A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society (The IVP Signature Collection)

by Eugene H. Peterson

There are two words which are translated “blessed” in our Bibles. One is ’ashre, which describes the having-it-all-together sense of well-being that comes when we are living in tune with creation and redemption. It is what Psalm 1 announces and what Psalm 128 describes. It is what we experience when God blesses us. The word in Hebrew “is used only of men, never of God, [and] in the NT there are only two instances in which it is used of God (makarios in 1 Tim 1:11; 6:15).”3 The other word is bĕrakah. It describes what God does to us and among us: he enters into covenant with us, he pours out his own life for us, he shares the goodness of his Spirit, the vitality of his creation, the joys of his redemption. He empties himself among us, and we get what he is. That is blessing. When the first word is tĕshubah, the last word is bĕrakah.