Exodus 19 – Some of the interesting observations made by the Schocken translator in his introduction to chapters 19-24 include the following: the mountain serves as a bridge between heaven and earth [Augustine would run with this image in his sermons]—and only Moses is permitted to ascend it.

Mt. Sinai itself never became a holy site for the Israelites.  The…

Job 2 – Again the Sons of God [and Satan] assemble, and again God praises Job. This time Satan asks to be given power to afflict Job’s “person,” or his personal “health” (2:4). Job is smitten with boils from head to foot. His wife seems annoyed at his patience with God. “’Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.’ (2:9)

Job responds to her with these words: “’You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand…

Genesis 2 – God rests on the seventh day.  The day therefore becomes blessed and hallowed. Then we go on to another story of man’s creation. It is not completely consistent with the details of the first, but its focus is wholly on the place of man in the creation, man’s role in “naming” all that is, and relations between the man and the woman created.

Here the creation of man occurs before the bringing forth of vegetation and rain upon the earth.  There was a…

Nahum 2 – Nineveh is under attack. “The enemy soldiers carry red shields and wear uniforms of red. They are preparing to attack! Their chariots flash like fire. Their horses prance” (2:3).

The attackers rush to the walls of the city and prepare their battering ram. “The gates by the river burst open; the palace is filled with terror. The queen is taken captive; her servants moan like doves and beat their breast in sorrow” (2:6-7).

“Like water from a…

1 Maccabees 13 – With Jonathan in Trypho’s custody, Simon takes over the leadership of the Jews. He gathers the people, encourages them and rekindles their spirit. He completes the planned fortifications.

Trypho assembles his army to invade and sends envoys to Simon demanding a ransom of 100 talents and two of Jonathan’s sons before he will free Jonathan. Simon prepares to pay it more to assuage the desires of the people than anything. He believes it is all a…

1 Maccabees 13 – With Jonathan in Trypho’s custody, Simon takes over the leadership of the Jews. He gathers the people, encourages them and rekindles their spirit. He completes the planned fortifications.

Trypho assembles his army to invade and sends envoys to Simon demanding a ransom of 100 talents and two of Jonathan’s sons before he will free Jonathan. Simon prepares to pay it more to assuage the desires of the people than anything. He believes it is all a…

Introductory Material on 1 Maccabees from Jerusalem Bible:

These two books are not in the Jewish canon. They are considered deuterocanonical by the Church. They are about Jewish resistance to the Seleucid dynasty of rulers, and about Jewish resistance to secularization in the form of Hellenism. The Jewish community is torn within itself by those who want to follow the dominant culture and those who stand by the traditions. The Maccabeas family leads the…

Judith 12 – Holofernes invites Judith to have dinner with him. She says she cannot eat his food – she might “incur some fault” if the food involves anything the Law considers unclean. She has brought her own food. Holofernes asks how they could get more of the foods she can eat if she runs out. She says, “Never fear, my lord, the Lord will have used me to accomplish his plan before your servant has finished these provisions” (12:4).

She goes out each night to pray.…

Sirach 41 – On Thoughts of Death: “O death, your sentence is welcome to a man in want, whose strength is failing, to a man worn out with age, worried about everything, disaffected and beyond endurance” (40:3-4).

But we should not fear death in any case. It is “the sentence passed on all living creatures by the Lord” (40:4). 

Reputation: “Be careful of your reputation, for it will last you longer than a thousand great hoards of god. A good life…

Sirach 40 – On Fear of Death: A “heavy yoke lies on the sons of Adam from the day they come out of their mother’s womb, till the day they return to the mother of them all. What fills them with brooding and their hearts with fear is dread of the day of death” (40:1-2).

Life is all “fury and jealousy, turmoil and unrest, fear of death, rivalry [and] strife” (40:4). Despite this pessimism, the writer believes in the end “all bribery and injustice will be blotted out”…

Sirach 17 – “The Lord fashioned man from the earth, to consign him back to it. He gave them so many days’ determined time; he gave them authority over everything on earth. He clothed them with strength like his own, and made them in his own image” (17:1-3).

“He filled them with knowledge and understanding, and revealed to them good and evil. He put his own light in their hearts to show them the magnificence of his works” (17:7-8).

“Their eyes saw his…

Sirach 14 – “Happy the man whose own soul does not accuse him, and who has never given up hope” (14:2).

I can relate to this one very deeply. I have not always been a “believer.” Or, it’s more complicated than that – I have not always felt comfortable with the very deep sense I always seemed to have that there was/is a God. I’ve always had a deep intuition that there must be, but my “reason” has not always been comfortable with that intuition. For some years I just…

1 Kings 5 – Hiram of Tyre (a great friend of David’s) sent his servants to help Solomon build the temple David had planned for but not built.  Solomon explains to Hiram that David never had the peace he needed to build the Temple; there were endless threats on his borders. But Solomon now has the peace needed to devote himself to the task. They get their timber from Lebanon – cedar and cypress. The king had it made into rafts and sent by sea.  In return, Solomon will provide food to…

2 Samuel 18 – David organizes his men into three groups: one under Joab, one under Abishai (Joab’s brother) and one under Ittai the Gittite (Gath was a city in Philistia on the Mediterranean).  David wants to go out with them, but they prevail upon him to remain in the city to send help if they need it.  As they go out David says to them, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.  And all the people heard when the king gave orders to all the commanders concerning Absalom”…

2 Samuel - I know it might seem to make more sense to start the books of Samuel with 1 Samuel, but I am following Year Two of my scripture plan. I love both books. The story of the transition from the era of "judges" to that of the "kings" is fascinating. We are skipping over Saul's time to the rise of David. The second book of Samuel centers on David's consolidation of power and the later weakening of his rule over the kingdom and his own family. 

 …

Gen. 46 - At Beer-sheba, God appears to Jacob in a vision and for the last time (at night) repeats the promise of making him a great nation, even though there will be a sojourn in Egypt.  God had previously forbidden Isaac from going down into Egypt during a famine (26:1-2) as he had forbidden him to go back to Haran, but Jacob is permitted these journeys away from the land of Canaan.  All his offspring in the migration are listed.  The total number of offspring Jacob has in…

There are a good many interesting things in the story of the "fall" but the things most interesting to me in the past have been what I mentioned yesterday

1. The nature of the "death" that Adam and Eve suffer as a result of their disobedience?

2. The "fallen" nature of our lives on this earth, and do we continue to live in that fallen world/nature?

3. What Christians and especially early Quakers understood about what you might call God's "Ur-Promise"…