Wisdom

March 16, 2022Posted inWisdom
Wisdom is an important Biblical concept, especially in the books of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Job knew what it was (see chapter 28:12-28) but failed to achieve it in his defense against the accusations of his friends. He had been darkening counsel by words without knowledge (38:2), and God had to teach him (chapters 38-41).…

The Fear of God

March 11, 2022Posted inFear of God
The Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods (Psalm 95:3). He is great in glory, in power and holiness. He is “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting…

Psalm 25: A Complicated Chiasm and an Acrostic

March 5, 2022Posted inChiasms, Psalms Commentary
Psalm 25 is an imperfect acrostic. Though it has 22 verses, one for each of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, verses 6 and 16 do not begin with the expected Hebrew letter. It is also a roughly constructed chiasm, and you can see the details of it in the table below. Understanding the chiasm…

The Simple, the Fool and the Scoffer

March 1, 2022Posted inBook of Proverbs
The Lord gave us the book of Proverbs to teach us wisdom. This wisdom is not the wisdom of the world, though we could interpret many proverbs in it, taken apart from chapter 1:1-7, in that way. It is instead the wisdom that begins with the fear of God, and the wisdom that resides in…

Heaping Coals of Fire

February 25, 2022Posted inVengeance
Romans 12:20, a quotation of Proverbs 25:21,22, has occasioned much debate and given rise to multiple interpretations. The problem is that the most natural explanation seems to be that you should do good to your enemies so that they may suffer an increase of punishment from God. But this interpretation contradicts itself. If we perform…

Hearing the Acrostic of Psalm 119

February 25, 2022Posted inPsalms Commentary
It’s well known, of course, that Psalm 119 is an acrostic or alphabetic psalm. Such acrostics are, to say the least, very difficult to render in a faithful English translation, but it is possible to illustrate the effect in a few stanzas. This can help us to hear a little of the sound of these…