Proverbs 4:23 (Modified Talk)

Proverbs 4:23: מִֽכָּל־מִ֭שְׁמָר נְצֹ֣ר לִבֶּ֑ךָ כִּֽי־מִ֝מֶּ֗נּוּ תֹּוצְאֹ֥ות חַיִּֽים׃

HCSB: "Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life."

Why is it so important to safeguard our figurative heart? The Bible book of Proverbs mentions the heart almost 100 times, and in this context, the heart refers to the "inner person." As the January 2019 WT notes, the inner person refers to our private thoughts, feelings, motives, and desires; it's who we genuinely are--not who we appear to be (1 Peter 3:3-4).

When contemplating the history of ancient Israel, we find that most members of the nation did not safeguard their hearts (Hebrews 3:7-13); even King Solomon allowed his heart to be led astray by a harem of pagan wives (Nehemiah 13:26-27). Therefore, how can we safeguard our hearts today?

Play the video and ask the questions.

Some Ways that Satan Tries to Mislead Us Today:

A) False Religion
B) Greed and love for material things
C) Sexual Immorality
D) Discouragement
E) Discontent
F) Doubt

We can safeguard our heart by studying, meditating on, and applying the Bible. Prayer, the Christian ministry and meetings are essential too. Also, work hard to fight fleshly desires.

Limping Upon "Two Crutches"? (1 Kings)

1 Kings 18:21

Hebrew: וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ אֵלִיָּ֜הוּ אֶל־כָּל־הָעָ֗ם וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ עַד־מָתַ֞י אַתֶּ֣ם פֹּסְחִים֮ עַל־שְׁתֵּ֣י הַסְּעִפִּים֒ אִם־יְהוָ֤ה הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ לְכ֣וּ אַחֲרָ֔יו וְאִם־הַבַּ֖עַל לְכ֣וּ אַחֲרָ֑יו וְלֹֽא־עָנ֥וּ הָעָ֛ם אֹתֹ֖ו דָּבָֽר׃

The part that has long fascinated me about this verse is why Elijah spoke of Israel "limping" on two different opinions or being "paralyzed by indecision" (NET Bible).

NET Ftn: tn Heb “How long are you going to limp around on two crutches?” (see HALOT 762 s.v. סְעִפִּים). In context this idiomatic expression refers to indecision rather than physical disability.

William Barnes (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary): "How much longer will you waver, hobbling between two opinions? This is not a conscious reference back to Obadiah, but not entirely incidental to him either. The Hebrew idiom here is akin to our English expression 'sitting on the fence.' Obadiah had finally come down publicly on Elijah’s side in 18:16, but the people here would still remain publicly uncommitted until after the fire fell from heaven (18:39)."

Proverbs 19:11 and Sekel

HCSB: "A person’s insight gives him patience, and his virtue is to overlook an offense."

NRSV: "Those with good sense are slow to anger, and it is their glory to overlook an offense."

I'm going to focus on the word translated "insight" or "good sense."

The Hebrew word rendered "insight" or "prudence" (Bruce Waltke) is sekel (שֵׂ֣כֶל): it occurs elsewhere in 1 Chronicles 22:12; 26:14, etc. Compare Daniel 8:25.

Concerning the passage above from Daniel,  Zdravko Stefanovic writes (Daniel, page 317): 

" 'Through his cunning.' The key term in this expression is sekel, 'wisdom,' which in its general usage is positive but in this context has a negative meaning. Some translate it here as 'crafty scheming.' "

However, 1 Chronicles 22:12 (Legacy Standard Bible) states: "Only Yahweh give you insight and understanding, and give you command over Israel, so that you may keep the law of Yahweh your God."

This is a positive use of sekel. TDOT likewise makes these remarks, and I encourage you to read the whole entry found in Vol. XIV: 125-126:

Ecclesiastes 3:11-"eternity in their hearts"

What did Qoheleth mean when he wrote that God "put eternity" (הָעֹלָם֙) in the heart of man? And how does the last part of the verse connect with the preceding portion?

Robert Alter (The Hebrew Bible: A Translation): "Everything He has done aptly in its time. Eternity, too, He has put in their heart, without man’s grasping at all what it is God has done from beginning to end."

Alter's Footnote: "The Hebrew ʿolam means 'eternity' in the biblical language, though some interpreters argue that here it has the sense of 'world' that it carries in rabbinic Hebrew—that is, God has planted in the human heart the love of the world. It seems more likely that the intended meaning is: man is conscious of the idea of eternity (Qohelet as philosopher surely is), but that is the source of further frustration, for he is incapable of grasping 'what it is God has done from beginning to end.' Other interpreters reverse the second and third consonants of ʿolam to yield ʿamal, 'toil.' "

See also https://www.academia.edu/3770261/A_Reexamination_of_Eternity_in_Ecclesiastes_3_11

Johann Cook's Proverbs 8:22-23 Remarks (Screenshot)

 

Some Research Concerning Deuteronomy 32:43

Deuteronomy 32:43

Hebrew Text (Leningrad Codex): הַרְנִ֤ינוּ גֹויִם֙ עַמֹּ֔ו כִּ֥י דַם־עֲבָדָ֖יו יִקֹּ֑ום וְנָקָם֙ יָשִׁ֣יב לְצָרָ֔יו וְכִפֶּ֥ר אַדְמָתֹ֖ו עַמֹּֽו׃ פ

Aramaic Targum Jonathan: "Rejoice, ye nations, (and) ye people of Beth Israel; for the blood of His servants which was shed, He hath avenged. He hath kept (in mind) and returned just vengeance upon His adversaries, and by His Word will He make Atonement for His land, and for His people."

LXX: εὐφράνθητε οὐρανοί ἅμα αὐτῷ καὶ προσκυνησάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες υἱοὶ θεοῦ εὐφράνθητε ἔθνη μετὰ τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐνισχυσάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι θεοῦ ὅτι τὸ αἷμα τῶν υἱῶν αὐτοῦ ἐκδικᾶται καὶ ἐκδικήσει καὶ ἀνταποδώσει δίκην τοῖς ἐχθροῖς καὶ τοῖς μισοῦσιν ἀνταποδώσει καὶ ἐκκαθαριεῖ κύριος τὴν γῆν τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ.

NETS Translation of the LXX:




Deuteronomy 32 from Scroll 4Q44 Deuteronomyq:

Rejoice, you nations heavens, with his people,

and bow down to him, all gods,

for he will avenge the blood of his servants sons.

He will take vengeance on his adversaries,

And avenge those who hate him,

and will make atonement for his land and for his people.

In a doctoral dissertation, “Angels and Sub-Divine Supernatural Beings: Their Characteristics, Function, and Relationship to God and Humanity in Deuteronomy-Kings,” (pages 29-31), Joni Amanda McGuire-Moushon makes these observations:

Deuteronomy 32:8 is relevant in the context of angels in the book. Although the MT has “sons of Israel” in this verse, in agreement with the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Tg., the DSS (4Q37 12:14) reads “sons of God,”29 while the LXX instead reads “angels of God.”30 Cunchillos argues that the DSS reading is older than the MT reading.31 Tigay and Heiser likewise prefer the DSS reading,32 and this study adopts this view as well. A similar situation is found in Deut 32:43, in which the MT has “Rejoice nations, His people,” as does the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Tg. is similar. The DSS reads “Heavens rejoice with him and bow to him all gods” (4Q44 f5ii:7-8). 33 The LXX is quite different from the MT, including the additions of the “sons of God” and “angels of God.”34

Therefore, a potentially older manuscript tradition contains more references to supernatural beings within Deuteronomy. Again, the texts (in this case DSS and LXX) do not deny that these are real beings, nor are they characterized as worthless (unlike in 32:17). Rather, the focus is on the supremacy of YHWH and the covenant between YHWH and Israel.

Compare Deuteronomy 4:19; 4:35, 39; 6:4.

See https://biblicalelearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/0-DeuteronomyBibliography.pdf

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3806/1/3806_1367.pdf

Nathan Macdonald’s dissertation

Job 1:5,11--A Euphemism?

NLT: "But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!"

The Hebrew word barak appears here (בָרַךְ), a term that normally means "to bless" (Genesis 2:3; 12:3). 

BDB entry for barak: "bless, with the antithetical meaning curse (Thes) from the greeting in departing, saying adieu to, taking leave of; but rather a blessing overdone and so really a curse as in vulgar English as well as in the Shemitic cognates: 1 Kings 21:10,13; Job 1:5,11; Job 2:5,9; Psalm 10:3."

John Gray (The Book of Job, page 121): "MT uberaku (lit. ‘and blessed’), a regular euphemism of the orthodox scribes, to whom ‘curse God’ was intolerable."

Commenting on Job 1:5, John E. Hartley offers this perspective (The Book of Job, page 65): 

"The word translated 'curse,' barak (also in 2:5,9), which usually means 'bless,' is used euphemistically. Many consider it a scribal change for an original qillelu (which Targ. reads here), but there is no reason why this euphemistic style may not have been original."

Commenting on Job 1:5, Robert Alden writes (Job, NAC):  “ 'Curse' is the translation of the common brk that ordinarily means 'bless.' The context makes clear that brk is intended here as a euphemism. Such a diametrically opposite meaning occurs again at 1:11; 2:5,9."

In a footnote, Alden adds:  "Used in this polar sense brk occurs also in 1 Kgs 21:10,13; Ps 10:3. E. Tov (Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 272) explains that it could be either a scribal change or a euphemism used by the original author."

Compare Douglas Mangum. "Euphemism in Biblical Hebrew and the Euphemistic ‘bless’ in the Septuagint of Job." 

October 2020. 

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 76(4).

DOI:10.4102/hts.v76i4.6140

Another source that explains these Job verses in terms of a potential euphemism or scribal substitution is Robert Alter's The Hebrew Bible.

Genesis 21:25: Example of a Frequentative?

Based on my past experiences, Blogger doesn't like Hebrew text, but I'm going to try anyway. Okay, I had to put the Hebrew characters last, then type everything else above them. But the point I want to make in this entry is that Wilhelm Gesenius (the notable lexicographer) seemed to think Gen. 21:25 could be frequentative, but I want to post his words here in order to present his exact understanding of the verse:

(b) The text is certainly corrupt in Is 40⁶ (read with the LXX and Vulgate וָאֹֽמַר); Jer 38²⁸, where the narrative breaks off in the middle of the sentence; 40:3 (וְהָיָה, &c., wanting in the LXX); also in Ju 7¹³ וְנָפַל הָאֹהֶל is altogether redundant; in 1 S 3¹³ read, with Klostermann, the 2nd sing. masc. instead of והגדתי; in 1 K 21¹² וְהשִׁ֫יבוּ is, no doubt, incorrectly repeated from verse 9, where it is an imperative.

rr Of other questionable instances, (α) the following, at any rate, may also be explained as frequentatives, Gn 21²⁵, 49²³, Ex 36³⁸, 38²⁸, 39³, 1 S 5⁷, 17²⁰, 24¹¹ (but even so וְאָֽמְרוּ would be expected); 2 K 23¹², Is 28²⁶ (parallel with an imperfect); Am 5²⁶ (unless it is rather, yea, ye shall take up; see above, x); ψ 26³, Ezr 8³⁶.

NABRE: Abraham, however, reproached Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized by force.

בְּאֵר הַמַּיִם, אֲשֶׁר גָּזְלוּ עַבְדֵי אֲבִימֶלֶךְ. כה  וְהוֹכִחַ אַבְרָהָם, אֶת-אֲבִימֶלֶךְ, עַל-אֹדוֹת

Psalm 139:16 and The Rendering, "Embryo"

Oxford Languages Definition for "Embryo":

an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, in particular a human offspring during the period from approximately the second to the eighth week after fertilization (after which it is usually termed a fetus).

Some choose to render the Hebrew word golem in Psalm 139:16 as "unformed substance" or something to that effect, but Brown-Driver and Briggs (BDB) Hebrew-English Lexicon tells us that golem is a word at times used for the "embryo." Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon likewise says that golem refers to something "rolled together" or "rude and unformed matter, not yet wrought, the parts of which are not yet unfolded and developed." It then states that the word is used "of the embryo." The word occurs one time in the Hebrew Bible.

Nancy Declaisse-Walford prefers the translation "unshaped form" for the Hebrew word, which she points out is a hapax legomenon (Latin for a saying that happens once). She writes: "In Babylonian Aramaic, the word is used to designate a formless mass or an incomplete vessel. The Syriac word galmā means 'uncultivated soil.' "

Declaisse-Walford is critical of the translation, "embryo" because she thinks it is too precise and potentially misleading, probably in light of what the ancients knew about embryology. However, as we have seen, two lexicons (BDB and Gesenius) give embryo as the term's potential sense, even if that is not the strict meaning. Some translations opt for "before I was born" language in Psalm 139:16 (NET Bible). Yet see the entry for golem in HALOT.

A recent translation of the Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter renders the word "unformed shape." In my humble assessment, whether one handles the word like Alter does or like the NWT and other Bibles, it seems that David did not know (at least not in any great detail) as we do today that a baby goes through an embryonic state which differs markedly from the fetal state. One cannot know such things in any great detail without modern technology, but the ancients knew that babies were conceived, started out real tiny, then began to grow bigger. We call the early stage "embryonic."

Having said the foregoing, I see nothing wrong with the NWT handling of the verse: it communicates what we would understand by "unformed substance" in the womb. As you all know, when it comes to babies, there are even finer distinctions we could make, like talk about the blastocyst. But none of these tangential matters were likely David's inspired concern.

What Are Some Commentators Saying About Daniel 1:17?

Divination (Merriam-Webster):

1: the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers

2: unusual insight : intuitive perception

When I refer to "divination" here, I mean definition (1).

Some scholars think there is an approved form of divination in the Bible: I disagree. Granted, certain supposed servants of Jehovah (YHWH) practiced divination and they even consulted the dead at times. However, I find no place in Scripture where God approved such practices. As a matter of fact, in more than one place or time period, the Bible explicitly forbids divination. See https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Divination

https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Magic-Sorcery

https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Divination

Compare https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0287.xml

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bullbiblrese.29.2.0139

But what about Daniel 1:17? Does it prove that the prophet Daniel practiced divination? While there will never be unanimous consent on this question in the present age, I would like to post what some scholars have noted about this verse.

Anchor Bible Commentary on Daniel (Hartman, Louis Francis, and Di Lella, Alexander A.): "In the ancient Near East, ritual and ascetical purification was always regarded as a necessary preparation for contact with the deity and as a prerequisite for receiving mystical revelations. But even stronger emphasis was laid on this idea in the Hellenistic age, as evidenced by the practices of the Therapeutae, the Essenes, and the Qumran sectaries. Thus, our heroes too obtain their deeper knowledge and wisdom by fasting and apparently, since no reference is made anywhere in the book to wives or children of these men, also by celibacy. Our author, however, is careful to note that the superior knowledge and wisdom of these men came, not as a direct result of their asceticism, but as a gift from God."

Daniel: Wisdom Commentary to the Wise (Stefanovic, Zdravko, page 69): "Among the four Hebrews, Daniel excelled because God gave him the ability to interpret visions and dreams of all kinds. If wisdom was a highly priced virtue in Babylon, the ability to explain dreams was supreme there. In fact, the topic of visions and dreams was the favorite field of study among the Babylonians. In the Bible, on the other hand, God speaks through dreams (Gen. 28:10-22; 1 Kings 3:5) but not through the other forms of divination that the Babylonians practiced. "Dream interpretation is one mode of divine revelation understood by Babylonians and accepted by pious Israelites."78 Divine wisdom meets people where they are.79 It was not a mere coincidence that 'of all the various divinatory 'techniques' used in the ANE [Ancient Near East], only dreams and dream interpretations find an acceptable place within orthodox Hebrew religion.'80The statement about Daniel given here prepares the reader for the rest of the stories in the book, in which Daniel exhibits this ability to interpret dreams on more than one occasion. It is best to credit his ability to interpret dreams to his life of prayer and to the revelations given to him by God. This prepared him for the role that he assumed later as described in the story in chapter 2. It has been correctly observed that 'with the possible exceptions of Moses (Acts 7:22) and Solomon, Daniel was the most learned man in the Old Testament.'81"

Daniel in the OTL Series (Carol Newsom, page 51): "Nebuchadnezzar’s command concerning the education of the young men in v. 5 clearly assumed that the instruction he provided, like the food, would produce the results he desired. Here, however, their proficiency in the learned literature of the Babylonian curriculum comes from God. A second note distinguishes Daniel from his three companions through his special competency in understanding visions and dreams, gifts he will display in chs. 2 and 4. The interpretation of dreams was never a particularly important part of Mesopotamian manticism and was not a specialized technical divinatory practice (Husser 27–29, 38) nor a consistent concern of Mesopotamian monarchs, although the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus was preoccupied with revelatory dreams (Beaulieu 1989, 108–13). The focus on dreams and visions as means of divine revelation in Daniel reflects more the interests of emergent Jewish apocalypticism and may be seen as part of the author’s negotiation with the cultural context of the Mesopotamian Diaspora. even as the story cycle acknowledges the status of Babylonian divinatory science, it imaginatively creates a world in which the knowledge that the king vitally needs is the kind of knowledge cultivated not by Babylonian diviners but by Jewish manticism. Thus the narrative shifts the cultural contest to a framework in which the Jewish figures have a divinely granted advantage."

Is Daniel 8:25 MT Textually Reliable? (Comments by Holger Gzella)

 

Latin Vulgate (Jerome):

secundum voluntatem suam et dirigetur dolus in manu eius et cor suum magnificabit et in copia rerum omnium occidet plurimos et contra principem principum consurget et sine manu conteretur

"According to his will, and craft shall be successful in his hand: and his heart shall be puffed up, and in the abundance of all things he shall kill many: and he shall rise up against the prince of princes, and shall be broken without hand"

See https://vulgate.org/ot/daniel_8.htm

Why Does Genesis 1:27 Contain A Definite Noun? (Barry Bandstra)

 From Barry Bandstra, Genesis 1-11: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text, page 95: