According to Isaiah 25, Yahweh will swallow ( bala ‘) the covering over the peoples (v. 7), the “veil,” and “death” (v. 8). He has spread a banquet on this mountain, and His portion is to eat the covering and feast. Most of the uses of “swallow” in the OT don’t refer to normal swallowing. Thin ears of grain swallow fat ones (Genesis 41:7, 24), earth swallows Pharaoh (Exodus 15:12) and Korah (Numbers 16:30, 32, 34). David flees the land... Read more
On the far side of the Red Sea, Israel sings the Song of Moses, praising the God who “does wonders (Heb. pele’ )” (Exodus 15:11). It’s the first time the word is used, and from that point on praise of Yahweh’s “wonders” always evokes the exodus story. The exodus connection is explicit in Psalm 77:11, 14, and even more so in Psalm 78:12: “He wrought wonders before their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.” Psalm... Read more
INTRODUCTION In the center of Isaiah’s “little apocalypse” is a vision of a ruined and restored city, and at the center of the center is a promise that the Lord will prepare a table for His people, and a series of songs of praise (25:1-2, 9; 26:1-6). THE TEXT “O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. For You... Read more
We all know that the days of the week take their names from classical or Germanic gods. But why the order? The order of the week is not the order of the planets in the sky, which is, as we find in Dante: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. The order of days starts in the middle, and the pattern is 4, 1, 5, 2, 6, 3, 7. In his The Last Word in Prophecy , C. E. Douglas... Read more
A few comments on the physiology, psychology, and culture of aroma from Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses . Like many writers, Ackerman links smell and memory: “Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary, and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the Poconos, when wild blueberry bushes teemed with succulent fruit and the opposite sex was as mysterious as space travel; another, hours of passion on a... Read more
How do prophets harden and deafen the deaf? Perhaps it works like this: Prophets speak in extremes. Prophets shout. Prophets “draw large and startling figures” (Flannery O’Connor). Yet nothing happens. They keep shouting and drawing. Still nothing happens. They shout louder, their colors get bolder. Years, then decades pass. Nothing happens. Eventually, the prophetic shouts blend into the background, the white noise of traffic that we no longer hear. Their startling figures begin to look normal, and we might even... Read more
We do not see Jesus. How do we know He is present? Smell and hearing are the senses of presence-in-absence, the senses that enable us to know the presence of what we do not see. Protestants know all about hearing Jesus. The fragrance of Christ is an undeveloped area of Christology. Smell is a presence in absence. I smell the roast in the oven, and know dinner is close. A woman’s perfume precedes her and lingers after her, whether I... Read more
Following up some suggestions by Toby Sumpter on Isaiah 24:2, which lists six pairs of social/religious classes that will be caught up in the devastation that is coming. There’s a sociology assumed and manifested in the verse. The six pairs are organized into three groups, with a 1 + 2 + 3 numerical organization. One religious relationship, two household relationships (distinguished by gender), and three land-economic relationships. The groups name three different sorts of relations: Priest and people, servants and... Read more
Oil is an extremely important part of the biblical world in a number of ways. Oil is a food. Oil is used for cooking. Oil is placed on grain offerings that are baked or fried before being offered to Yahweh (Leviticus 2), and the bread on the table of showbread is baked with oil (Exodus 29:2). Because of its property as a food, the word is sometimes translated as “fatness,” which can describe the fertility of a land or the... Read more
When Panikkar writes, “neither the name Father nor the name God is the proper name of the Absolute. They are simply the names by which we designate him . . . . independently of us, in himself and for himself, what is He? Ultimately such a question does not even make sense . . . . God’s re-flection is no longer the Father” – he has taken leave of any recognizable Christian Trinitarianism. But the argument has the virtue of... Read more
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