When Babel is judged, Isaiah says – for the fist time in the Bible, that stars will go out. The way he says it, though, is interesting. “The stars and their constellations will not flash forth their light” is the way the NASB puts it, not badly. But the verb “flash forth” is halal , which in some contexts and aspects means “to glory” or “to praise.” Stars and their constellations glorify and praise by the brilliance of their light.... Read more
In Isaiah 13:3, Yahweh commands and calls His holy warriors to go into battle. They are commanded and called to “My anger,” but they are called to this as those who are “jubilant in My height.” This last phrase is badly mistranslated in the NASB as “proudly exalting ones.” The phrase doesn’t refer to the pride of the warriors, but at their exultation in Yahweh’s exaltation. Yahweh is “excellent” or “high” in many ways, but the word for “height” here... Read more
The Hebrew word “burden” ( massa ) can refer to a literal load that carried by an animal or person (Exodus 23:5; 2 Kings 5:17; 8:9). It is used in the literal sense of the Levitical crews that carry around the tabernacle and its furnishings (9x in Numbers 4). The Levites are Yahweh’s beasts of burden, His oxen. It is used metaphorically to describe the “burden” of responsibility (cf. 2 Samuel 15:33; 19:35). And this metaphorical use expands to describe... Read more
Douglas Farrow is making a career out of the ascension. Not a bad thing to make a career of. In his freshly published sequel to Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology , entitled simply Ascension Theology , Farrow defends the bodily ascension of the Risen Jesus of Nazareth as an essential doctrine of orthodoxy, against both ancient (Origen) and modern (Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel) doubters. Along the way, Farrow insists... Read more
In his Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors , Harvard’s Charles Maier describes the trade-off that other countries have established with the “empire of consumption” that is the US. Why, he asks, do other countries, especially China, continue to extend credit to us? As he sees it, the US provides “public goods” that foreign countries want to maintain: “The U.S. capacity to sustain its deficits for so long was not just a tribute from clients exacted by empire. It... Read more
Commenting on John 1:12-13, Calvin says “Some think that an indirect reference is here made to the preposterous confidence of the Jews, and I willingly adopt that opinion. They had continually in their mouth the nobleness of their lineage, as if, because they were descended from a holy stock, they were naturally holy. And justly might they have gloried in their descent from Abraham, if they had been lawful sons, and not bastards; but the glowing of faith ascribes nothing... Read more
Commenting on John 1:12-13, Calvin says “Some think that an indirect reference is here made to the preposterous confidence of the Jews, and I willingly adopt that opinion. They had continually in their mouth the nobleness of their lineage, as if, because they were descended from a holy stock, they were naturally holy. And justly might they have gloried in their descent from Abraham, if they had been lawful sons, and not bastards; but the glowing of faith ascribes nothing... Read more
The harlot’s sins are piled up as high as heaven (Revelation 18:5), like the evils of Sodom and the sins of Israel. The specific language draws on 2 Kings 3:3, which (in the LXX) speaks of the piling-up of the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel sin and is the only text in the LXX (so far as I’ve found) which uses the same phrasing as Revelation 18. Eventually, Jeroboam’s sins were piled so high that... Read more
All the nations, the angel says, have drunk the “wine of the passion of her fornication” (Revelation 18:3). What does this mean? In Revelation, the wine that the harlot drinks is the blood of the saints. She is drunk on that wine-blood, totters, stumbles, and falls. Her passion for the blood of the saints leads to her fall. But the nations drink is somewhat different. They too drink the same wine; Rome eventually gulps down martyr’s blood. But in Revelation... Read more
All the nations, the angel says, have drunk the “wine of the passion of her fornication” (Revelation 18:3). What does this mean? In Revelation, the wine that the harlot drinks is the blood of the saints. She is drunk on that wine-blood, totters, stumbles, and falls. Her passion for the blood of the saints leads to her fall. But the nations drink is somewhat different. They too drink the same wine; Rome eventually gulps down martyr’s blood. But in Revelation... Read more
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