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August 7 - December 30, 2020
At that very last stop in Motza, when the doors would swing open for passengers to board, before the underpass—that’s the moment to get off. Stride across the intersection, walk a few dozen yards into the scrub brush, peer through the dried weeds, and you’ll see them: the ancient pavers of the Emmaus road, the stones where Jesus’ sandals walked.
Not many years ago they were still even following the path left by the remaining stones, which made a convenient trail into the Old City, an easy two-hour walk to the Jaffa Gate.2
locals have known about them all along.
his favorite books to quote from were Deuteronomy and Isaiah, and he quoted from them a lot.
Years ago, I signed up for a summer Hebrew course in Israel so that I’d be able to absorb the sights and sounds of the land as I studied. The class was held at a retreat center a few miles outside Jerusalem, and everywhere you looked you could see evidence of the ancient Israelites.
If a person exerts himself and ascends to the summit, it is possible to reach it, while not being there. He stands on the summit of the mountain, but his head is somewhere else.1
Polygamy, concubines, infant sacrifice, and tribal warfare were unfortunate practices of the ancient Near East.
Moses was actually eighty, Aaron was eighty-three, and Miriam was in her mid-nineties?
Advanced age was seen as a sign of God’s blessing and a source of honor and dignity. Proverbs 16:31 says, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness”
derive our basic identity from our work outside of the home, not from the growth and strength of our family.
To be anointed, literally, is to have sacred oil poured on one’s head, usually to appoint a person to a holy office.
So the most prominent idea within the title “Christ” is actually that of a king. In simple terms, we could say that “Jesus Christ” means, “Jesus, God’s chosen King.” Is this what you would have
Sheba was at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula, where Yemen is today, about 1,800 miles from Israel.
the Greek word for gospel, euanggelion (literally, “good news”), in the New Testament also comes from terminology that was used in regards to kings and their dominions. When a new king was crowned, the euanggelion was the announcement that the monarch had taken the throne, that a new kingdom had taken power.
euanggelion, is simply that God had appointed Jesus as his chosen King.
Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where there are no police, where the weak are perpetual victims of any bully who finds them. This may sound unthinkable, but everyday violence is a massive problem in the developing world today, according to Haugen. Over two billion people live in countries that have woefully inadequate law enforcement. In impoverished areas, there is often no credible criminal deterrent, nothing to prevent the vulnerable from being victimized by bullies and thieves.
Living in a safe society, we can’t relate to this widespread longing for protection and justice. We read biblical imagery and call it “primitive” and “violent” because we have little concept of the harsh reality that many in the world endure even now.
Hebrew also contains a smaller set of “pigments” than English—about eight thousand words, in comparison to one hundred thousand or more in our language.
Rather than clinging to one translation, you’ll actually get a clearer idea if you read from more than one version and then compare them.
they used the same word for “work” as for “worship” and the same word for “listen” and “obey.”
But yirah encompasses a much wider range of meanings, from negative (dread, terror) to positive (worship, reverence) and from mild (respect) to strong (awe).
Hebraic thought, the “fear of the Lord” (yirat Adonai7) is better understood as an awe and reverence for God that causes us to want to do his will.
Hebraically, the “fear of the Lord” is being aware of the awesome, holy presence of God.
Over the ornate cabinets that hold the Torah scrolls is the phrase Know Before Whom You Stand.
pakad refers to the idea of “paying attention to.” When God pays attention to a person, he cares for them. When he pays attention to someone’s prayers, he answers them. But when he pays attention to someone’s sins, he disciplines them.
The word bayit can refer to a house, a temple, a family, or a lineage, among other things.
King David had wanted to build God a “house,” a temple, but God instead declared that he would build David a “house” in terms of a royal family lineage.
Understanding the Hebrew words for “remember” and “forget” can help us untangle more than one theological knot.
English, our definition of the word remember focuses entirely on the idea of recalling memories and bringing ideas into our thoughts. To forget is to fail to bring a certain memory to mind. Both words are concerned entirely with mental activity—whether or not information is present. But the Hebrew verb zakhar has a much wider definition than just “remember.” It includes both remembering and the actions that are taken because of remembering. It often implies that a person did a favor for someone, helped them, or was faithful to a promise or covenant.
the verb “remember” focuses on the action, not the mental activity.
“remember” means “to intervene,” focusing on what God did, not what God was thinking about.
The Hebrew words for “forget,” shakach and nashah, are also broad in scope. Often they mean to ignore, neglect, forsake, or disregard a person or covenant.
Because Hebrew focuses on the action rather than the thought, it doesn’t necessarily imply that God loses the memory of sins in his infinite mind. It simply means that he has decided to forgo prosecution.
the Hebraic idea of “remembering sins” really encompasses the idea of seeking revenge for sins, not just knowing about them.
Check out my book Listening to the Language of the Bible: Hearing It through Jesus’ Ears (Tverberg and Okkema, En-Gedi, 2004), which is a devotional guide to sixty-one Hebrew words and cultural ideas. A companion Bible study is also available for digging deeper.
If you want to study Hebrew or Greek yourself, I highly recommend the courses from the Biblical Language Center (BiblicalLanguageCenter.com).
God’s creation surprises and perplexes us, shouldn’t its Creator do so even more?
When Moses asked this deity’s name at the burning bush, God’s strange response was: eyeh asher eyeh, which means “I am that I am,” or “I will be what I will be” (see Exod. 3:14).
No attempt is made in the Bible to define God—that is, to grasp God in our concepts. . . . The Bible tells the story of God; it narrates His deeds and the history of this God as it takes place on earth in the human sphere. The Bible proclaims the significance and the importance of this working and acting, this story of God, and in this way it proves God’s existence, describes His being and His nature. The Bible is not a philosophical book, but a history book, the book of God’s mighty acts, in which God becomes knowable to
Then one day my instructor started handing out copies of the Shema (pronounced “shmah”), a profession of faith that pious Jews have recited daily since before the first century. Eagerly, I scanned down the page of what I assumed was their Apostles’ Creed. I wasn’t too surprised that it started off in a theological way, with God’s command to love and worship him alone (Deut. 6:4–9).20 But the next section, from Deuteronomy 11:13–21, stopped me in my tracks. I absolutely couldn’t believe my eyes: I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in
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