from old blogs

tidbits I've posted previously at other blogs:

Words

• adam, dam, and ivri [H0120, H1818, and H5680]

• agrammatos and idiotes [G0062 and G2399]

• debash [H1706]

• ekklesia and kerux [G1577 and G2783]

• epistrepho [G1994]

• evangelizo [G2097]

• hagios [G0040]

• hypokrites and talanton [G5273 and G5007]

• kilyah [H03629]

• kubeia and aporeo [G2940 and [G0639]

• makarios [G3107]

• yahweh, kyrios, adonai [H3068, G2692, and H136]

Passages

• Ezekiel 38:17

• Matthew 3:7

• Luke 11:13

• Psalm 41

• Psalm 47

• Zech. 1:8

AHRC on nasa

From the February 2008 issue(pdf) of the Ancient Hebrew Research Center Biblical Hebrew E-Magazine:

The Hebrew word behind "lift up" is [asn] (nasa, Strong's #5375) and means to take hold of something and lift it up, either to move or remove it. This very same Hebrew word is also used in the following verse.

Consider mine affliction and my travail; And forgive all my sins. (ASV,
Psalm 25:18)

From an Hebraic perspective, the forgiveness of sins is the same as lifting it off and removing it just as we see in Micah 7:19.

He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under
foot; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. (ASV)

The Hebrew word xlo (salahh, Strong's #5545) is also translated as forgive and is used in the following verse where the forgiveness of iniquity is being paralleled with the healing (or lifting up) of diseases.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives
all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases. (RSV, Psalm 103:2,3)

By investigating other words that are related to xlo (salahh) we can see that this word has a very similar meaning to asn (nasa).

dlo (salad, Strong's #5539) means "to leap up."
elo (sala, Strong's #5553) is a "cliff" (a wall that is lifted up).
qlo (salaq, Strong's #5559) means "to ascend."

continued ...

Sum Sekel

The title of this blog comes from one of my favorite phrases in the Bible, found in Nehemiah 8:8:

So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense [sum sekel], so that the people understood the reading.

This marvelous phrase says a mouthful, including at least two principles for this blog:

- Intepreting Scripture goes hand-in-hand with reading Scripture; reading and study should not be separated from each other.

- Translating Scripture has to be more than just an act of inserting lexical correspondences (an approach called "formal equivalance"); we look to the biblical languages to help "give the sense," not just to "give the words."