It was Smart’s belief that God creates and sustains a cosmic harmony upon which the universe is contingent-in effect, God sings the universe into being-and the poet’s duty is to serve as a kind of choir-master leading the creation in an answering song. Because harmony between God and . . . . Continue Reading »
Jeremiah 6:7 says of Jerusalem, “As a well keeps cold its waters, so shee keeps cold her wickedness.” Cities are wells. How? Visually there is a resemblance: Walls enclose a city as walls enclose the shaft of a well. No doubt too there is a third term in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Some observations on Zechariah 6 that are dependent on the helpful insights of several grad students: If we connect the chariots emerging from between the bronze mountains with the horses and chariots of fire mentioned in 2 Kings 2 and 6, and if the bronze mountains are the pillars of the temple, . . . . Continue Reading »
Between Genesis 10-11 and 2 Kings, “Babel” (or “Babylon”) is never mentioned. It comes up again in the description of the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 2 Kings 17: The King of Assyria brings men from Babel and sows them into the Northern kingdom. The word . . . . Continue Reading »
Leviticus 26 uses the verb “make desolate” ( shamem ) seven times (vv. 22, 31, 32 [2x], 34, 35, 43). Yahweh threatens to de-create the land. The link between the curses of Leviticus 26 and creation is not merely numerical. The desolations follow, roughly, the events of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Psalm 72:4 describes a king who does justice, delivers the poor, crushes the oppressor. The imperatives of Zechariah 7:9-10 echo the Psalm, but in Zechariah the imperatives are plural. Israel has become a nation of kings. . . . . Continue Reading »
Moses built a tent, and then Yahweh sat on His throne, the glory above the cherubim. Solomon built a house, and then the glory of Yahweh settled on His throne in the debir . Zechariah predicts something novel: A man named “Branch” will build the house of Yahweh, and then the Branch will . . . . Continue Reading »
Paul Veyne ( When Our World Became Christian ) notes the radical difference between paganism and Christianity (which is calls a “masterpiece” and compares to a “best-seller” that revealed a “thitherto unsuspected sensibility”): “Augustus, following his . . . . Continue Reading »
Ahh, but Mark Womack argues that the whole point of Milton’s image of the “two-handed engine” is to leave us uncertain about its specific referent: “The need to define ‘two-handed engine’ has put scholarly minds in a panic, producing a vast body of commentary . . . . Continue Reading »
Stephen Booth writes, “Great works of art are daredevils. They flirt with disasters and, at the same time, they let you know they are married forever to particular, reliable order and purpose. They are, and seem often to work hard at being, always on the point of one or another kind of . . . . Continue Reading »
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