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When Tradition and I Part Ways

28 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Studies, Isaiah 45:7

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“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 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 not 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 Isiah 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

Adding Knowledge, Increasing Understanding

21 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello!  Welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where this week I continue my study of Isaiah 45:7 and specifically look at evil.

If you have read last week’s post, you might be wondering why write anything more on evil if I believe what I wrote is true: that we who belong to Jesus live from His life rather than live our lives determining for ourselves what is good or evil.  I do believe it but I also believe in Jesus’ warning: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.  Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).

It is important to me to understand exactly what the Holy Spirit meant to convey as He inspired the prophets to speak and the scribes to record.  The world system uses words as it sees fit and rarely do these meanings line up with what was intended in the scriptures.  I hear the word “evil” used to describe a person who simply disagrees with the mindset of another.  I don’t think that’s what is meant by “evil” in the Bible but I don’t know for certain.  Any dissent I may attempt will quickly fail as I have no foundational understanding to strengthen me.  And so, I continue my study.

One thing I noticed while studying “create” and bara was, bara is the only Hebrew word translated “create”.  While bara is translated with other words in other passages (to fatten, to cut down), any time you read the word “create” in the King James Version of the Bible, the corresponding Hebrew word is bara.  There will be prefixes and suffixes attached but the root is always bara.  I don’t know that I’ve gleaned any significant meaning from that but I do mention it as a matter of interest because this is rarely the case.  When I look up a word in the Strong’s concordance, I find that one English word has been used to translate several Hebrew (and Greek) words and thus variations in meaning are missing from our translations.  One such word I’ve already looked at is “darkness” and you can take a look at those previous studies if you like.

Going back to previous studies is not necessary though because “evil” in English has been used to translate several Hebrew and Greek words.  In Hebrew they are: ra, ra’a, ra’ah, roa, dibbah, beliya’al, and aven.  In Greek they are: poneros, kakos (spelled with an omicron), kakopoieo, kakia, kakologeo, kakoo, kakos (spelled with an omega), kakourgos, katalalia, katalaleo, phaulos, adikema, blasphemeo, blasphemia, and dusphemia. 

It is obvious that some of these occurrences are variations of a word rather than a different meaning: both the verb and the noun, for example.  Some of these words have only been translated “evil” in one passage so, as I continue in this study, I won’t focus on them.  These words in the Hebrew are dibbah, ra’ah, beliya’al, and aven.  Dibbah appears in Numbers 13:32 and is translated “evil report”.  The word dibbah means “slander, defaming.”  Beliya’al appears in Psalms 41:8 where it is translated “evil disease.”  The word itself means “without profit, worthlessness, destruction, wickedness.”  Aven appears in Proverbs 12:21 where it is translated “evil” as in misfortune.  The word aven means “trouble, vanity, wickedness, to come to naught”.  Ra’ah appears in Job 24:21 but, since it belongs to the same family as the word in my study passage, which is ra, I may be looking at ra’ah as well.

The Greek word adikema is translated “evil” as in “evil doing” in Acts 24:20 and that is the only time the King James Version used it so.  It might be interesting to see how its meaning contrasts with kakopoieo which means “to be a bad-doer” but I probably won’t be considering it in too much depth.  The same with dusphemia which occurs in 2 Corinthians 6:8 where it is translated “evil” as in “evil report”. 

My point of this study is not for you or me to memorize a bunch of Hebrew and Greek words so we can insert ourselves into situations and point out how much we know.  Neither is it for us to arm ourselves with an extensive vocabulary we then use to bludgeon others into silence.  My point is the importance of words.  Those who wrote both the Old and New Testaments certainly were specific in the words they chose to convey what they wanted to say.  Our English translations were less so.  Two different words are translated as “speak evil” in the New Testament: kakalogeo and katalaleo.  They don’t mean exactly the same things. Kakalogeo means “to revile, curse, speak ill of” and katalaleo means “to be a traducer, slander”.  Traduce means to “speak badly of or tell lies about someone so as to damage their reputation.” 

James speaks of the tongue as being “an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” in Chapter 3 verse 8 of his epistle.  The word for “evil” here is kakos spelled with an omicron.  Proverbs 18:21 says, “death and life are in the power of the tongue” but if I were to try and make the point that we speak out of the fullness of our hearts and attempted to use Luke 6:45 to do so, the Greek words translated evil in this passage are not kakos nor are they in any way part of the same family as kakos.  The words here in the Greek are poneros.  So, my point might be valid and I might be able to substantiate it using the English translation, but the Greek words mean different things and my point would not end up being accurate.

I think accuracy is important but it is not more important than our relationship to the Holy Spirit.  Through His indwelling us, we have the very person of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit guides us into the truth that Jesus Himself is our all: our life, our wisdom, our peace, our words, our salvation.  And yet, Paul gave this admonition to Timothy: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).  Peter writes in his epistle, we have been given exceedingly great and precious promises and that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature.  He then writes, “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Peter’s list isn’t possible without the Holy Spirit and that includes knowledge.  We can study all we like but, without the Holy Spirit revealing the truth of what we study to us, our study gives us head knowledge only and there is no life to it.  And yet, study is important.  At the beginning of this post I quoted, “be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”  Some translations have “innocent” and others have “gentle” in place of harmless.  The Greek word is akeraios (G185) and the first meaning given in the Strong’s is “unmixed”.  I like that: I want an unmixed mind.  I want to know what these words meant by the ones who wrote them.  I do not want the world system giving me definitions because then, it will begin to interpret scripture for me and that path ends in death.  And so, in the upcoming weeks, I will look at the different words translated “evil” and their meanings.  I will look at the passages in which these words occur and see if my understanding of them changes.  My ultimate desire is that, through this study, the Holy Spirit will open my eyes and I will know the Truth.  Jesus Christ is the ultimate Truth and my prayer to the Holy Spirit is “increase my understanding that I might know Jesus in a deeper and more intimate way.”

May the Holy Spirit open our eyes that we may know Him!

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

References

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

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

No Matter What May Come

07 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Good morning!  Welcome to another week and another post on Renaissance Woman.  This post will be my last on bara, the Old Testament Hebrew word most often translated by the English word “create”.  For the sake of this study anyway as there is still a great deal to learn.  As I looked up scriptures containing the word bara, I found many that stirred up questions and opened up avenues for more study.  I am staying focused on Isaiah 45:7 though and thus plan to move on to taking a look at the meaning of “evil” in upcoming weeks.

Regarding bara: I am finally ready to settle on a definition.  I have previously shared how there are some who say bara ought to be translated “to fatten” or “to fill” and have also shared how I find those definitions unsatisfactory for two reasons: 1) because there are other perfectly good Hebrew words used to express those concepts and 2) neither definition encompasses what the word intends to convey in the passages where it is used in scripture.

I don’t believe there is any language where a word means one thing in one place and something entirely different in another place.  I have also previously shared where I plugged the different definitions for bara I’d come across into every passage where the word occurred to see if the definition worked.  An excellent example is in Jeremiah 31:22 where I find: “…For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth–A woman shall encompass a man.”  The definitions “to fatten” or “to fill” simply do not work in this passage.  Neither does defining bara as “to do a new thing”.  I was curious so I looked up the Hebrew words in this passage and it isn’t bara repeated twice.  There is a different Hebrew word translated as “a new thing”: chadash (H2319) and it means “new, fresh.” 

After all these weeks of study and compiling information from different sources, here is what I think is the closest and fullest definition of bara: to cause something new to come into being and grow to accomplish an intended purpose.  It is long and complicated but it is a definition I find fits every occurrence of bara in the Old Testament.  I find it even works in 1 Samuel 2:29 where bara is translated “to make yourselves fat” and in Joshua 17: 15 & 18 where bara is translated “to cut down”.  In both instances those involved had a purpose and caused something new to come into being in order to bring that purpose about.  In the 1Samuel passage that something new was a malformation of something God had ordained and the purpose was the satisfaction of selfish appetites.  It was born out of greed.  In Joshua, the purpose was to make a home and the new thing necessitated the removal of existing trees.  In both of these cases, the purpose did originate in the minds of mankind but the bringing about the new thing was accomplished using processes and material already in existence.  The same is true in the Jeremiah 31:22 passage where God is causing a new thing to come into being in order to satisfy His purpose but, while this new thing is originating in the mind of God and is something only God can do, man and woman already exist.

My point is, I don’t need to think “something out of nothing” every time I read the word “create” in scripture.  This is a point I think is important when I apply my definition of bara to Isaiah 45:7: “I create evil.”  What is God saying here?  Is bara intending to convey the idea that God is the source of evil i.e. He caused it to come into being or does bara mean evil is the thing already in existence God will use to cause something new to come into being and grow according to His purpose?  The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon lists Isaiah 45:7 under the definition “to shape or fashion new conditions and circumstances” so some scholars, at least, do not think the passage is saying God is the cause of evil.   

 The context of Isaiah 45:7 establishes both the Lordship and uniqueness of God.  God says to the future ruler Cyrus that, no matter how great he thinks he is, God alone is God.  God goes before him and has held his right hand (verses 1-3).  The rest of the chapter continues to establish the absolute truth that God alone is God and I find this an important truth to have established when it comes to evil.  There is a prevalent idea among believers, never outright declared but there nonetheless, that God is the God of good and Satan is the god of evil.  God might have had His original intent but Satan got in there with his lie and ruined everything.  God did what He could in Jesus but Satan is still ruining God’s plans.

I simply cannot go into how much the Bible refutes that so will simply use what is said in this chapter: “I am the Lord and there is no other…Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!  They shall be ashamed and also disgraced, all of them; they shall go into confusion together, who are makers of idols…For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God…Look to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth!  For I am God and there is no other.” Satan is not a god neither does he wield power equal to God.  Evil exists but, drawing on my study of bara, God comes down into it, makes His home in the midst of it, and destroys it forever by causing something new to come into being and grow and accomplish His purpose.  

One of the best examples of this is found in the story of Joseph related in Chapters 37-50 of Genesis.  Just in case someone is reading this who is unfamiliar with the story it is, briefly: Joseph is the only son of Jacob’s most-loved wife.  He is also younger than his brothers, by a great many years in some cases, which makes the special attention paid to him by Jacob something difficult for the brothers to handle.  Worse is the favoritism and elevation of Joseph over the other brothers, including the first-born son, which was something NOT DONE in that culture.  This special treatment does appear to make Joseph act a bit like a brat.  The story records him bringing a bad report of the brothers born to the maidservants to their father and then comes the sharing of his dreams.  You can just imagine how this teenage kid telling his father and brothers one day they’d all bow down to him went over.  I am not surprised that, when his brothers see him coming across the fields to check up on them in his fancy coat, they decide to kill him.

Two of his brothers intervene.  Reuben convinces the others not to kill him but rather to drop him into a pit (or cistern).  Reuben appears to have vague plans to rescue Joseph but apparently he thinks of some pressing task because he isn’t around when a caravan of slave traders comes along and Judah convinces the other brothers that, rather than killing Joseph, a better idea was to sell him to the slave traders.  Joseph is taken down to Egypt and sold as a slave.  I won’t relate all the ups and downs of his circumstances there but worth nothing is how Chapter 39 of Genesis stresses that “the Lord was with Joseph” and noticeably so (verses 2-3, 21, 23).

Joseph is eventually made ruler over Egypt second only to the Pharaoh and the day comes when his dreams are realized: his brothers come to Egypt and-not recognizing him-bow down to him.  When Joseph finally reveals his identity to his brothers he says an interesting thing: “But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5).  After the death of their father, still fearing Joseph might take vengeance on them, the brothers come once more before him and Joseph has this to say: “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50: 19-20).

This is a fascinating story.  Joseph sees God with him and at work in his circumstances so that he says, “God sent me before you”.  But, Joseph does not ignore the fact that the intent of his brothers was evil.  God no doubt could have got Joseph to Egypt a myriad of ways.  Perhaps Joseph’s suffering-and the Bible makes it clear he did suffer (See Psalm 105)-would not have happened.  It did happen and he did suffer because his brothers thought evil thoughts and acted on them.  And yet, while those evil thoughts and actions brought about circumstances I’m sure Joseph would have avoided if the choice had been his; those very same circumstances were the ones God worked in to elevate Joseph to a position where not only the lives of his people were saved but the lives of the people of Egypt as well. 

There is a passage of scripture which states, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purposes” (Romans 8:28).  This passage states what I’ve seen so far in my study of “I create evil” (Isaiah 45:7).  No matter who may come against me with plans of evil, God is with me.  If a circumstance arises which brings evil instead of good, God is with me.  Not just with me-He lives inside of me by His Spirit.  That same Spirit that energized the creating Word is in me still energizing but also transforming and renewing.  In Jesus Christ I live and move and have my being and He not only creates evil but makes peace.

Until next time, let us each one hold fast to the truth that we are the very temples of the Holy Spirit and, as we hold fast, may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Hallelujah! 

Amen.

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

Note: for a comprehensive look at the story of Joseph, I recommend Joseph: A Story of Love, Hate, Slavery, Power, and Forgiveness by Dr. John C. Lennox.

References

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody Massachusetts, 2018, Page 135

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volume 3, Authors For Christ Inc., Lafayette, IN, 1985

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

House of the Lord

03 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Image by Joseph Redfield Nino from Pixabay

Enough with the Latin!

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue my study of the Hebrew word bara which is most often translated “create” in the Old Testament.  The root bara is spelled Bet (ב) Resh (ר) Aleph (א).  I have briefly examined Resh earlier in my study of Isaiah 45:7 but did find it interesting that, according to Mr. Haralick’s book, Bet means “container”, Resh means “cosmic container”, and Aleph means “the pulsating unbridled force.”  Container and Cosmic Container seem a bit redundant and I was curious what I might learn as I studied each letter.  I began with Bet.

Bet is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the word itself-spelled Bet Yod Tav (בית )-means “house, dwelling place, or home.”  In his entry for Bet, Mr. Haralick quotes Exodus 25:8: “And let them make a sanctuary that I may dwell within them.”  I looked up this verse in the New King James version and found the word used is among rather than within.  I checked the scripture in the Comparative Study Bible and each of the four translations contained therein also have the word among.  I looked up among in the Strong’s concordance and found referenced the root tavek (H8432) which means, “to sever, a bisection, in the center, among, between, in the middle, midst.”

I must take a moment and urge anyone who wishes to go deeper into Bible Study to get an Interlinear Bible.  The Strong’s is an invaluable reference but it doesn’t give prefixes or suffixes or, in some cases, tell you which word is used in the scripture.  Case in point: John 1:1 says “In the Beginning was the word…and the word was WITH God.”  If you were to look up “with” in the Strong’s you’d have to go to the Appendix where you will find listed all the words used so frequently they’d make the concordance very unwieldly if every occurrence was included: words like A, He, Her, They, and With.  The Appendix would tell you that “with” in the Greek is sun and there’s actually an interesting lesson to learn by considering the meaning of sun in the first verse of John’s gospel.  However, an Interlinear Bible would show you the word translated “with” in John 1:1 is not sun at all but pros.  There is a different mind picture painted when the meaning of pros is meditated on in the passage. 

It’s the same looking up the Hebrew letters.  When I look up “among”, the Strong’s gives me the root tavek spelled Tav Vav Caph but my Interlinear Bible shows me the root appears with Mem as a suffix and Bet as a prefix.  The addition of the prefix and suffix make the root third person masculine plural and it would be pronounced be-tow-kum.  The Bet as a prefix means ”in, at, by, among, with, by means of, through”.  Among is a perfectly fine translation but so is within or in or in the midst.  All of this is fascinating but the word Bet means house and I have the promises of Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 36:27 ringing in my ears and so I return to my study.

2 Corinthians 6:16 says, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?  For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’.”  The words the Apostle Paul quotes are found in Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 32:38, and Ezekiel 37:27.  First there was the Tabernacle and then the Temple which served as Houses of the Lord but there were also these promises from God that the day would come when there would be no external Tabernacle or Temple but God Himself would live within us. 

Then comes the Incarnation where “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  The Amplified uses the word “tabernacled” instead of dwelt which I like.  The Old Testament promises are beginning to be fulfilled but are not yet.  Jesus gives wonderful promises in the upper room of the One He would send: the Comforter, the Teacher, the Spirit of Truth who would guide us into all truth.  He would speak not on His own authority but will take everything that is of Jesus and declare it to us. (See John Chapters 13-17).  The same night He gives these promises, Jesus is arrested, tried, and crucified.  He dies but before dying declares “It is finished!”  What is finished?  There is far more to be said about what was happening on the Cross than I have room for here.  I think the Book of Hebrews has the best explanation for what is referred to as the “finished work of the cross”: 

Hebrews 7:26-27: “For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for all the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” 

Hebrews 9: 24-27: “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another-He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

Hebrews 10:12: “But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.”

I used the term “the finished word of the cross” because I’ve heard it said so often but if we stop there, there are still some of God’s promises not yet fulfilled. The Old Testament promises of God putting His Spirit within us, giving us new hearts, writing His law on those hearts, and enabling us to walk in His statutes are not fulfilled in the death of Jesus.  As the Apostle Paul writes, “If Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” (1 Corinthians 15:17) Our faith is NOT futile and we are NOT still in our sins because Jesus is risen from the dead!  He is not only risen but ascended to the right hand of the Father.  After His ascension came Pentecost where the Holy Spirit rushed upon those gathered together.  At last, with the lavish shedding abroad of the Spirit, the promises of God were fulfilled.

“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Amen, to the glory of God through us” (1 Corinthians 1:20).  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of every promise of God which means that now, today, His Spirit is within me.  He has given me a new heart, He has written His law on it, and He is causing me to walk in His statutes.  I am in Him and thus am a new creation.  How is this possible?  Because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and poured His Spirit into me.  The same Spirit that is there in Genesis 1:1 is within me.  He sends forth His Spirit and I am not only created but re-created and renewed (See Psalm 104:30). 

After his experience with the Centurion Cornelius, Peter says, “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34).  What is true for me is true for every other believer.  The Spirit of the Living God lives within each and every one of us.  Without Him, the Christian life is impossible.  There is no ability to love anyone, especially our enemies.  There are no streams of living water flowing out of us and into the world around us.  Without Him we do not know we are in Christ and Christ is in us and thus we have no hope of glory.  We can look at scripture and do our best to keep the rules so hopefully we get to go to heaven when we die but there is no LIFE.  We can read and memorize and know about Jesus, we can even try our hardest to be like Him but, without the Spirit of truth and wisdom and revelation; we won’t ever intimately KNOW HIM because the things of God are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”  That is 1 Corinthians 3:16 and the question is asked again later on in Paul’s letter: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).  If the books written by Christian authors I’ve recently read are any indication, believers do not know the Holy Spirit lives within them.  May He open all of our eyes to see what is the hope of our calling.    

Bereshit bara Elohim…In the beginning, created God the heavens and the earth.  But these were not His house. “This saith the Lord, ‘The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.  Where is the house that ye build unto Me?  And where is the place of My rest?’” (Isaiah 66:1).  “For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited…” (Isaiah 45:18). “Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made Him” (Isaiah 43:7).

Do you declare Jesus is Lord?  Do you know God is your Father and you are His child?  Do you know He has adopted you and is placing you as a Son?  Yes?  Then know the Spirit of the Lord lives within you.  You are the house of the Lord, a living stone in His temple, a member of that great city described in Revelation whose maker and builder is God!

 Hallelujah!  God has done this! Let the House of the Lord sing praise!

Amen.

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

References

Exodus 25:8 Interlinear: ‘And they have made for Me a sanctuary, and I have tabernacled in their midst; (biblehub.com)

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

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volumes 1-3, Authors For Christ Inc., Lafayette, IN, 1985

Haralick, Robert M., The Inner Meaning of 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

De Novo

26 Monday Sep 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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I am fascinated by energy.  The studies on energy being conducted within the science discipline of Physics, and especially Quantum Physics, are riveting.  I read different articles and, as I’ve come expect in the science world, for every postulation there is an equal and opposite refutation.  I don’t mind as I find there’s something to learn from both sides of the argument.  I take what I read and go to the scriptures, wondering what they might say on the subject.

As I said last week, I do not completely agree with the belief that all things that exist were created out of nothing.  I don’t completely disagree either: I do believe that there was a time when nothing we know existed and there was only God.  Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”  I think this passage clearly states God did not create from matter already existing but the idea that he created from nothing is not an accurate portrayal of His creating.  In the beginning, there was the Intention of the Father, described in Ephesians 1 and also peppered and salted throughout both the Old and New Testaments.  This Intention was expressed by The Word and everything spoken by The Word was energized by the Spirit thus forming the heavens and the earth and then filling them both. There is a beautiful passage in Proverbs: “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens; By His knowledge the depths were broken up, And clouds drop down the dew” (Verses 19-20). 

Isaiah 11:2 gives this description of the Holy Spirit: “…the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.”  This description of the Spirit paralleled as it is in the verses of Proverbs is so very exciting.  Psalm 104:3, in speaking of the things God has made says; “You send forth Your Spirit and they are created; and You renew the face of the earth.”  The Holy Spirit is an integral part of creation and I haven’t heard many teachings on this subject.  It’s something I want to spend more time on but, for now, I want to keep my focus on the meaning of the word “create”.  Whatever its intended meaning in Genesis 1:1, the word is used again in Genesis 1:27 and 5:2 where the scriptures speak of God creating man.  It is clear man was formed from the dust of the ground so man did not come from nothing. 

And so, this week, I continue my search for a satisfactory definition for create.  “Create” is bara in the Hebrew and I shared the confusing entry from Strong’s concordance in last week’s post.  Many other scholars have said-and I agree-that the meaning of a word does not drastically change no matter its context.  I don’t see why bara should be any different: there ought to be a consistent meaning that fits with every instance of its usage.  One Hebrew teacher I listen to likes the “make fat” or “fattening” meaning found in the 1 Samuel 2:29 passage.  He plugs that meaning into Genesis 1 and says that the creation story doesn’t suggest at all that God created from nothing but rather he “fattened” or filled the heavens and the earth.  I can see his point but there are many passages where that meaning doesn’t exactly fit.  Case in point is Joshua 17: 15 & 18 where my NKJV translates bara as “clear a place” in verse 15 and “cut it down” in verse 18.  I have to stretch the idea of “make fat” almost to the breaking point while trying to make it make sense here.  Clearing a place or cutting down doesn’t work in other scriptures: I don’t think anyone would accept God cutting down the heavens and the earth as an appropriate translation of Genesis 1.

I did amuse myself by plugging the different definitions found in the Strong’s into different scriptures.  I liked the idea of God “dispatching” the heavens and the earth as that gave me the strong sense of creation having a purpose. I was reminded of Isaiah 45:18: “For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord and there is no other.”  The forest Joshua commanded be “cut down” in the afore mentioned passages could also have been dispatched but, ultimately, I didn’t find this definition to be satisfactory so kept looking.

The Davis Dictionary of the Bible defines creation as, “The act or operation of God whereby he calls into existence what did not before exist.  The verb always has God for its subject and the result is an entirely new thing.” I found a similar idea in the New World Dictionary where “create” is defined as: “to grow, to cause to come into existence, bring into being; make; originate…to bring about, give rise…”  The definition “to bring about a new thing” isn’t expressly used but I do think it can be applied.  Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies gave me the most thorough definition of create: “to bring into being; to produce, put in form, or renew; to put in a new or happier condition.  It is a word having a special reference to God and his operations by an infinite power.  The leading import of bara is two-fold: (1) The production or effectuation of something new, rare, and wonderful; the bringing something to pass in a striking and marvelous manner. (2) The act of renovating, remodeling, or reconstituting, something already in existence.”

As I look at this definition, I do see Isaiah 45:7 could be translated “I create evil/calamity” and it could mean God brings evil into being.  I think a careful read of the first few chapters of Genesis shows this isn’t true: evil is not a part of the creation God calls “good”.  However, He did cause every tree to grow in the garden and, in the midst of the garden were both the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  All fairness to our God, He did warn our ancestors not to eat of that tree.  I do think there’s enough to consider Isaiah 45:7 is not saying God brought evil into existence but rather He will reconstitute evil and calamity: He will put in a new and happier condition.  He sends His spirit forth and renews the face of the earth.

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

De Novo = From the beginning, anew

 Some Interesting Reading:

 Collapse: Has quantum theory’s greatest mystery been solved? | New Scientist

Fragments of Energy – Not Waves or Particles – May Be the Fundamental Building Blocks of the Universe (scitechdaily.com)

References

Davis, John D., Illustrated Davis Dictionary of the Bible, Revised Edition, Royal Publishers, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1973, Page 157

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, Page 101