When Jesus cried out “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” it implied more than this single cry of dereliction. Before chapter divisions were inserted into the biblical text (in the 12th century AD), a person would reference a Psalm by quoting its first line. And when we study the whole of Psalm […]
We’ve seen how the Psalms proclaim Christ. These songs show the interplay of four main players: 1) God 2) The Ideal King (Christ) 3) Those who trust in Him 4) The wicked Some of these songs are the words of God to His King (His Christ). Some of them are the people’s words to God […]
It’s a beautifully symmetrical phrase. The first five syllables perfectly mirror the last five. In each, the stresses are on the second and fifth syllable. This is the work of the translators. And we should remember that the King James version was written to be read aloud. Yet the poetry in the underlying Hebrew comes […]
The Book of Psalms has been called the Hymn Book of the Church. Here we have 150 songs that take in the whole gamut of human experience. There are songs of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, of deep intimacy and of profound disillusionment with God. We love the Psalms because we can find […]
Everyone remembers the sufferings of Job. Few people remember how it ends: “10 And the LORD turned the captivity of Job… the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before… 12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning… 16 After this lived Job an hundred and forty […]
From the very first verse of the book, Job is presented as a blameless and upright man. The LORD is proud of Job’s matchless virtue (1:8; 2:3). Job fears God and shuns evil. And even when calamity falls he does not sin by cursing God (1:22; 2:10). Instead, through all his laments and complaints, the […]
“Brace yourself.” “Get ready to take it like a man.” “Roll up your sleeves, there’s work to be done.” These are all rough modern equivalents to “gird up thy loins.” Essentially it’s a command to gather up your loose hanging robes (etc!), in a belt because action is called for. But perhaps we’re surprised at […]
What phrases do you use in consolation? Imagine that you have some bad news to tell: My credit cards have been stolen, they’ve cleared out my bank account… How do you finish that sentence? …still, worse things happen at sea … serves me right for being so careless … I suppose I’m just cursed … […]
Here’s one of the more famous phrases in the bible. We’ve probably all used it. And we’ve probably used it in its biblical sense – i.e. to describe an extremely narrow escape. But if we were asked to explain it, we’d struggle. Why “skin of my teeth”? Why not “hair of my kidneys”? Or “lips […]
When two massive egos clash we say “sparks fly.” But for Job, when “man” meets “world” that’s when the sparks fly. As we’ve seen earlier, the book of Job is the story of man. And at its heart is the question of innocent suffering. Is there such a thing? His miserable comforters say no. And […]
