“Whoever has anything to say, let that person say it once, or carry the discourse regularly forward, but not repeat forever. Whoever is under the necessity of saying everything twice shows that one has but half or imperfectly expressed it the first time.” So Alciphron objects to Hebrew . . . . Continue Reading »
In his excellent Arguing with God: A Theological Anthropology of the Psalms (39-40), Bernd Janowski quotes this wisdom from Ottmar Fuchs: “Recognition of disastrous realities that does not go through the lament is lethal and irresponsible. An association with God in which no conflictual . . . . Continue Reading »
Psalm 29 uses the phrase “voice of Yahweh” ( qol YHWH ) seven times (vv. 3, 4 [2x], 5, 7, 8, 9). Yahweh’s thunderous sevenfold voice creates and destroys, kills and makes alive. It breaks cedars but also enlivens Lebanon to skip like a calf. It shakes the wilderness but also makes . . . . Continue Reading »
Like most verses of the Psalms, Psalm 28:8 is structured in parallelism: “Yahweh to them strength // and a fortress saving His anointed He.” Here the parallel is chiastic: A. Yahweh B. to them C. Strength C’. A fortress saving B’. His anointed ( meshiach ) A’. He ( . . . . Continue Reading »
Psalm 79 is a lament over the destruction of Jerusalem. The temple is defiled, the city ruined (v. 1). It is a macabre sacrifice: Bodies are left for the birds and beasts, and blood flows like water (vv. 2-3). And Israel’s enemies who have carried out this devastating taunt Israel and Yahweh . . . . Continue Reading »
“God is Judge,” says Asaph (Psalm 75:7), and the rest of the Bible agrees. As Judge, He doesn’t just render verdicts. He raises horns (vv. 4-5); He cuts off the horns of power and lifts the horns of the righteous (v. 10). Exaltation and humiliation is His job (v. 6). as Judge, He . . . . Continue Reading »
In Augustine’s version of Psalm 8, the title refers to wine-presses. That leads him into an extended meditation on how wine presses and threshing floors symbolize the church: “We may then take wine-presses to be Churches, on the same principle by which we understand also by a . . . . Continue Reading »
Ruth is the only book of the Tanakh that ends with a genealogy, notes Stephen Dempster ( Dominion and Dynasty: A Biblical Theology of the Hebrew Bible , 193). The “ten-member genealogy powerfully echoes two other ten-member genealogies in the narrative books that had soteriological . . . . Continue Reading »
In Psalm 38, David first complains that the Lord is attacking Him with arrows and blows from His hand (vv. 1-2), acknowledges the weight of his sin (vv. 3-4), then recounts his physical suffering (vv. 5-10) and the way his sufferings cause his friends and companions to recoil (vv. 11) and his . . . . Continue Reading »
As many have observed, Paul alludes to Psalm 106 in his condemnation of the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men in Romans 1. Paul writes that human beings “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and . . . . Continue Reading »
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