Yeshua, the Woman at the Well, Thirst as a Clue
Thirst is a universal human experience. This is not just longing for water, but something else, a deeper satisfaction we are looking for, which is promised in many things but never quite satisfied. The following commentary and application of John…
Isaiah 40:12-17, The High View of Creation and Divine Power
From my DAILY ISAIAH notes sent out this morning on Isaiah 40:12-17. Note that the prophet alludes to a certain creation tradition but shows an awareness of greater sophistication about understanding creation (greater than the wisdom sages and greater for…
Introduction to Second Isaiah
Isaiah came down to us as a scroll. The first part of the scroll names Isaiah of Jerusalem sixteen times, all within chapters 1-39. The later two parts of the Isaiah collection never mention him even once. The subject matter…
The Number of Israelites and Realism in Bible Reading
What I say below about the number of Israelites in Sinai may be troubling for some people. It should not be. I am not motivated by a desire to cause people doubts about the Bible. Just the opposite, I believe…
Last Day Resurrection, a Jewish Concept
Some Greeks and Romans believed in the underworld, a place where people continue after death as shades or ghosts, like Patrocles in the Iliad who was mourned by Achilles in the central tragedy of the book. The Jewish prophets passed…
The Great Ingathering in Isaiah
Bring us home in peace from the four corners of the earth, and lead us upright into our land, for you are the God who brings salvation. -Siddur (Jewish Prayer Book), from the Ahavah Rabbah (a blessing before the Shema)….
Actively Waiting and Believing
Are we disciples of Isaiah? Is longing for the stages of arrival of the kingdom of heaven beneficial for Jews and Christians? If so, why? And what sorts of things should we expect? Every aspect of the kingdom of heaven’s…
Isaiah 35
A common message in Isaiah is a contrast between misplaced faith in the trappings of power versus a truer faith in the creation power of God which remakes things. What we need is a kind of visionary faith, a hope…
Noah and the Clean and Unclean Animals Issue
In Genesis 7:2, God commanded Noah to differentiate between clean and unclean animals, taking seven pairs each of the clean species and only one each of the unclean. Any alert reader should ask, “How does Noah know about clean versus…
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Naomi’s Hope, Our Hope
Return, my daughters, go, for I am too old for marrying. If I said there is hope for me, even if I married tonight and bore sons, would you wait until they were grown and keep yourselves from marrying? No,…