus.  He is the fulfillment of that glorious prophecy in Isaiah: “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.  The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.  His delight is in the fear of the Lord, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears” (11:1-3). 

 I mentioned earlier in this post that the feminine form of ra is ra’ah.  There is another Hebrew word pronounced ra’ah.  But, whereas ra’ah meaning evil is spelled Resh Ayin Hey (רעה), the other ra’ah means “to see” and is spelled Resh Aleph Hey (ראה). In evil, the head is bent to the eyes and the sight rules.  And yet, in the word for “to see”, the Resh is bent to the Aleph.  The Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and thus is not only a reference to God but stands for unity with God. 

This is the truth that rules in our hearts and guides our seeing. Because of everything Jesus did by his existence as the Incarnate God in the first place, to living here on earth as one of us, to dying on the cross and all that His death accomplished, to rising from the dead and finally ascending to the right hand of the father, we are utterly free.  Because Jesus did return to the Father, that same Spirit Isaiah prophesied would rest upon Jesus is poured out in our hearts.  We are the temple of this Spirit, living stones fitted together, One with Jesus and the Father. This Spirit opens the eyes of our understanding-eyes that have been closed for so very long-that we might know what is the hope of our calling by the Father of glory (see Ephesians 1).  Because the Spirit of the living God lives in us, the very peace of Jesus Christ rules in our hearts.  Because this is so, there is no place for any other rule.  The imagination of our hearts can no longer be evil but is rather righteousness, peace, and love in the Holy Spirit.

Who the Son sets free is free indeed!  That’s us!  May our eyes be fixed on Him!

Hallelujah!

Amen  

Note: The Hebrew is read from right to left! Hence the Resh is seen bending to the Ayin in one word and the Aleph in the other.

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

References

Bentorah, Chaim, Hebrew Word Study: Beyond the Lexicon, Trafford Publishing, USA, 2014

Blech, Benjamin, The Secrets of Hebrew Words, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1991

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1995

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

When Tradition and I Part Ways

28 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

“I have to go downstairs and study ‘evil’.” 

I heard myself say those words to my family and laughed when the responses I received were “okay” and “sounds good”.  Only within the context of a Bible Study can someone announce he or she is going to study evil and no one wonders at it!

I am continuing my study of “evil” this week.  In Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I create evil”.  I’ve already posted a series of studies on the Hebrew word translated “create” in this passage-which is bara-so will not repeat myself but will say I have learned enough to question what is being said here.  “To make something out of nothing” is not an accurate definition of “create” and bara is used often enough in the OT where something new came into being out of already existing materials that we do not have to automatically assume God is saying He is the source of evil.  What then is this passage saying?  In the 45th chapter of Isaiah, God is making it clear He alone is God.  There is no evil power equal to Him so-looking at this passage alone-it could be He is claiming to be the source of evil.  And yet, the text allows the equally valid interpretation that God alone is God and even evil becomes part of the working out of His will: He will come inside it, make it new, and turn it into His good.

I cannot make a determination based on this single passage of scripture.  I hear that done so often: a single verse or at times a fragment of a verse is taken and entire doctrines are built upon it.  Any passage that refutes the established doctrine is either refuted in turn or utterly ignored.  I have seen the truth of the words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.  And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’  For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men-the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things as you do…All too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition” (Mark 7:6-9, Isaiah 29:13). 

And so, because I do not want to keep hold of what the traditions I have been part of have told me evil is and how it came into being, I began first by checking which Hebrew word is translated “evil” in Isaiah 45:7.  It is ra and the Strong’s number is 7451.  I then checked whether the word was the same in Genesis 2 for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and, when I saw it was, I decided to read each passage containing the word ra and see what I could see.  I had barely begun when I wondered which Greek words the Septuagint had in place of ra in both in Isaiah 45:7 and in Genesis 2:9.  I had read that it was impossible to show a difference between kakos and poneros which are the two Greek words used to translate “evil” most often in the NT, so I checked the two passages in the OT to see if the same Greek word was used both times.  It is not.  Isaiah 45:7 has kaka which is the nominative/accusative/vocative plural neuter of kakos.  Genesis 2:9 has poneros.  I had to ask myself, why use two different Greek words to translate the same Hebrew word?

I mentioned before I had read that it was impossible to differentiate between kakos and poneros.  I read that statement in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  The first paragraph in the entry for Evil, Bad, Wickedness states: “The two main NT terms for expressing the shortcomings or inferiority of a thing (i.e. bad) and the ethically negative and religiously destructive character of a person or thought (i.e. evil) are kakos and poneros.  In the NT kakos occurs 50 times and the linguistically later poneros 78 times though the LXX uses it only 50 times compared to the 300 cases of kakos.  Unlike the terms dealt with under –Good, it is impossible to show any difference between these two terms.  Both are used even for the personification of evil in the devil or men” (Brown, 561).

Is it impossible to show any difference between the two terms?  Perhaps it is so merely looking up the different passages in our English translations.  It is not impossible if we look up the meanings of the words.  The full definition the Strong’s gives kakos (G2556)is: “apparently a primary word; worthless (intrinsically whereas 4190 (poneros-addition mine) properly refers to effects) i.e. (subjectively) depraved, or (objectively) injurious-bad, evil, harm, ill, noisome, wicked.”  The Strong’s defines poneros (G4190) as: “from a derivate of 4192; hurtful i.e. evil (properly in effect of influence and thus differing from 2556, which refers rather to essential character, as well as from 4550 which indicates degeneracy from original virtue); figuratively, calamitous, also (passively) ill, i.e. diseased; but especially (morally) culpable, i.e. derelict, vicious, facinorous; neuter (singular), mischief, malice, or (plural) guilt; masculine (singular) the devil or (plural) sinners:-bad, evil, grievous, harm, lewd, malicious, wicked (-ness).”

 For the sake of clarification, the Greek word under 4550 in the Strong’s is sapros and means “rotten, worthless, bad, corrupt”.  I had to look up “facinorous” and found it means “atrociously wicked: infamous”.  I admit there isn’t a massive difference between the two definitions as I’ve shared them but I found the difference becomes more obvious as I traced kakos through its familial words and poneros to its root.  The root of poneros is ponos (G4190) and it means, “toil, anguish, pain.”  Ponos can be traced further to penes or peno (G3993) which means, “to toil for daily subsistence, starving, indigent, poor.” 

I won’t share every definition of the Greek words related to kakos: they are numbers 2549-2561 in the Strong’s concordance should anyone wish to look them up.  There isn’t a great variation in meaning which is expected.  What I found interesting is the Greek word kakωs (G2560).  This word is the adverbial form of kakos, is pronounced kakooce, and means, “badly (physically or morally), amiss, diseased, evil, grievously, miserably, sick, sore.”

I find it utterly fascinating that the Septuagint chose poneros for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In Genesis chapter 3, the ground is cursed for Adam’s sake and God says to him: “in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (verse 17) and poneros has the root meaning of “toil.”  Kakos, on the other hand, has the meaning of “illness, affliction.”  It is obvious to me these two words do not mean the same thing and, if word choice by the writers of the New Testament was deliberate, the passages where these words occur were meant to be read with these definitions in mind.  What the different choices in Genesis 2:9 and Isaiah 45:7 mean is something to be looked at in upcoming weeks.

It is a difficult thing to leave tradition behind and look at the scripture without any preconceived bias and be led entirely by the Holy Spirit.  It can be uncomfortable to “test everything”.  I have already come across some difficult passages which I do not want to shrink from nor dismiss out of hand.  They have been recorded in scripture for a reason.  They are important to understand.  I do not want to continue to interpret them as I’ve always been told they ought to be interpreted and I am not satisfied to settle for the vague answers I find in some commentaries.  I want to know the truth and so I continue to pray, “Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Living God, Spirit of wisdom and revelation, continue to teach and guide me.  Renew my mind and open the eyes of my heart that I might see You, Jesus, the One who is the Truth.”

Amen.

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

 Notes:

Whenever I have typed kakos I am referring to the Greek word spelled with an omicron: number 2556 in the Strong’s Concordance

LXX is the abbreviation for the Septuagint

References:

κακά – Wiktionary

Septuagint | biblical literature | Britannica

Facinorous Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967, 1986, Page 561

Lanier, Gregory R., and William Ross, Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition, Volumes I & II, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2018

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