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January 31st, 2021

1/31/2021

The Old Testament reading for the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord goes almost to the very beginning; it is a text that is near the end of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). The text is Deuteronomy 18:15-20. The word Deuteronomy is actually Greek and means ‘second law’. It is a second giving of the law, but it is also a repetition of other things.

When you repeat yourself, you are treating what you are saying as something important. And our LORD is the same way. First and Second Chronicles do that. And the fourfold gospel certainly does that as well.

When you are repeating something that happened in the past, you can describe it as happening in the present, and that can make the event seem even more real and extremely important. You can get caught up in the action that you are relating and, instead of saying, ‘He did this,’ you can switch to saying, ‘He does this.’

To relate an all-important word from the LORD is literally serious business. That is not a time to get caught up in the excitement of telling the story. That is a time to get the story right, and to help the reader or the listener to focus ultimately on the One who is the BEST Storyteller AND the Word-inventor as well! He is the One on his eternal throne, and that throne points to the ramifications of his rule. And sometimes those ramifications are important to point out.

The ramifications of the LORD’s ruling are not too important in Deuteronomy. The retelling of the story in terms of promises kept by our LORD makes it important in terms of an agreement. And in the English translation of that book, there are verbs in all the various tenses—past, present, and future. Whatever is described, the LORD keeps his promises.

In the Greek translation of the Book of Exodus, there is a high frequency of the historical present (when you would expect a past tense, but the translator translated the verb into the present tense). The dynamics of the action itself are certainly important, but more important is their connection to our LORD’s kingship and rule. (For more details regarding this discussion, see the book by T. V. Evans, Verbal Syntax in the Greek Pentateuch, Oxford University Press, 2001, page 119f.)

The book of Exodus is where the LORD clearly reveals himself as King. Sinai was basically the location of his first throne on earth. And his first serious helper was Moses. Then there was the issue of having to deal with another important king, pharaoh. Then the LORD eventually goes with his people. Through these times, while there is a king somewhere in the picture, there is also the historical present in the text. The following are somewhat-literal translations of portions of the verses in Exodus that are indicated in Evans’ list (in Evans’ book, page 120) as containing historical presents:

2:13     And having gone out the second day, [Moses] sees two Hebrew men fighting, and he says to the unrighteous one, ‘Why are you hitting the neighbor?’

4:18     And Moses went, and he returned to Jothor, his father-in-law, and he says….

5:3       And [Moses and Aaron] say to [pharaoh], ‘The God of the Hebrews has called us to him; we will go, therefore, a three-days journey into the wilderness….’

10:7     And the servants of pharaoh say to [pharaoh]: ‘How long will this be a snare to us? Send away the men, that they may serve their God….’

10:9     And Moses says [to pharaoh], ‘With the young and the old we will go….’

10:28   And pharaoh says [to Moses], ‘Go away from me; beware yourself, that you look upon to see my face, and in the day you see me, you will die.’

10:29   And Moses says [to pharaoh], ‘I will not appear again to your face.’

18:14   And Jothor, having seen all the things which [Moses] does with the people, says, ‘What is this that you are doing with the people…?’

18:15   And Moses says to his father-in-law, ‘Because the people are coming to me to seek judgment from God.’

20:20   And Moses says to [the people]: ‘Have courage….’

32:1     And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron, and they say to him….

32:2     And Aaron says to [the people]….

32:17   And Joshua, having heard the voice of the people crying, says to Moses….

32:18   And Moses says [to Joshua]….

32:23   For [the people] are saying to [Aaron], ‘Make gods for us….’

32:27   And [Moses] says to [the sons of Levi]….

33:14   And he [the LORD] says to [Moses], ‘I will go before you….’

33:15   And [Moses] says to [the LORD], ‘Unless you yourself go with me, do not bring me up from here.’

33:18   And [Moses] says [to the LORD], ‘Manifest yourself to me.’

Hopefully these verses do seem a bit exciting since some of the verbs are in the present tense. More important is the extent of the LORD’s involvement in our sinful world. You can fast-forward to the New Testament to see a more complete answer to that.

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January 23rd, 2021

1/23/2021

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The Old Testament reading for the third Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord is, dare I say, quite exciting. And to get an even more exciting picture, might I suggest reading through an entire book of the Bible? It is not a long book, and this bigger picture might give you a perspective that you have not seen before, a perspective that was originally intended by the writer. How many letters do YOU write that you only expect a portion of them to be read?

Aside from the very special service of the Easter Vigil, this is the only time in the three-year series that the Old Testament text is from the book of Jonah [3:1-5, 10]. For you to read the entire book, only forty-eight verses long, may take less than ten minutes. Its storyline is well-known, and looking at it again as a whole may cause you to see something not noticed before. It is somewhat of an action-adventure drama that builds in intensity as it gets closer to the end.

In Hebrew writings, the end is not always the most important thing. The middle part of the book may include something even more important. Just for your information, in the middle of this book, there is also something important. There is the ‘psalm’ that Jonah prayed within the great fish. But there is a progression within that psalm as well. In 2:5, Jonah says that he will again look to ‘the temple of your holiness’. And in 2:8, Jonah says that ‘my prayer rose to you, to the temple of your holiness’. Some people see this second temple as a heavenly one, but even Daniel, when he prayed, faced the temple at Jerusalem (see Daniel 6, especially verse 10). So, there is a progression here, toward the LORD, within this middle point.

The action-adventure part of Jonah may be seen in a phrase that comes up several times within the entire book. There are four phrases that use the word ‘great’ and those phrases are translated somewhat literally, and also supplied with these four lines are short summaries of what happens before and after each occurrence. Note that each occurrence of ‘great’ is basically like this: ‘And he/they ____-ed a great ____.’

[The LORD wants Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach there; he goes in the opposite direction, on a boat, and a storm hits, and Jonah shares with the men regarding who the LORD is.]

‘And the men feared a great fear… (1:10).’

[Jonah gets the men to throw him overboard, and that stops the storm.]

‘And the men feared Yahweh with a great fear… (1:16).’

[Jonah eventually gets to Nineveh and preaches there; the people end up repenting, and God ends up not destroying them.

‘And Jonah was displeased with a great displeasure….(4:1).’

[Jonah goes to a place where he can look at the city, to see what happens to it; God commands a tree to grow and give him shade from his ‘displeasure’—yes, this is the same word that was used regarding Jonah’s negative response to God’s kindness toward Nineveh.]

‘And Jonah was glad with a great gladness…(4:6).’

[And God lets the tree die, and Jonah has to deal with that, and the LORD compares that tree to Nineveh.]

There seems to be a progression within the text. And instead of a progression that one might expect; one, for example, from an emphasis on fearing the LORD to one of loving the LORD, the progression eventually focuses on Jonah instead of LORD, but with the progression from displeasure to gladness. Is this a proper end, to focus on Jonah’s gladness, and just because of a tree?!

Reed Lessing, in the Concordia Commentary Series on Jonah [St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 2007, page 347], points out that there is a structure seen in the number of words from the quotes that are near the end of this book. At the start of chapter four, Jonah’s quote is 39 words long. Yahweh responds with 3 words. Jonah also responds with 3 words. Then God says 5 words. Then Jonah responds with 5 words. Then Yahweh responds with exactly 39 words, the same number that Jonah had at the beginning of the chapter.

Perhaps that is why Yahweh includes his concern also for the ‘many cattle’. You could also say that the LORD literally has the last word.

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January 17th, 2021

1/17/2021

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The Old Testament reading for the second Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord would never be able to match the significance of last Sunday’s text, that of the beginning of creation, the beginning of Genesis, the beginning of all of Scripture. But the text does have to do with beginnings; it has to do with the beginning of Samuel [1 Samuel 3:1-10].

Recently I mentioned that the ancient Greek translation does a good job in reminding us who live so many years after these events that this text is not a history lesson. This is a ‘life lesson’, like most of Scripture.

You can see that already in the title of the book. Instead of calling this book ‘First Samuel’, it is called ‘First Kings’ (and it goes up to ‘Fourth Kings’). Instead of being about a particular person, it is about what it means to have a king (or any powerful leader), what it means to have a king that people want, and what it means to have a king that God wants. We do not have kings in the United States at this time, but, in some ways, we actually do. Some people think that they can do basically whatever they want. That is being quite misguided. The only one who can actually do whatever he wants is God.

Within the Greek translation of First Kings, as well as in the books that follow, there is also the frequent use of the ‘historical present’. Instead of saying that something happened in the past, the translator sometimes put the verb into the present tense. I do not think he was being stupid and mixed up the two tenses. I also do not think that he was getting all excited and wanted to put the reader into the action by using the present tense. I think he is carefully looking at the text and determining what is happening because of the ramifications of something else and something important.

What a king does has ramifications, and that is connected to his ‘glory’ and ‘honor’, and that is primarily symbolized by his throne. In a way, within these historical presents, we are viewing the throne of God and seeing his significance and his glory. That significance or glory is often hidden, just as it was hidden when Jesus was on earth. But it certainly was there, and it certainly does have ramifications for today.

The first historical presents that appear in this book are right after Hannah receives the promise of a child—she and her husband get up, worship, and go [1:19]. The child, of course, was born—as promised, and the text for today has the LORD speaking to Samuel as a child. The LORD talked to Samuel at night. And after that experience, the text says, in the Hebrew, that ‘And Samuel laid down until the morning….’ But the Greek translation goes this way: ‘And Samuel sleeps until the morning….’

What the LORD had to say to Samuel was not very good news. Punishment was promised in the near future for the current priest, Eli, and his sons. And these are also ramifications of the LORD’s kingship, his ultimate rule over heaven and earth. This will not be good news, but it will be important news, just the same.

Here is where the historical present also pops up. The Greek translation of 1 Samuel (‘Kings’) 4:1-2 says that ‘…the Philistines gather themselves against Israel…and the Philistines prepare to fight with Israel.’ The translation could have said that they GATHERED themselves and PREPARED to fight.

Eli was not very good, and his sons were extremely bad. And the ramifications for that evil were significant. And, unfortunately, Samuel’s sons were also not very good.

Later in the book, this time it was the sons of Israel who ‘gather’—another present tense—and they say that they want someone else to lead them [1 Samuel 8:4]. And after Samuel dies, the Philistines ‘gather’ against Israel and fulfill the prediction that Saul would die—he also was not a good leader [see 1 Samuel 28 for a good example of this].

Different groups of people gather at different times for different reasons. The fact that the LORD is connected to some of these verbs, that those actions are, ultimately HIS ramifications and not ours, that can be reassuring in these 'present' times. His Story has a much better ending.

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January 9th, 2021

1/9/2021

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The Old Testament reading for the first Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord is so very special. With the traditional emphasis this Sunday on that very special baptism of our Lord, and with that dramatic point, only in this account [Mark 1:10], of the heavens being ‘torn open’, and also having the Spirit present—and there was the water of course—the Old Testament text is the first five verses of the entire Bible [Genesis 1:1-5].

Here is an attempt at a very literal translation of the first two verses of that text:

In beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and empty, and darkness upon face of deep. And Spirit of God hovering upon face of the waters.

So much could be said about these words. So much HAS been said about these words. I remember one seminary teacher saying that more has been written about the two creation accounts in Genesis than the entire book of the Song of Solomon.

Beginnings are important. There is a German proverb that goes this way: ‘Aller Anfang ist schwer.‘ It means that all beginnings are difficult. That may be why the Gospel according to Mark starts out by describing the account as the ‘beginning of the gospel’. Some of the people who heard that account for the first time were having to die for what they believed. They were certainly having a difficult time, but, in that case, the beginning of the gospel was, in a way, an even more difficult thing—and certainly more important.

Now to create everything that exists is, of course, not at all difficult for God. But, in this beginning, it may be difficult to see all the important things that are present within this text.

One of the things that is often forgotten is the importance of numbers with the Hebrew text, the basic language of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, letters also meant numbers. So, the letters would have a closer connection to numbers than we do in our English language.

The number seven is an important number in both Testaments, and the first verse has seven words, and the second verse has fourteen. This structure would have been helpful to the reader, especially since there were no spaces at all between words in the ancient manuscripts. Imagineifyouwouldhavetoreadthatway! And the importance of the number seven is foundational when it comes to the days of creation. And we even maintain that importance of the number seven when we continue to have seven days in a week. (I have been told that there was a push by the atheists during the Enlightenment to move to a ten-day week, to move society away from such a biblical number as seven; perhaps if they would have suggested a five-day week, that idea would have been more popular!)

It is sometimes difficult to see what is unusual in an Old Testament text, but when the words are compared with the ancient Greek translation of that text, sometimes an aspect of that unusual nature of the text is shown. That ancient translation, also known as the Septuagint, is over two thousand years old, so that text is sometimes a significant step closer than our present-day understanding of the Hebrew text.

Here are the same verses of the same text, but in the Greek translation, and in another attempt at a literal translation. Notice that there is no mention of a face in this text.

In beginning the God made the heaven and the earth. But the earth was unsightly and unfurnished, and darkness over the deep, and Spirit of God moved over the water.

(It may be helpful, on a side note, to point out that, in the Hebrew text, the word ‘face’ may have served as a hint to the structure of Genesis. It is seen two more times in this first creation account, at the beginning of the fifth and the end of the sixth day, within verses 20 and 29. If these days are laid out, not only as an account of what happened, but also as an outline for the text, the first three days may point to the first eleven chapters, and the second three days, to the rest of the book. And the beginning of the fifth day and the end of the sixth day may connect to the middle and end of that second section, and this ‘middle-and-end’ structure is a significant structural message in this book and in some successive books—see, for example, Genesis 30:2 and 50:19, and Exodus 24:15-18 and 40:34-38. This may also point to the fact that Jesus came in the ‘middle’ of time, and he also promised he would come at the very end of time. Within the book of Genesis and others, there is also the important aspect of the concentric structure—ABCBA—and the word ‘face’ is found in the middle of that structure in the second creation account—see 2:6.)

So, when does the word ‘face’ FINALLY appear in the Greek translation? The first appearance of the word comes within the second creation account that begins near the beginning of chapter two. I will give verses 5 through 7 of that text in an attempt at another very literal translation of the Hebrew:

And all of the shrub of the field not yet it appeared on the earth, and all of the plant of the field not yet it sprung up, for not he sent rain, Yahweh God, on the earth and man there was not to work the ground. But a stream came up from the earth and it watered all the face of the ground. And he formed, Yahweh God, the man dust from the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became, the man, to a soul living.

Here are those verses in the Greek, and a very literal translation is what has also been attempted here. And you may notice that the word ‘face’ appears twice, where it only appeared once in the text that is just above.

And all herb of the field before it was on the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up, for he had not rained God on the earth, and a man was not to cultivate it. But a fountain rose up from the earth, and it watered all the face of the earth. And he formed God the man, dust from the earth. And he breathed into his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul.

So, instead of God breathing into Adam’s nostrils, the Greek text has him breathing into his face. And you may think that this is not a big difference. At the heart of the matter is not an understanding of the ancient words of the text, whether they are in Hebrew or in Greek.

More important is the fact that, instead of thinking about some aspect of knowledge or how nice it would be to be upon the face of water somewhere while on vacation, eventually we have to stand before the face of the Creator. It seems that the translator takes this into account and emphasizes the face of the first important person, Adam. And, because of the problem of sin, a significant amount of ‘The Book’ will emphasize the person (or the incarnation) of the Second Adam (see Romans 5).

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January 2nd, 2021

1/2/2021

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The Old Testament reading for the Second Sunday after Christmas is near the beginning of First Kings [3:4-15]. Several weeks ago, we looked at the beginning of 1 Samuel. The point was made then, and that point also applies to this book, that we should not look at this part of the Old Testament as simply information. The point of its presence in the Old Testament is much more important than that. SALVATION—not information—is the more important topic.

The argument was made several weeks ago that the translation of the Old Testament into Greek (the Septuagint) seems to support that emphasis. That translation happened between the Testaments, sometime after the rise of Alexander the Great, and that translation is helpful in understanding both testaments and their connection to each other. Will a similar emphasis on salvation appear within First Kings?

It probably should be said at this point that, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this book is called THIRD Kings. This different title helps a little to get the focus off a particular person and on to more important things—the job of those who were called ‘kings’ and especially the ULTIMATE King.

This book of First/Third Kings starts at the point of the transition between David and Solomon. The text for this Sunday has Solomon as the official king, and the Lord appears to him in a dream at night and basically says that he has one wish—he can ask for anything. Solomon ends up asking for wisdom, and the Lord ends up giving him that, along with several other things he did not ask for, because what he asked for was something so special.

Here is a somewhat-literal translation of the Hebrew text, the last verse of the reading for this Sunday:

And Solomon awoke, and, behold, a dream, and he came, Jerusalem, and he stood before the face of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and he offered burnt-offerings, and he made peace-offerings, and he made a feast for all his servants.

Here is that same verse, but in a somewhat-literal translation of the Greek text:

And Solomon awoke, and, behold, a dream, and he arose, and he comes into Jerusalem, and he stood before the face of the altar, which was before the face of the ark of the covenant of the Lord in Zion, and he offered whole-burnt-offerings and made peace-offerings, and he made a large banquet for himself and for all the servants of him.

As always, much could be said about all the differences between the two texts, but this is the very first time in First (or Third) Kings that there is an historical present. Instead of saying ‘he came to Jerusalem’, the Greek text said that he ‘comes’. It almost looks like a mistake since the verb right before the word is in the past tense.

If Solomon would simply come to Jerusalem, that would not be an important event. But the ark of the covenant is there, and that is where the Lord promised to be. And Solomon had just talked to the Lord in a dream. And the emphasis on being before that special place, with the word ‘face’ being twice in the Greek text (when it is only once in the Hebrew), reminds us that it is an important thing to be before the Lord.

Being in the Lord’s presence has ramifications, and those can be indicated with the present tense. The book of Exodus has one of its first historic presents in a somewhat-similar situation. Moses talked to the LORD in the burning bush, and then he went to his father-in-law, and the Greek text has it that he SAYS something to his father-in-law—the text does not say that he ‘said’ something [the Septuagint, Exodus 4:18]. Talking to your father-in-law is not always important, but when the LORD talks you, the ramifications of THAT talk ARE important.

Ramifications are like a weight or significance, and that is the word for ‘glory’ in the Old Testament, and that is what the living creatures of the LORD’s throne show—the LORD’s glory, his ramifications, his significance. And it should not be surprising, then, that we have four gospel accounts and that these accounts are connected to these four living creatures of the LORD’s throne. We do not need four history lessons; we need one way of salvation. And those four accounts ultimately point to one very special thing.

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A Sabbath Day's Journey

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