A little more on Help

Nowhere in the ancient texts can I find a reference to b`ezrat HaShem.

The three texts in the Psalter with keyword like 'B`ZR%' are
from Psalm 35:2 - a petition: Rise to my help וְקוּמָה, בְּעֶזְרָתִי
and Psalm 118 - a statement of assurance: יְהוָה is to me as my helper יְהוָה לִי, בְּעֹזְרָי
and Psalm 146 - a statement of hope: אַשְׁרֵי--שֶׁאֵל יַעֲקֹב בְּעֶזְרוֹ Happy is the one who has the God of Jacob for his help

(`ZR is used 40 times in the Psalter.)
Not only is the ayin lost in transliteration, but any conditional sentiment (if the Lord will help) is not there. While God as Help is definitely in the text, it is always as promise - The Lord will help us and speedily, or as prayer - O Lord make haste to help us, or as failure (Lamentations). There is nothing passive that I can find that corresponds to the opportunism or even fatalism implied in Deo volente. Rather faith is active by urgent petition or confidence, and God promises to be present to faith whatever the outcome. Help is never conditional.

VI. SERMO IN MONTE, Occasio, Beatitudines

We will come to the answer later in the Lord's sermon. Beloved, I promised this to you some time ago, but my duties in the fields and in the city have prevented me from continuing my translation. Now here is an earlier part of the sermon, the beginning. Matthew and Luke record it. You can see the rest of his record in the coloured threads as before. We do not yet see the answer to the question of how to cut off our limbs without blood, but there are hints.

Here is my translation for you - you who are now so distant. I wonder if you remember the estate at Corinth where you delivered your posts to our master Gaius so often.

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Beati pauperes spiritu: quoniam ipsorum est regnum cælorum

I wrestle with this word blessed, Beloved. Beati is not the right word in your tongue, but there are so many decisions to make when translating. When I grew up the word was happy. Felicitas would be a closer approximation to the Hebrew I hear behind the Greek and to the Greek itself. If we are happy, then it is the Most High who is blessed.You are to be happy, Beloved. What other prayer could I have for you.

- a company of evildoers have closed in on me
- young lions they are, voracious
- how can I say that I will not lack any good

Why though, does the Master teach such opposites? I have inherited this enormous estate. I am better off than the owner's son who surely was poor in spirit. I remember what Gaius told me about him.

I had dutifully married, but not well. My wife was not gentle in her use of our products. Too much wine filled our house. After our son was born, we drifted away from each other, as if having a premonition of what he would become. We divorced. He grew up on the estate, an affectionate but unruly child. When he reached adolescence, he spent his time at the gaming houses and the temples on the Acrocorinth. I seldom saw him except when he ran out of money. One day at the Pirene springs, he was in a fight. Impulsive, he hit a man much stronger than he, and he was removed from the earth and flung against the rocks. I suspect that his adversary, as impulsive as he was, was also from a womb filled with too much wine as Aristotle has recorded.

What happiness is this? Surely troubles came to this man. Yet later I also came to him as a blessing and almost a substitute for his troubled son. What shall I do who am now rich in this world's goods? Will woes apply to me?

It has not been so, and if it were, if I were to be classed with the wicked, I would have to welcome it as if I were with my Lord himself, for that was his lot. If I were without his correction and judgment, I would worry more. If I were without his consolation, I would worry more. But I do not judge either the one nor the other. I do what I can in the day that the opportunity is given to me.

How could Uncle Mark have left out such teaching? Yet he did, carissime. The single eye that he had did not allow him to distract the reader with anything that would draw attention away from his focus - at least not yet. So also there is little mention of his most recent teacher, Simon Peter, except where his character teaches us our own. This prominence of Peter he leaves to Matthew and John. I say – 'not yet', for Mark has such a sense of humour as we might not imagine if we are very serious. When you get to the young man in the garden and in the open tomb, you will see what I mean. There the distraction is deliberate.

God willing

This phrase is common in English and as d.v. Deo volente in Latin. Recently I have heard Bizrat Hashem for a modern Hebrew equivalent. Where do you think this phrase has its roots? What is the ancient Hebrew it comes from?

I look forward to someone's helpful response - thank you in advance.

[Update - Yariv Aloni of the Galiano Ensemble here in Victoria provided me with the clue - the word is b`ezerat - clearly meaning NOT God willing, but with God's help - much more positive and less - what is that word - deterministic, fatalistic... At a party at the moment - will do some more research on the origins of this phrase later]

An original blogger

Bob cited Sir Francis Bacon - on Studies - a quotation remembered from childhood. I did learn something at school. But until I looked up the essay in my own little book from 54 years ago, c1954!!! (first published 1903) OUP, edited W. Peacock, I was unable to find the quote online. The whole essay is here.

STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.
Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring;
for ornament, is in discourse;
and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business.

For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learnèd.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth;
to use them too much for ornament, is affectation;
to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar.

Worth the read - just for the rhetoric.

My life is 9's. I am 63, il y a trois jours. A complete set (7) of 9's in this indivisible year.

Harvest time

We were having chicken the other night - sorry to all you vegetarians out there, but I was remembering last year's awesome apple jelly which we made from my son Jeremy's apple tree in Duncan. Jeremy is one special man - almost middle aged at what - 37 years - now. He lives in a little house in Duncan and he loves to care for house and garden. This year he pruned the apple tree and I wondered if he had pruned it too much - but look at these - lots of apples and apple jelly to come. (The cider was not, alas, successful last year.)

We were up to Duncan yesterday on my birthday. Here it is a day later, and we still have not had a piece of the cake Diana made for our September birthdays. (James, the youngest, is on the 13th. Whether we see him or not is always a guess.)

Here is a view from our door that opens on the west: the sun setting at 8:20 pm is another sign that the fall is near.

From Genesis to Chronicles

Some of Gerhard von Rad's essays are in this book in English, collected and published under the editing of K. C. Hanson, Fortress Press 2005. I have read just a couple so far on the Psalms.

He raises some interesting questions - like the one on a doctrine of creation - is it always used in relation to redemption or does it have a stand-alone aspect? His 'answer' is that the apparent stand-alone quality of creation is derived from Egyptian doctrine, but for the Israelite, the doctrine is usually expressed as related to redemption. I have not expressed his conclusions very well, but this is what I 'get' on a second read of the essay.

I think there might be some mileage in the idea - but I think I would explore it from the point of view of creation - Is there any aspect of creation in the 'Old Testament' that does stand alone without a doctrine of redemption? If there is not - and I might accept that this is not an 'obvious' conclusion - to use one of von Rad's favorite words, - if there is not a stand-alone doctrine of creation, it is because redemption was a known requirement in all times, in all cults, and from the beginning. The Omega knew in the Alpha that reality required the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.

The second essay is on righteousness - and it is here that I find his repeated use of the word 'obvious' irritating. What is obvious to him is not to me. I will say more later on the problem of righteousness in the Psalms - a very good question again and he has framed it well and clearly in the essay.

The body's grace (11)

Please note the shared item to the left on this blog from Mike Highton. I left a comment, but such is the difficulty of signing in etc I have saved it here in case it got lost in the ether.

Are comments important? This one is. The debate over same-sex relationships seldom gets to the need for all - gay or straight - to conform themselves to the death of Christ. That means, folks, that you cannot desire anything or act or talk or walk - cause you have died. (In your baptism of course). So whatever is good or bad in you has died - the whole thing. Not just the parts you don't like.

Then - after your death - this is your first death - Then, I say, when the voice of your creator rings in your ears - Well-done, good and faithful servant, you have overcome through my blood - Then I say, - Then you will begin to learn. The kingdom does not come about by our strength or by our morality or by our will. And your 'then' will work backwards and forwards in your time, redeeming it, showing you how your God was leading you before you even knew, discovering grace where you saw only disorientation, finding you awake instead of asleep.

Now - after my short ranting sermon, this was my comment on Mike's very well reasoned essays.

Hi again - no I don't disagree. I don't actually think either you or Rowan go far enough. I agree that our sexuality is far more central than not. Also I agree that 'natural' is a weak argument against same sex relations. I think you have done very well in this whole series of essays. I have shred [sic - I meant shared] them all on one of my blogs. You achieve the highest score when you write in the person of your interlocutor:

>>I want to live in obedience to God; I truly, prayerfully and conscientiously do not recognise Romans 1 as describing what I am or what I want. I am not rejecting something I know in the depths of my being.<<

What then must also be said - is "and I have come to this knowledge of my person through the death of Jesus. It is by him in the Spirit and the unexpected glory of his resurrection that I now begin to know myself. And that knowledge matures and embraces my being - it does not deny it as those who reject my desire out of hand would deny it."

Need it be said that the same consecration of desire must be known by the heterosexual also. If it is so known then I doubt that the heterosexual will apply Romans 1 out of its rhetorical context. This is not a simple slam-dunk argument that Paul is making, but the beginning of a 55 step sequence in 10 parts that does not get to its end till chapter 12. (Some do not like the end of chapter 12 - see my recent translation of psalm 34 for a real life comment from another elder and friend.)