Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Platitudes are often sayings whose truthfulness is so apparent, so accepted, and so repeated that they are divested of their power and in fact become the object of ridicule. Their failure lies in their fame, and the contempt they invite is bred by their familiarity. To say that children are…
Click here to download the Translation Here we have the seven-fold Voice of Yahweh, bracketed by two sets of four lines about Yahweh. The central seven-fold Voice section uses "Yahweh" ten times, for a total in this psalm of eighteen usages of "Yahweh" (3 x 3 x 2). The psalm,…
As Adam and Eve walked to the Garden of Eden to meet with Yahweh on their first Sabbath they conversed about the origin and age of the earth. Adam: You know, honey, we spent a lot of time yesterday making preparations for this house, and we still have an awful…
Knowing His paths through Moses and David, in the darkness of the prophets we yet walk in His light. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted…
These days, to be “candid” is to be frank, honest, genuine. But the word didn’t always mean that. It used to be the name for a virtue that we don’t really have a name for anymore. Its obsolete meaning is “kindliness”: a disposition to think well of others, a tendency…
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“A s a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion” (Proverbs 11:22). During his courtship with his future wife, a friend of mine wrote a note and cited a Proverb at the end. He meant Proverbs 22:11. He put Proverbs 11:22. They…
D avid and Solomon traded in gold from “Ophir.” Later Jehoshaphat attempted to revive the trade route, but failed when his ships sank. Ophir—now where might that be? Truth is, nobody knows. In Seafaring Lore and Legend , Peter Jeans summarizes some of the tantalizing possibilities: “The ancient ruins discovered…
I n an old Paris Review interview with Robert Frost, the interviewer mentions a poet who writes from six to nine every morning. Frost responds with, “I don’t know what that would be like, myself,” and then adds about writing couplets: Very first one I wrote I was walking home…
S tephen Halliwell begins his Greek Laughter by calling attention to the difference between philosophical and poetic notions of divine laughter. Most Greeks had no doubt that “laughter (and smiles) had an important place in the divine realm; a deity incapable of laughter was the exception, not the rule.” Homer…
R obert Provine ( Curious Behavior ) notes that we can't laugh on command, and that tells a lot about our laughter and ourselves. In his experiments, he found that it took longer for people to laugh on command than to say “ha, ha.” That “indicates that laughter is not…
D avid assembles the leaders of Israel for Solomon's coronation (1 Chronicles 28–29; cf. 29:22), and, even more importantly, to encourage them to contribute skill, energy, and material to the temple, King Yahweh's fortress. Judged by terminology used elsewhere in the Old Testament, his descriptions of the temple are eccentric.…
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