He is Glorious

Isaiah 6:3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!"

 וְקָרָ֙א זֶ֤ה אֶל־זֶה֙ וְאָמַ֔ר קָד֧וֹשׁ׀ קָד֛וֹשׁ קָד֖וֹשׁ יְהוָ֣ה צְבָא֑וֹת מְלֹ֥א כָל־הָאָ֖רֶץ כְּבוֹדֽוֹ׃

  

I wanted to try out posting in Hebrew, so I thought I'd pick one of my favorite verses.This is one of those verses that is easy to overlook because we have become so accustomed to the language here. Yeah, yeah, we know that God is holy. But what does that mean?

First of all, it is noteworthy that this is the only place in Scripture that contains the construct קָד֧וֹשׁ׀ קָד֛וֹשׁ קָד֖וֹשׁ. This term for the Lord is special. We tend to think of holy fairly simplistically. We think of it like a church is "holy ground" as in the Highlander movies. Or maybe we think of something consecrated like "holy water." Basically, we tend to put a lot of Roman Catholic symbolism around this term. At least I do.


But if we get into what this word means we realize that it speaks to something special about God. The term "holy" really refers to being set apart. In other words, this passage speaks to God's transcendence. There is no one else like God. No one else is holy and set apart like He is. 


I love that the Hebrew word translated "glory" is כְּבוֹדֽוֹ. Why? It very literally means "weighty" or "heavy." In other words, the whole earth is filled with the weightiness of God. We think of something important as being a "weighty matter." Think of what this means with respect to God. All of creation is filled with His glory or weightiness.


What does this mean? It means that it is impossible for sinful beings like us to approach a holy God. It also means that hell is perfectly just punishment for a sinner. How can such holiness abide sin? It is impossible.


Yet in His love God provided a way. That happened at the cross of Christ. There Christ's sacrifice covered our sin so that we may approach this holy God.


Will you rejoice with me in this fact?

Driven Out

Exodus 11:1 Now the LORD said to Moses, "One more plague I will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out from here completely.

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה עֹוד נֶגַע אֶחָד אָבִיא עַל־פַּרְעֹה וְעַל־מִצְרַיִם אַחֲרֵי־כֵן יְשַׁלַּח אֶתְכֶם מִזֶּה כְּשַׁלְּחֹו כָּלָה גָּרֵשׁ יְגָרֵשׁ אֶתְכֶם מִזֶּה׃


There is something that I think we tend to miss when we consider the Exodus account.  It is certainly difficult to pick up from the movie with Charlton Heston.  But here we really see it brought out with the construct גָּרֵשׁ יְגָרֵשׁ .  The use of the infinitive emphasizes a point here.  Pharaoh was ready to drive the Israelites away.

It is easy to think of Pharoah begrudgingly letting them go.  However, the language throughout the account is of sending the people away, not merely releasing them.  Here we actually have something translated "drive them away."  In other words, by this time Pharaoah was ready to drive them away so that the plagues would stop.

Why do I mention this?  It really underscores the power and majesty of the Lord.  He is not just tinkering with a big Rube Goldberg machine.  He is directing the world.  He really does have it all in His hands.  This is the God that I worship and serve.  What a privilege to know this awesome God!

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Getting Wet

Ezekiel 7:14-17
(14) "They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but none goes to battle, for my wrath is upon all their multitude.
(15) The sword is without; pestilence and famine are within. He who is in the field dies by the sword, and him who is in the city famine and pestilence devour.
(16) And if any survivors escape, they will be on the mountains, like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each one over his iniquity.
(17) All hands are feeble, and all knees turn to water.

This passage describes how the people will react to the wrath of the Lord. As you can see, the description is not very pretty. Most will be destroyed and those who survive will be terrified.

My ESV Study Bible had an interesting note about verse 17. Apparently the Septuagint understood this to be that their thighs would become wet. In other words, they would be so terrified that they would wet themselves in fear. I do understand that most modern translations put an understood "as" or "like" in there so that the idea is that they would become so terrified that their knees would become weak.

I don't want to devolve into 10 year-old boy potty humor here. However, I do want to make the point that this shows just how real the Bible is. The language of the King James tends to give a very lofty air to the Bible because of how our ears hear 17th century speech with all the "thees" and "thous." I would submit that the Bible is actually very real and should be understood in language we can understand. Of course, the trick is to do that in a way that is also faithful to the text.

Oh, and lest this be a purely academic post, I would like to use this opportunity to remind you that you do not want to be on the receiving end of God's wrath. However, apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ that is just what you have coming to you. Repent and believe now before it is too late.

Back in the Race

Sorry for not posting yesterday. I'm back in the groove with school. I've got Hebrew on Mondays and New Testament on Tuesdays. I think I'm looking forward to Hebrew more than NT, but I do think I have a good paper topic in mind for NT. I plan on writing on text-critical criteria.

Ever notice how your Bible sometimes has passages in brackets with a footnote like "the oldest manuscripts do not contain..." the passage name? You will find this particularly in John 8 and the woman caught in adultery as well as in the end of Mark. There are thousands of other small ones throughout the New Testament too. Our English Bible translators have already dealt with these issues. I want to know how they did it so I can come up with my own opinion. Otherwise I'm just trusting the opinions of my translators.

I'm excited to work on my Hebrew homework. It's pretty easy so far, which is nice. I think I'm already prepared for my first quiz because I tried to get ahead. Hopefully I can stay ahead so the tests will be a breeze. We're having 4 tests this semester. I think this is a good thing, but it will require much diligence.