Tag Archives: Biblical Languages

Ready to Vanish Away

26 Monday Feb 2024

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

I continue this week in my study on the Whole Armor of God with my particular focus on the Helmet of Salvation.  As I have begun my word study on the Helmet of Salvation, I have concentrated on the word “obedience”.  Why?  Because of two passages of scripture.  The 1st is 2 Corinthians 1-:4-6; “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”  The second is Hebrews 5:8-9; “though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.  And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.”  There is a direct correlation between obedience, salvation, and spiritual warfare in these passages and it is something I want to understand.

I spent the week praying and meditating and a sentence I would have sworn was a portion of scripture kept coming to mind.  It was, “I desire obedience rather than sacrifice”.  However, when I went to the scriptures in order to find it, it wasn’t there.  I realized I was mashing together two passages of scripture.  The 1st was Hosea 6:6; “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” and the 2nd was 1 Samuel 15:22; “So Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.” 

There is a valuable lesson here which I was reminded of and which I am going to briefly share with all of you: Test Everything.  I was sure I was remembering a portion of scripture.  Perhaps I had heard someone quote it using those words or perhaps I was indeed simply mashing together two passages of scripture on my own but we Christians have it hard coded into us that the Bible is the final word on all subjects.  If I hadn’t checked but had trusted I was remembering correctly, what would “I desire obedience rather than sacrifice” led me to believe about the character of God?  Perhaps it wouldn’t have been negative but it would have been inaccurate.  I cannot stress it enough: do not unquestioningly believe anything anyone tells you about what the Bible says, especially if they are doing so in an attempt to direct your life in any way.  Test it.  Does the Bible really say it?

I find the Ancient Languages fascinating and am constantly adding to my library in order to increase my knowledge of them but I don’t believe we have to be Greek and/or Hebrew scholars in order to accurately fact check scripture.  Many people put down the Strong’s Concordance but I find it to be a useful tool.  Let’s take the word “obey” as an example: I pointed out last week there are six different Greek words translated as “obey”.  They can’t all mean the same thing and a Strong’s Concordance reveals that at a glance.  If you find you have an interest in delving deeper into the Ancient Languages then do so but, again, it isn’t necessary for fact checking what you hear.  I fact check every Bible teacher I listen to.  I fact check myself (which is a good thing because I don’t always remember correctly!).  I hope and pray all of you are doing the same.

There is a second part of this lesson I also want to share and that is, don’t be afraid of mistakes.  My remembering two passages as one and my searching them out has been an immensely valuable way to spend my time this week because I saw into the heart of our God.  I saw how much He wishes to be known.  And, I saw even more clearly that obedience doesn’t always mean doing what we’re told and/or keeping rules: it means listening to His voice.

I shared in last week’s post the Greek word hupakoe (G5218) which is translated as “obedience” in the New Testament.  The word means “attentive hearkening”.  As I trace it through its related words and compound parts there is also contained within the word the idea of taking action but the action taken comes as a result of hearing.  I was curious what Greek word would appear in place of “obeying” and “obey” in 1 Samuel 15:22.  In “obeying the voice of the Lord” and I found akon (G189) which means “hearing, listening”.  I didn’t find the exact grammatical word for the Greek used in “to obey is better than sacrifice” but I found forms of it in both the Strong’s and BDAG.  The word is epakouo (G1873) and it means “to hearken, to hear, to listen intently.”

One of my Bible Teachers says “you stand and fall by your definitions” and I wholeheartedly concur.  If we believe “obedience” is to do as we are told, to keep God’s law, to adhere to some list of rules put forth by our denomination, we have missed it.  The word means there is one in leadership over us, we listen attentively to all that one says, and we act accordingly.  That One is Jesus Himself for He is the One to whom all authority on heaven and earth has been given.  He is the rightful ruler and King and His is the only voice to which we ought to be listening.

I checked Hosea 6:6 in the Septuagint and didn’t find any of my Greek study words there.  I was struck as I read this passage in the various translations listed on Biblehub.com.  I liked those that used personal language.  The New Living Translations says, “I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices.  I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.”  The Contemporary English Version has it, “I’d rather for you to be faithful and to know me than to offer sacrifices.”  The GOD’S WORD Translation says, “I want your loyalty, not your sacrifices.  I want you to know me, not to give me burnt offerings” while the Good News Translation renders this passage as, “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices.  I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me.”  The Amplified uses the word “covenant” in its rendition: “For I desire and delight in [steadfast] loyalty [faithfulness in the covenant relationship], rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

There is no substitution for knowing God.  It is the desire of His heart.  What I find so terribly sad is that it is not the widely expressed desire of the heart of a great many believers.  Their singular hope is to get to heaven when they die.  What they’ll do when they get there is anyone’s guess: worship God for all eternity, dance on golden streets…it’s all a bit vague.  There is no such emphasis on heaven as a destination in the Bible.  Rather, the Eternal Life we are all aspiring too is clearly spelled out.  “Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).  “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.  This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

This post is in danger of becoming rather long so I will bring it to a close and continue next week.  I want to close with a passage from Hebrews 8 in which the Writer quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34: “…’Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.’ In that He says, ‘A new covenant’ He has made the first obsolete.  Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:8-13).

We are in Christ and are partakers of this New Covenant.  The desire of our God in establishing this New Covenant is that we would know Him, each one of us, and hear His voice.  May that be our prayer in this upcoming week: Open my eyes to see You that I might know You and my ears to hear Your voice alone!

Amen.

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

References

1 Samuel 15:22 Interlinear: And Samuel saith, ‘Hath Jehovah had delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in hearkening to the voice of Jehovah? lo, hearkening than sacrifice is better; to give attention than fat of rams; (biblehub.com)   

Strong’s Greek: 189. ἀκοή (akoé) — hearing, the sense of hearing (biblehub.com)

Hosea 6:6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (biblehub.com)

Danker, Frederick William, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG), Third Edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago Illinois, 1957, 1979, 2000

Lanier, Gregory & 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

Just Have Faith

06 Monday Nov 2023

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Hello Everyone and welcome to a new post on Renaissance Woman!

I am continuing my study of the Whole Armor of God as described in Ephesians 6:10-18a and, this week, am moving on from the Breastplate of Righteousness to the Shield of Faith. 

The course my study is taking was not at all what I intended.  I thought I’d go through the Armor in the same order as it is written in the Letter to the Ephesians and then, as the study progressed, I thought perhaps I’d look at it in the order it would have been put on.  That is not what is happening.  No matter!  Even though no soldier would pick up a shield without first being fully clad in armor, I have found moving from the Breastplate to the Shield a logical progression.

I shared Philippians 3:8-9 in last week’s post: “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”  As I studied “righteousness”, I was struck by the relationship righteousness has with faith, especially as I looked at the correlation between belief and righteousness and discovered “believe” and “faith” in the New Testament are both used to translate the same Greek word.

Before I get into the Greek, I wanted to point out something I found interesting.  When I looked up “faith” in the Strong’s concordance, I found two Old Testament references whereas there are 2 full columns of New Testament references.  Out of curiosity, I looked up “believe” and found a similar situation: 19 occurrences in the Old Testament verses an entire column of occurrences in the New.  The same is true for every conjugation of both words: there are far more New Testament references than Old Testament.  Something else fascinated me: there are two passages of scripture listed in the concordance under the word “Believers”: Acts 5:14 and 1 Timothy 4:12.  There are zero Old Testament scriptures in the list. 

Why?  Is it a result of inconsistency in the English translations or did something change?

I cannot immediately rule out the possibility of translation inconsistency.  Because I want to genuinely know and not make a stand on something that looks and sound interesting but has no foundation, I took a moment to look up the Hebrew word(s) for “believe” and “faith”.  Each occurrence I found in the Strong’s all are related to the primary root aman (H539) which means “to build up, support, foster as a nurse.”  All other words build on this concept: I find definitions of confirm, established, trusty, faithful, sure, stability, certainty, and truth as I looked up the related words. 

The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon drew my attention to two passages were aman appears as “foster-father” (Numbers 11:12, Isaiah 49:23) and two where it appears as foster-mother/ nurse (Ruth 4:15, 2 Samuel 4:4).  This, along with the fact that the Strong’s does list occurrences of the characterization “faithful” being applied to people and, since the Hebrew word translated “believe” is the same translated “faith” just as in the Greek; perhaps I read too much into there being only two New Testament occurrences of “believers”.

And yet, there is no denying believe and faith appear far many more times in the New Testament than the Old which, considering the size of the two books, is interesting.  My Bible teachers have offered an excellent visual when they are making similar points in their Sunday sermons.  Let’s give it a try.  Pick up your Bible and stick your fingers in at Matthew’s Gospel.  Take a long look at how much of the book is on one side of your fingers compared to how much on the other.  Even without taking into account the appendices and maps included at the back of our Bibles, the difference is extensive.  Therefore, a valid answer to the question “did something change” is “yes”. 

Some of you might be rolling your eyes at me because of course something changed.  Jesus was born, lived, died, rose again, and ascended to the right hand of the Father and then the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh.  This is basic Christianity 101.  I agree!  It is!  And yet, how many of us understand what this means?  We say we are New Creations in Christ but I don’t see all of us living as if anything changed.  I still see so many speaking of the necessity of our believing in order to receive what all Jesus Christ did for us and insisting we must have faith in order to please God.

That last thought it a Biblical one.  Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”  This passage in particular seems to back up the insistence that our faith requires some hard work and diligent seeking on our part.  And yet, there are other passages that say the opposite.  For example:

Hebrews 12:2: “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…” I must point out the word “our” does not appear in the Greek but was added by the translators.  The Young’s Literal Translation has this verse as: “looking to the author and perfecter of faith-Jesus…”

Also consider the Gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12.  Verse 9 says, “to another faith by the same Spirit…” 

Then there is the necessity of considering the difference between the Greek words en and tou.  En is a preposition meaning “a fixed position, in, at”.  Tou is a proper noun meaning “of this person, his”.  I consider it an absolute travesty that there are instances in my Bible where tou has been translated as “in.”  Pertaining to faith, an extremely important one is Galatians 2:20.  The King James Version renders the description of faith as, “…the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God…” whereas my New King James has it, “…the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God…” 

With one tiny substitution, the entire meaning changes.  Instead of living our lives by the faith OF the Son of God, we must live by faith IN the Son of God.  The responsibility to have faith becomes ours.  Any reference I hear to faith being a gift of the Spirit is only made with the caveat that the all the gifts aren’t given to everyone.  Some are given the gift of faith and others…I don’t know what hope others have.  This belief then makes our God a respecter of persons where some are mighty in faith and others are hung out to dry.  That is, unless we who are ungifted can somehow stir up enough faith to get through the days.

If this is so, what good is our Shield of Faith?  We are to take it up in order to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one but if our shields are comprised of whatever faith we’ve been able to summon up in the strength of our flesh, I don’t hold out much hope for any of us.

If however, the Shield of Faith is the faith of Jesus Christ, what a shield!  What fiery dart could possibly penetrate the shield of the Risen and Ascended One to whom ALL authority on heaven and earth has been given?  What protection is bestowed on us!  What rest and relief there is to know it was never our responsibility to have any sort of faith but that our faith is that of Jesus Christ!

I pray the Holy Spirit opens all of our eyes to this truth and that we see how this changes the meaning of Hebrews 11:6.  If you are hung up on the word “please” does it help to know the Greek word is euaresteo (G2100) and means “to gratify entirely”?  It is a word of delight not appeasement.  What joy there is in the heart of our god when we recognize we were never meant to create our own faith but to be partakers of His!  But this passage as well as 1 Corinthians 12 are ones I plan to look at in upcoming weeks.  I will stay on the subject of “faith” until my entire being is saturated with the certain knowledge that I live every day protected by the Shield of Jesus’ faith!

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah! Amen.   

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

References  

A Comprehensive Guide to Greek Pronouns (greekpod101.com)     

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

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

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

Walker, Allen G., The New Koine Greek Textbook, Volume II/III, 2014-2018

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

Canvas of the Mind

04 Monday Sep 2023

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One of My Mom’s Acrylic Pours! Used With Permission

Hello Readers and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I return to my study of the Whole Armor of God described by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:10-18.

I previously mentioned I was reading The Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall as part of conducting this study.  In his book, William Gurnall asks, “What is this armour?” and then answers his question as follows:

“By armour is meant Christ.  We read of putting on the ‘Lord Jesus,’ Ro. Xiii, 14, where Christ is set forth under the notion of armour.  The apostle doth not exhort them for rioting and drunkenness to put on sobriety and temperance, for chambering and wantonness [to] put on chastity, as the philosopher would have done, but bids, ‘put he on the Lord Jesus Christ;’ implying thus much [that] till Christ be put on, the creature is unarmed…The graces of Christ, these are armour, as ‘the girdle of truth, the breast-plate of righteousness’ and the rest.  Hence we are bid also [to] ‘put on the new man’, Ep.iv. 24, which is made up of all the several graces as its parts and members.  And he is the unarmed soul, that is the unregenerate soul, not excluding those duties and means which God hath appointed the Christian to use for his defence.  The phrase thus opened, the point is, to show that to be without Christ is to be without armour.” (Gurnall, 45)

That the Whole Armor of God is Jesus Christ is my belief as well, though I do try not to draw conclusions until a study is complete.  Still, I don’t suppose there are believers who would disagree with me or with William Gurnall so I take a brief moment to ask myself if it is necessary to dig further.  The moment is definitely brief because knowing the Whole Armor of God is Jesus Christ doesn’t do much to help me understand how and what the armor enables me to be in the world.  Thus, or hence (borrowing from William Gurnall) I will continue to dig into this passage until I am satisfied.

I am looking for a complete picture to form in my mind.  I have been thinking about communication, understanding, and how language forms pictures in our minds. This has been especially true over the last couple of weeks when I read a study by a Bible Teacher I admire and usually agree with.  I did not agree with the conclusions he drew in the particular study I read.  What he said would have made sense to me and I never would have thought to question it had I not already conducted a study on the passage he was using and therefore understood the meaning of the Greek, and had nothing but my English translation of the Bible to aid me. I realized how easy it is to draw erroneous conclusions as I almost did so when studying Paul’s admonition to “stand” in the Ephesians passage.

It seems so clear reading the English translations. “Stand” means just that: stand firm, unmovable.  The picture that had formed in my mind was that of believers as Spiritual Warriors, clad in the whole armor of God, strengthened in the Lord Jesus Christ to hold our ground, defend it to the uttermost, and not surrender even one iota to the enemy.  Then, I looked at the Greek word translated “stand” (histemi) and saw it did mean “made to stand” but carried also the idea of covenant and my mental picture disintegrated.  I could have put my conclusions into words, described my mental picture to the best of my ability, and there may have been those of you who would have agreed with me.  My conclusions would not have been totally inaccurate but neither would they have been correct.  I have to wonder how much harm a partially accurate bible study can do…

I do not want to get involved in arguments over the accuracy and validity of the various translations of the Bible.  However, I will say it is important to take care what pictures are being formed in our minds.  One of my favorite books on writing is Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan and it is this book more than any other that has made me conscious of the way words paint pictures in my mind.  I would say it is important to realize the English words Bible translators have chosen to portray what the Hebrew and Greek intend are not always the best and most accurate.

I have already looked at the Greek word translated “put on” in Ephesians 6:11 and shared how the word means “to sink down into”.  It is not putting on a garment in the sense of ‘there’s my coat over there: I’m going to get it and put it on”.  It is more like snuggling into a blanket on a chilly day while resting on a comfortable couch except that, when we are speaking of the Life of Christ, there is no separation between Him and us.  Putting Him on would be more like saying the blanket is always a part of us and there is never an instant where we cannot snuggle into it and be warmed and soothed.

This made me wonder just what Paul meant when he said “Take up the whole armor of God” in verse 13.  Perhaps you are like me and the words “take up” instantly bring to mind Jesus’ command to “take up your cross and follow me” in Matthew 16:24.  “Take up” in the English paints a mind picture for me where both the armor and the cross are like that coat I mentioned before: it is something over there, apart from me, and I need to go to it, take it up, and put it on.  Is this the picture painted by the Greek?

Would you be surprised if I told you the Greek words used in these passages are not the same?  I was not.  In fact, I’ve come to expect it.  The Greek word translated “take up” in Matthew 16:24 is airo (G142) and is defined in the Strong’s as “to lift; by implication to take up or away, figuratively to raise (the voice), keep in suspense (the mind), specifically to sail away (i.e. weigh anchor); by Hebraism to expiate sin;-away with, bear (up), carry, lift up, loose, make to doubt, put away, remove, take (away, up).” There’s enough in this definition to make me question the mental picture this passage has always painted in my mind: that of me stumbling under the weight of my cross as I drag it along while following the Lamb withersoever He goest.  A study for another time.

The Greek translated as “take up” in Ephesians 6:13 is analambano (G353) and is defined in the Strong’s as “to take up-receive up, take (in, unto, up)”.  Analambano is a compound word formed of ana (G303) and lambano (G2983).  The Strong’s defines Ana as “properly up but (by extension) used (distributively) severally, or (locally) at:–and, apiece, by, each, every (man), in, through.  In compounds (as a prefix) it often means (by implication) repetition, intensity, reversal.”  Lambano is defined as “to get hold of, accept, be amazed, assay, attain, bring, when I call, catch, come on (unto), forget, have, hold, obtain, receive (after), take (away, up).”

Taking all of this into consideration, I don’t think I do the Greek a disservice if I begin to define analambano as “to constantly take hold of that which we have received in our inner being.” 

“The armour is Christ” William Gurnall writes and knowing that to be the truth is all well and good as long as we know exactly what Christ is to us.  What exactly have we received?  What are we taking hold of?  What word pictures have been painted on the canvas of our minds by the sermons we have listened to?  How have these pictures been formed by our understanding of the language used to translate our Bibles?  How accurate are they?  Unless we have laid hold of the living Christ in, by, and through His Spirit, the pictures cannot be at all accurate.

In his Epistle to the Ephesians, the same epistle in which he describes the whole armor of God; the Apostle Paul writes a glorious prayer:

“I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.  And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.  And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Now that’s something to take hold of!

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

References

Gurnall, William, The Christian in Complete Armour, Seventh Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2021, Page 45

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

I Have Questions

13 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen. 

inerrant meaning – Google Search

Two Competing Philosophies of Bible Translation | Patterns of Evidence

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not Ruled By Sight

19 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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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