Fear – Numbers, Part 1

Why then were you not afraid (yârêʼ)[1] to speak against my servant Moses?[2] Jehovah asked Miriam and Aaron.  The rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose ἐφοβήθητε[3] here.  Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married (for he...

Romans, Part 50

Love must be without hypocrisy,[1] Paul continued.  Actually, he wrote, Ἡ ἀγάπη ἀνυπόκριτος.  Paul wrote a lot about ἀγάπη.[2]  Love (ἀγάπη) does no wrong to a neighbor.  Therefore love (ἀγάπη) is the fulfillment of the law.[3]  What do you want? He asked the...

Torture, Part 2

And in anger his lord turned him over to the prison guards to torture (βασανισταῖς, a form of βασανιστής)[1] him until he repaid all he owed.  So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive (ἀφῆτε, a form of ἀφίημι)[2] your brother from...

Fear – Leviticus

Each of you must respect (yârêʼ)[1] his mother and his father, and you must keep my Sabbaths.  I am the Lord your God.[2]  The Rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose φοβείσθω, a form of φοβέω[3] (fear, put to flight).[4]  The note in the NET reads: “Heb ‘A man his...

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 1

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived!  The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will...

Romans, Part 49

If [the gift] is showing mercy (ἐλεῶν, a form of ἐλεέω),[1] he must do so with cheerfulness.[2]  This is my gift, the one given to me.  It is the way I see Jesus and his Father.  It is the way I see the world.  It is my bias.  Blessed are the merciful (ἐλεήμονες, a...

Torture, Part 1

Since I faulted Jonathan Edwards for making a bad argument to support the assertion in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” that “the great and almighty creator and king of heaven and earth” is the superlative torturer, I think it best that I look again...

Fear – Exodus, Part 9

Now when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand – when he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.  When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of...