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October 24th, 2020

10/24/2020

There is not an Old Testament text for this Sunday but only a ‘First Reading’. This Sunday is Reformation Sunday, when we celebrate the Reformation on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther’s posting of his ninety-five theses on the Wittenberg church door. Although a lot of wonderful events happened afterwards, that event in 1517 points to the start of something memorable and good. And perhaps the Old Testament may be thought of in the same way.

The First Reading for Reformation Sunday is from the book of Revelation [14:6-7], and that book has certainly a lot of Old Testament connections. In fact, it is difficult to get away from the Old Testament within many of the New Testament books, but especially with that book. With the background knowledge of the Old Testament, the entire New Testament makes a lot more sense.

It is critical, though, to have an Old Testament understanding with a New Testament book like Revelation. One of the misunderstandings that happens with this week’s Revelation reading is that, since that particular angel is described as having the ‘eternal gospel’, when the message of that angel is comprised of three commands, some people wonder how that can be called the gospel or ‘good news’.

It is important to remember that the word ‘gospel’ is an Old Testament word, a word that is very much connected to angels who are basically messengers. This is not just any messenger though. The Old Testament word ‘gospel’ often comes up when dealing with a message for a king. Whatever the news, it is ultimately important because the king is involved.

These days, with the high level of civil unrest that is seen in many places, there is a great amount of disrespect for those in authority. It might be good to go over the three commands that appear in the Revelation text. The three commands are these: Fear him, give him glory, and worship him. There is a definite progression here, and these three commands may be seen in the light of a person who is coming before a king.

Fear is a good starting point. Luther knew that. And with fear comes the realization that this person whom you are approaching has the power to kill you. If the fear is too great, you would never go into his presence. But if the fear is too little, you would probably go before the king and get into BIG trouble.

Giving glory to a king means that, as you come into his presence, you would acknowledge his authority in some special way. That shows the respect that you have. Entering the presence of the king, someone who could kill you, is a significant thing. When you do that, you follow his rules and not your own. If he wants you to do something that seems silly to you, I would strongly suggest doing it.

The final command, to worship, is undoubtedly the most significant. It is a special verb in the Old Testament, with a unique way of being written out in Hebrew. That uniqueness seems to be a reminder of how important it is.

These three things are seen in many places in scripture. But I would like briefly to look at their presence within the book of Esther. That book really does not get a lot of visibility in the three-year or even the one-year series; it NEVER appears as a reading. But it IS a good explanation of the Feast of Purim (see especially 9:24-28), but even THAT does not mean it is spoken when the time comes for the reading of the Old Testament text.

There is a lot of fear in Esther since she has not been asked to be before the king for thirty days. Here is the lengthy verse which gives that information, as well as the important aspect of the king holding out a scepter to someone (and someone touching that scepter; see 5:2). That is giving glory to someone, to acknowledge their authority. It seems like a silly thing, but a scepter really is like a fancy club. You would not want to be beaten by it—or anything else that the king has.

These are the words of Esther (in a somewhat literal translation):

“All the servants of the king and the people of the provinces of the king, the ones knowing that any man and woman who comes to the king in the inner court, who was not called, there is one law: to kill, except the one to whom the king extends the scepter of gold, he may live. And I was not called to go to the king these thirty days (4:11).”

In this book there are a lot of verses that talk about the king’s body position and those of the other people around him. This is a unique situation where someone is falling down before someone else. Here are somewhat literal translations of what happened after Mordecai was humiliated after Haman was exalted (and this first verse appears right after the middle point between the two mentions of Purim in 3:7 and 9:24); you might notice how many times people are falling in these verses, but especially in this first one:

And Haman recounted to Zeresh, his wife, and to all his loved ones all that had happened to him, and his wise men and Zeresh, his wife, said to him, ‘If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall before his face, is from the seed of the Jews, you will not be able to stand against him, more specifically, you will surely fall before his face (6:13).’

And the king returning from the garden of the palace to the house to the banquet of wine, and Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was…(7:8a).

And Esther did again, and she spoke before the face of the king, and she fell before the face of the king, at his feet…(8:3a).

Worship is sometimes done in a prostrate position, when a person is on his face on the ground before the face of a very important person. This may get us ready for the significance of the New Testament.

This angel with an eternal gospel is getting us ready for a God who comes to us in the form of a servant—from the seed of the Jews—as the reference goes in Esther. Now THAT is good news!

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October 17th, 2020

10/17/2020

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The Old Testament text for this Sunday is Isaiah 45[:1-7], and one of the most amazing things about this text is that it names the king who will allow the Israelites to come back to their country about two hundred years before the event actually happens.

The Lutheran Study Bible does a good job in laying out the ways that people have tried to explain away this amazing prediction (see footnote for 44:27-28). It also gives a few details that do not appear in the Concordia Self-Study Bible, such as how Cyrus took over Babylon.

Here is that text and the footnote for 45:2-3 The LORD is talking here:

“I will go before you
            and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
            and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
            and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the LORD,
            the God of Israel, who call you by your name.”

In 539 BC, when Cyrus surrounded the city of Babylon, the priests of Marduk submitted and declared him to be Marduk’s chosen monarch. They then opened the city gates to allow him and his army to enter peacefully. Jesus is the ultimate Anointed One, who opens the gates of hell (Rv 1:8) and sets prisoners free (Jn 8:36) [The Lutheran Study Bible, published by Concordia Publishing House in 2009; St. Louis, Missouri; page 1164].
A lot of historical information goes along with this text. And there are some literary aspects as well. It is interesting that, with part of the above text, there is a strong similarity to a part of Psalm 107. Below are literal translations of the texts that are so similar:

…I will shatter the doors of bronze, and I will cut through the bars of iron…(Isaiah 45:2b).
For he shatters the doors of bronze, and he cuts through the bars of iron (Psalm 107:16).

The differences are extremely small, small enough for the following statement regarding 107:16 to be essentially in BOTH the Concordia Self-Study Bible and The Lutheran Study Bible. What is here is from the latter when dealing with Psalm 107:16 (page 953):

Either this verse is quoted from Is 45:2 or both verses quote an established saying. doors of bronze. City gates are normally made of wood; here proverbially they are bronze, the strongest gates then imaginable (Jer 1:18). bars of iron. Bars that secured the city gates (Dt 3:5; Jer 51:30) were usually made of wood (Na 3:13) but sometimes of bronze (1 K 4:13).

Psalm 107 is well-loved by many. In it there are four examples of people who are in trouble, and then they are helped. The LORD turns their situations around. In the Concordia Self-Study Bible there is an extensive (and helpful) introduction to that Psalm in the footnotes. Here is just a small part of that introduction:

Of the four remaining stanzas (marked by recurring refrains: vv. 6, 13, 19, 28; vv. 8, 15, 21, 31), the first and last refer to God’s deliverance of those lost in the trackless desert (vv. 4-9) and those imperiled on the boisterous sea (vv. 23-32). The two central stanzas celebrate deliverance from the punishment of foreign bondage (vv. 10-16) and from the punishment of disease (vv. 17-22). Of the concluding lines to these four stanzas, the first two (vv. 9, 16) and the last two (vv. 22, 32) are similar. The verse pattern of these four stanzas (six-seven-six-ten) makes deliberate use of the significant numbers seven and ten.

Here is a somewhat literal translation of some of those verses that are being discussed; note that, of the four pairs, the first is exactly the same, and then there are four different reasons for giving thanks:

Verse 8: Let them give thanks to Yahweh, his mercy and his wonderful deeds for the sons of man….
Verse 9: …for he satisfies the throat, the one thirsting, and the hungry throat, he fills with good.
Verse 15: Let them give thanks to Yahweh, his mercy and his wonderful deeds for the sons of man….
Verse 16: …for he shatters the doors of bronze, and he cuts through the bars of iron.
Verse 21: Let them give thanks to Yahweh, his mercy and his wonderful deeds for the sons of man….
Verse 22: …and let them sacrifice offerings of thanksgiving, and let them announce his works with a song of joy.
Verse 31: Let them give thanks to Yahweh, his mercy and his wonderful deeds for the sons of man….
Verse 32: …and let them exalt him in the assembly of the people and let them praise him in the council of elders.

The similarities between the first pair and second pair are certainly there, as is mentioned above in the quote, but I would like to propose something more.

I see within these four reasons a hint of the four living creatures that are found elsewhere in both Testaments. They are most familiar in this order: man, lion, ox, and eagle. And the emphases that you might see in each of these verses follow that same order.

Verse 9: When the throat is satisfied, you would think that someone just drank something. This word for ‘throat’ also means ‘soul’, and you can see that in some translations (I am thinking here particularly of the NASB). And with such a translation, you certainly would think of a person.
Verse 16: When something is broken, that is one thing, but when that thing is shattered, the emphasis is definitely on power. And lions are known for their power.
Verse 22: The two verbs, one of sacrifice and one of announcing, both involve some sort of difficult action. And a domesticated ox is the one animal that the farmer would look to for help when it comes to difficult actions. And a bull, a male ox, is also one of the animals sacrificed (see Leviticus 4).
Verse 32: To ‘exalt’ is to lift something up high, and the eagle is the only one of the four to be able to be in the air.

In this country, we are not used to a king, and we are definitely not used to the meaning of a throne. A throne shows the king’s authority, and these four emphases show the LORD’s authority. These four emphases are not meant to be connected only to the four gospel accounts; these are a theme of the LORD’s actions through the entire scriptures, literally from Genesis to Revelation. This is meant to be comforting, that the LORD works in a specific way when needed, a way that truly helps to turn things around. Sometimes it is as a man, sometimes as a powerful lion, sometimes as a sacrificial and obedient animal, and sometimes with a much higher perspective. All those perspectives are special in their own way, and in the Light of the New Testament, we can say that the LORD is certainly special.

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October 10th, 2020

10/10/2020

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The Old Testament text for the previous Sunday was in Isaiah 5, and for this coming Sunday it will be in Isaiah 25[:6-9]. And next Sunday will be Isaiah 45. Should so many weeks with such a book be so surprising? The book of Isaiah is amazing.
Last week’s writing focused on the alliteration and assonance at the end of the text, and the following translation was my first attempt:

…and he looked for a judgment order, but behold, disorder; for what is right, but behold, a riot (Isaiah 5:7b).

Very near the text for this Sunday is another example of the poetic potency of this Old Testament writer, and both of these examples are indicated in the Concordia Self-Study Bible (see pages 1051-1052). That work even includes some of the spellings in Hebrew that are given below:

Isaiah 24:16a:
I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me!
Razi li, razi li! Oy li!
Verse 16b
The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!
Bogedim bagadu! Ubeged bogedim bagadu!
Verse 17
Terror and pit and snare [await you, O people of the earth.]
Pahad wapahat wapah

Perhaps you can see that these last three words (terror, pit, snare) are very similar in Hebrew. (The ‘wa’ at the beginning of the second and third words is only the word ‘and’.) That similarity makes them very special, AND they were even special enough to be used by others (see Jeremiah 48:43).

So, what was attempted last week will also be attempted this week. Are there accurate English words that will adequately match these three similar Hebrew words? ‘Terror’, ‘pit’, and ‘snare’ are not too similar sounding.

A first step is to look at Holladay’s Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (published by Eerdmans in 1971, pages 290-291). Here is what is given: Trembling, terror’ for the first word; ‘pit’ for the second, and ‘bird trap’ for the third. The definitions are, as the title of the book says, certainly concise.

The simple definition of the third word does not leave us with many possibilities. Therefore, a good next step may be to look at The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (published by Hendrickson in 1996, page 809). It gives the same thing—‘bird-trap’, but it also makes this distinction: ‘1. Literally…. 2. Usually figuratively…. a. of calamities and plots…. b. source or agent of calamity….

We have somewhat-related words that start with ‘p’ for the second and third words (pit and plots). How about finding a word that starts with ‘p’ for the first word, ‘terror’? This would even make it similar to the Hebrew.

In desperation, I picked up The New American Roget’s College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form (published by the New American Library, 1958, page 365). Under ‘terror’ were these synonyms: FEAR, dread; fright, alarm; dismay, horror; panic.

You might say that the last word provided a ‘perfect’ answer (in an extremely imperfect world).

‘Panic and pit and plots await you….’

(Please share with me if you find a better solution.) And this is certainly not the entire picture that Isaiah portrays. In Isaiah 25:6-9, the text for this Sunday, the beautiful and concrete promise is that the LORD will wipe away tears from all the faces of his people. This action will be referenced in three Sundays from this Sunday, on All Saints’ Day with the first reading, from Revelation 7. This may be a good thing to cover in more detail when we arrive at that place in the church year.

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October 3rd, 2020

10/3/2020

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There is an aspect of the biblical languages that is usually overlooked these days. And I should, at the start, thank one of my teachers at Concordia Seminary, Dr. Paul Raabe, for his emphasis on such a thing.

You could say that some of the writers of Old Testament poetry were really masters of the language. They were extremely careful with their words. And sometimes they would pick two words that were similar in sound but very opposite in their meanings. When one would hear the phrase in Hebrew, it would sound so nice. But its meaning would be so much the opposite. Something like that gets your attention quite quickly.

This happens at the end of the Old Testament text for this Sunday [Isaiah 5:1-7], the last half of verse 7 (English Standard Version):

‘…and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!’

The footnotes at the bottom of the text are somewhat helpful (unfortunately they do not appear in the bulletin insert for this Sunday). “The Hebrew words for justice and bloodshed sound alike.” And hopefully you could have predicted the second one: “The Hebrew words for righteous (sic) and outcry sound alike.”

What to do? Usually the translation follows the meaning of the words, and should not that always be the case? But perhaps there could be a set of words that would be closer in sound than another set.

To give you an idea of how they sound, here is my try at a phonetic spelling of these four words, along with the vast majority of the main definitions as they appear in Holladay’s A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1971):

Mish-paht: 1. Decision by arbitration, legal decision 2. Legal case 3. Legal claim 4. Conformity
Mis-pah: breach of law
Tse-theh-kah: 1: Righteousness = blameless behavior, honesty 2. Righteousness 3. Justice (of a human judge) 4. Justice (characteristic of God the divine judge) 5. Righteousness = godliness….
Tse-ah-kah: Cry out, raise a cry of wailing, call for help

Dr. Raabe was very encouraging when he proposed one solution for the second pair of words that is below. Perhaps people could think of other possible translations that would be both close in meaning and in sound. I am proposing the first pair. And perhaps you could think of another for that one; it is certainly not as good as the one proposed by Dr. Raabe.

'...and he looked for a judgment order, but behold, disorder; for what is right, but behold, a riot!'

Now to think about just one small passage of scripture for a while is certainly not a bad thing.

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A Sabbath Day's Journey

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