Isaiah 8 gives Israel a choice of water. If they don’t want teh gentle waters of Shiloah, He’ll provide other water. Shiloah is the water source for Jerusalem. It was a stream running from outside the city into the city, and it was the source that kept Jerusalem fruitful and alive. Isaiah uses that water source as an image of Yahweh’s provision, of Yahweh Himself. He is the gently flowing waters of Judah, the source that turns Jerusalem into a... Read more
Isaiah is not supposed to walk in the way of the people (8:11), and the specific difference between the people’s way and Yahweh’s has to do with fear. The people live in “fear and dread” of the turmoil and conspiracies of the nations (v. 12), but Isaiah is instead of make Yahweh his “fear and dread” (v. 13). In making Yahweh his fear, Isaiah “sanctifies” the name of Yahweh of hosts (reinforced with a little chiasm: sanctify Yahweh / He... Read more
Yahweh speaks to Isaiah “with a strong hand,” and the force of the instruction is to refuse to walk in the way of the people. “Strong hand” is an exodus image, the strong hand by which Yahweh yanked Israel from Egypt. Now, His words to Isaiah are the strong hand yanking him from the way of the people to follow the way of Yahweh. Not surprisingly, Isaiah has recourse to another exodus image in verse 18: Those who have been... Read more
Isaiah 8:9-10 is a complex, intricate passage. Verse 9 repeats two different verbs two three times (“gird” 2x, and “be shattered” 3x). The verbs “give ear” ( azan ) and “gird” ( azar ) form a pun. Verse 10 uses the repetitive phrases “counsel counsel” (Heb. ‘utzu ‘etzah ) and “speak speech or words” (Heb. dabru dabar ). These verses rotate through the same exhortation several times: 1. Do evil/be broken 1a. peoples 1c. and be shattered 2. Give ear... Read more
Because Israel rejects the gentle river of Shiloah, which supplies water to Jerusalem and makes Jerusalem the garden-city of Yahweh, Yahweh threatens to bring another river, the River, a personification of the King of Assyria, flowing through Judah with all his glorious chariots and armor and shining spears (Isaiah 8:6-7). River Assyria will flood into Judah and nearly drown her. But that is not the last overflowing river that comes through Judah in the prophecy of Isaiah. Someday, another river... Read more
In the early chapters of Mark’s gospel, the only beings to identify Jesus as “Son of God” are the Father and demons. No human being recognizes Him until He dies, and then it’s a Roman centurion. Perhaps Mark intends us to remember the demonic identifications when we get to the centurion – not that the centurion is a demon (though this might be true in some sense, since Jesus battles a “legion” of demons earlier in the gospel), but rather... Read more
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up,” Jesus told Nicodemus. It’s a chiasm: A. Lifted up B. Serpent C. Wilderness B’. Son of Man A’. lifted up. Two interesting questions emerge here: (more…) Read more
In an article some years ago in the Tyndale Bulletin , Andrew Perriman argues that Paul’s statement in Colossians 1:24 about “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” does not refer to eschatological “Messianic woes” nor to an inadequacy in Christ’s personal sufferings that Paul has to complete. Rather, what is lacking is the fullness of Christ’s afflictions in Paul’s own personal experience. The gap is not between what Christ has suffered in Himself and what Christ suffers with... Read more
In an article some years ago in the Tyndale Bulletin , Andrew Perriman argues that Paul’s statement in Colossians 1:24 about “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” does not refer to eschatological “Messianic woes” nor to an inadequacy in Christ’s personal sufferings that Paul has to complete. Rather, what is lacking is the fullness of Christ’s afflictions in Paul’s own personal experience. The gap is not between what Christ has suffered in Himself and what Christ suffers with... Read more
AE Harvey exaggerates, but his suggestion is provocative:,. Speaking of Paul’s meditation on suffering in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11, he wrote “For the first time in his extant letters, and possibly for the first time in the entire philosophical and religious tradition of the West, we find the experience of involuntary and innocent suffering invested with positive value and meaning in itself .” Read more
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