Is Christ ever without His body? Might as well ask, Is Christ ever without His Spirit? The answer to that is, obviously, No. Anointing with the Spirit is what makes Christ Christ. And the Spirit gathers and knits together what He gathers. Hence: To say “Christ is anointed by the Spirit” is to say “Totus Christus.” Read more
Jesus comes to Jerusalem riding over palm branches. He is the promised king, and marches over the treetops into Jerusalem, up to the temple. When the disciples hear the sound of the Wind-filled Jesus in the tops of the trees, they will know that Yahweh has gone before them (cf. 2 Samuel 5:24). Read more
A reader, Daniel Hoffman, comments on my post about the dogs of Egypt: “A while back I saw it pointed out somewhere (I am pretty sure it was John Currid in his book ‘Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament’, but I don’t have it on hand to check) that the Egyptian god of the dead was Anubis, who was usually pictured with the head of a dog or jackal. The statement that ‘against the children of Israel not even a... Read more
If Israel is faithful, Yahweh promises to make her triply fruitful. Deuteronomy 28:11 uses the word “fruit” three times (bizarrely translated in different ways by the NASB): fruit of the womb, fruit of the beast, fruit of the ground. Children, animals, plants will all proliferate. Body, beast, ground are the triple sources of Israel’s fertility. And the triad refers back to the creation account. Plants, animals, and adam come from the ground, and all three are to be fruitful and... Read more
On the first Passover night, Yahweh promises that “against any of the sons of Israel a dog shall not sharpen his tongue, whether against man or beast” (Exodus 11:7). By implication, dogs will be sharpening their tongues against the Egyptians. Dogs are urban scavengers in the Bible, typically feeding on the corpses of slain people. In Goshen, there will be no corpses to feed on; but Egypt will be a canine banquet. Exodus 11:7 is the Bible’s first reference to... Read more
In today’s sermon text, Yahweh tells Moses that He performs signs so that Israel can recount His works in the ears of “sons and sons of sons.” A few verses later, Yahweh says that He brings more locusts than “your fathers and the fathers of your fathers have seen.” God is eternal, and that means His acts are not confined to the present, but affect the past for the sake of the future. Past and future don’t have the same... Read more
Exodus 10:4-5: Tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. And they shall cover the face of the earth, so that no one will be able to see the earth; and they shall eat the residue of what is left, which remains to you from the hail, and they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the field. In the eighth plague, Yahweh calls out the locusts. Locusts cover the land as the waters of the... Read more
Cassuto suggests that there may be a reference to Ra the Egyptian sun god in Exodus 10:10. Pharaoh dismisses Moses and Aaron with “look, for evil is before you,” but the word for evil is ra’a . Cassuto suggests that Pharaoh means, “know that the power of my god will oppose you.” Several observations. First, there is possibly a double pun here, since the verb “look” is ra’ah , very close in sound to the word for “evil.” If Pharaoh... Read more
Throughout the early chapters of Exodus, Yahweh is hardening Pharaoh’s heart. By the end, there is a heart of stone in the heart of Egypt. To say that Israel has a heart of stone that needs to be turned to hearts of flesh is to say that Israel is an Egypt that needs to be re-Israelized through exile. At another level, Israel has a heart of stone because in the heart of Israel is the tabernacle, and in the heart... Read more
Exodus 10 contains the first biblical references to locusts, and in that chapter the word is used 7 times. It’s enough to make one suspicious – suspicious that there’s a creation motif here, suspicious that the seven references might obliquely hint at the days of creation. Let’s follow that suspicion: 1. Yahweh threatens to bring locusts to cover the land, vv 4-5; Day 1: Waters cover the earth – the verb “cover” is first used of the flood waters that... Read more
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