Month: August 2023

Week 35  Daniel 4

The meaning of Nebuchadnezzar’s Tree Dream is quite a bit more straightforward than some other dream interpretations. The huge tree is Nebuchadnezzar – plain & simple. The tree getting chopped down is the king falling from his high position.
The Lord gave Daniel that insider information about the dream. But then Daniel’s offered a ‘post-interpretation’ appeal to Nebuchadnezzar: please listen to me. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past by being merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper. I’m not sure but I kind of think this last piece of advice was Daniel’s idea (not the Lord’s).
It’s hard to figure since Daniel had just told the king that he was destined to be driven out of human society and would end up living with animals. And not just maybe. The message had said: this has been decreed. In other words it was definitely going to happen. But then Daniel added his hopeful However… “However if you repent, then maybe (just maybe) it won’t happen.”
Daniel was totally different from Jonah (who felt very good about a destructive outcome for his audience). But Daniel was scrambling around trying to find a work-around to avoid the (nasty) predicted outcome facing the king.

Note: quotes from Daniel 4:27 17 (NLT). End of August Reading Report: I’m in good shape. I finished Daniel today and with that finished the OT. Tomorrow is the biggest transition point of the reading year – moving from OT to NT.

Week 35  Daniel 3

Shadrach Meshach & Abednego (SM&A) are the only ones still standing. Acres and acres of people all around them are bowing to the statue. So SM&A are very conspicuous.
They could have complied in a theatrical act of conformity (“we’ll physically bow to the statue but in our hearts we’ll still be standing!”) I think that could have worked. But whatever their reason was SM&A decided that this wasn’t the time for secrecy. At this point, under these circumstances, they felt obligated to make a public point.
I remember the story of Hushai – Absalom’s advisor (but in deceptive reality he was David’s secret agent).
Obadiah was one of Evil King Ahab’s assistants (but in secret he was a God-fearing man).
After he is healed Naaman would still publicly support the idolatry of his king (but in his heart he believed in the Lord).
Some people in the bible hide their true loyalty for self-preservation’s sake. And that seems to be okay. But in this story SM&A decided they had to show their true colours.
I’m not sure that a public stand is the default in every circumstance. I’m guessing that there’s some personal decision-making & some ‘soul-searching’ going on before coming to that decision.
But this story shows me that sometimes a public stand is the best decision. That self-interest & self-preservation can’t always be my polestar.

Note: see Hushai in 2 Samuel 16:16-19. Obadiah in 1 Kings 18:2-4. Naaman in 2 Kings 5:17-18.

Week 34  Esther

I read Esther today. If some guy told me he was only going to read one book in the OT and asked me what I thought was the very best story I’d most likely say “read Esther”. Esther is easy to read because it’s pretty short but more importantly It’s a Great Great Story.
If the guy said “okay but what’s the story about?” I’d read him the condensed version from Esther: Haman had plotted to crush and destroy the Jews on the day and month he had determined by casting lots. But Esther begged the king and so he issued a decree causing Haman’s plot to backfire, and Haman was hanged on the gallows.
Esther is also pretty scarily contemporary. I don’t have to go back 2500 years to find another example of where Jewish people were so violently hated as an entire race that official & legalized & cool-headed steps were taken to totally exterminate them.
At the end of the story the Jewish exiles were saved and Mordecai & Esther set up a celebratory annual festival: the people agreed to inaugurate this tradition…and they declared they would never fail to celebrate these two days. I checked to see if they kept that promise and it looks like they did. The Purim festival is still celebrated as a day of joy, marked by merrymaking and feasting. And it’s easy to see why.

Note: quotes from Esther 9:24-25 (paraphrased) 9:27 (NLT) & The Columbia Encyclopedia 5th edition 1993 ‘Purim’

Week 34  Malachi 3

There’s a paragraph on religious allegiance near the end of Malachi that’s interesting because I think a lot of times religious people just kind of go along on auto-pilot and don’t even think about quitting. But Israel had come to a bit of an intersection. They were asking: what’s the use of serving God? (the way the question is asked gives me the impression that they figured ‘there’s no use’).
Anyway it’s a pretty good question since people do walk-away (and it’s pretty interesting to me because I wanted to see the reasons for walking). It turned out to be a practical and personal issue: What’s In Religion For Me? (their actual question was: what have we gained by obeying his commands or by trying to show the Lord that we are sorry for our sins?). What have we gained? So it’s a kind of As Long As I Get a Good Tangible Return I’ll Be Faithful.
And there was a secondary concern: people who do evil get rich, and those who dare God to punish them go free of harm. That wasn’t fair. If bad people succeed what’s the point of following the Lord?
Anyway walking away from faith would need a solid reason. And even though I don’t like to see bad people succeed while good people don’t those aren’t good enough reasons to leave the Lord. Not for me. Not by a long shot.

Note: quotes from Malachi 3:14 15 (NLT)

Week 33  Ezekiel 39

Ezekiel forecast that in the distant future Gog (a powerful enemy of Israel) would be defeated & annihilated. Ezekiel gave six details about the massive post-war clean-up operation:
1. A burial site would be designated on land east of the Dead Sea
2. An existing highway would have to be rerouted around the cemetery
3. The district – ‘Valley of the Travelers’ – would be renamed ‘Valley of Gog’s Hordes’
4. It would take seven months to bury most of the bodies
5. Special crews would continue searching for the remaining skeletons
6. A town named Hamonah would be near the cemetery.
For Ezekiel’s prophecy to be true the details would have to come true. Unfortunately for Gog those details would come too late to be of any personal use. But surviving observers could test Ezekiel’s forecast: here are six predictions. Do they actually happen?
Ezekiel was confident they would and that: from that time on the people of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God. Testing leads to Knowing.
It might be splitting-hairs but it’s probably safer to say that people “could know” or “might know” the Lord. Knowing-the-Lord wouldn’t be automatic or mandatory. I think it’s a good bet that some people might just look back at Gog and figure Ezekiel had his lucky horseshoe with him. And so those people wouldn’t end up knowing-the-Lord and the Gog Prophecy would be wasted on them. But that’s how prophecy seems to works.

Note: see the forecast in Ezekiel 39:9-16. Quote from 39:22 (NLT)

Week 33  Ezekiel 33

The Lord does a lot of assessing / evaluating / judging in Ezekiel. And sooner or later there’ll be consequences – quite a few of them not happy ones.
I guess every reader reacts a bit differently to this type of content. Sometimes Ezekiel’s threatening negativity is pretty mentally & emotionally numbing. And at some point the question crosses my mind: why does the Lord act the way he does?
Why-does-he-do-this? One simple & common answer to the question is that the Lord is just a goon. A heavyweight thug. So it’s helpful when I see this: as surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die? (I check a cross-reference from sixteen chapters back and it says almost the exact same thing).
In terms of the Lord’s preferences he a) does not like seeing bad people die and b) he’d like it better if bad people looked to him for help.
So an interview with the Lord would probably sound something like this:
Q: how do you feel about judging & punishing bad people?
A: I don’t like it at all. I wish I didn’t have to. There’s nothing good about people dying. I really wish they’d turn to me and live.
Today that’s a very good reminder.

Note: quotes from Ezekiel 33:11 18:23 (NLT)

Week 33  Ezekiel 25-32

In the first half of his book Ezekiel’s forecasts were mostly about Jerusalem. Then he turned to the international community. (A couple of years ago I noticed this eight-consecutive-chapter collection and read it in one sitting. I did that again this year.)
Ezekiel highlighted six nations (the average length of each prophecy works out to 31-verses. But none of them were even close: Ammon (7 verses) Moab (4) Edom (3) Philistia (3) Tyre (80) Egypt (90).)
Anyway while I was going through this section I saw that the phrase ‘then you will know’ was repeated again and again. For instance Ammon had mocked Israel when Solomon’s temple was desecrated and when the people were exiled (Ha Ha! What a hoot! Looks good on you Hebrews!) What the Ammonites didn’t know at the time was that a tribe of desert nomads would eventually overrun their own country & steal their food supplies & turn their country into a pasture. When that happened – Ezekiel said – then you will know… Ditto for Moab Edom Philistia Tyre & Egypt.
I wondered: what-all will they get to know?
I counted up the then-you-will-know phrase. It was there 18 times and in every case (except one) what they would come to know was that: I (the Lord) am the Lord (25:14 was a bit different).
My guess is that interested people could proactively search-and-discover that the-Lord-was-the-Lord prior to Ezekiel’s forecasted events. But one way of the other – either sooner or later – everyone would discover who the real Lord was.

Note: quote from Ezekiel 25:5 (NLT)

Week 33  Ezekiel 17

A multi-coloured eagle swooped down and plucked the top branch from a cedar tree and planted it in a city. Then it took a seed and planted it by a river. The seed grew into a healthy spreading vine that oriented itself toward the eagle. But then a second great eagle came along and the vine reoriented its growth so it was now growing toward the second eagle.
In Ezekiel’s riddle Eagle #1 wasn’t an eagle. Eagle #2 wasn’t an eagle either. The cedar wasn’t a tree and the vine wasn’t a vine. None of the things were the actual thing. And the audience was supposed to dope out what each of the things was.
Starting next month I’ll be reading the NT. Which means I’ll be reading the parables of the Lord. He used a similar teaching technique to Ezekiel – telling his audience indecipherable parables. The Lord’s opponents didn’t get them. And his own disciples didn’t get them either. Neither enemies nor friends got them.
The big difference was that the Lord’s enemies thought that he was a bit of a lunatic (although a dangerous one) and that his teaching was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. But his disciples – even though they had a sense of the mumbo-jumbo-ness of the parables – were intrigued by them.
The first group thought the parables were stupid and disregard-able.
The second group figured that the stupidity was more likely on their side and that what they needed was extra instructional input.

Week 32  Ezekiel 8-11

Ezekiel’s long vision starts geographically in Babylon. From there the Spirit lifted me (Ezekiel) into the sky and transported me in a vision to Jerusalem. Four chapters later the Spirit of God carried me back again to Babylon to the Judeans in exile.
Ezekiel’s vision left me with a few questions and one of them was: What / Who is the Man Dressed in the Linen Suit?
Ezekiel says that this man came into Jerusalem from the north. He was dressed in linen and carried a writer’s case strapped to his side. The man was given a specific task: walk through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of all those who weep because of the sins they see around them. So somehow he had an innate understanding of who loved the Lord and who despised him.
In the next chapter the Linen Man took live coals in his hand – which you wouldn’t normally expect someone to do.
So at first the Linen Man seems like a regular man. And he’s even called a man. But he has capacities a normal man doesn’t.
I checked a cross-reference in the margin. Daniel also saw a man dressed in linen. But that man had a body ‘that looked like a dazzling gem’.
Ezekiel’s man didn’t glow. But I think it’s safe to say he was some kind of agent of the Lord. Not just a regular guy.

Note: quotes from Ezekiel 8:3 11:24 9:2 4 Daniel 10:5-6 (NLT)

Week 32  Song of Solomon

I read Song of Solomon over the long week-end. All I had access to was an old King James version of the bible but that wasn’t a major obstruction since the Song uses language and ideas that are pretty straightforward and uncomplicated even in 500-year-old language. The big question with the Song is: what does it mean?
I read the Song in an ordinary way and at the end of my ordinary reading I didn’t see anything religious about it at all. It seemed pretty natural and normal and human.
There were quite a few references to the human body: skin cheeks neck breasts eyes hair hands nose head teeth lips tongue arms belly navel legs thigh feet.
Domestic and wild animals were mentioned: foxes stags sheep fillies gazelle deer doves lions panthers.
I didn’t make a list but there was fruit (like apples) & flowers (like lilies) & spices (like saffron).
It all seemed like things that were going on in this world.
I checked a word book. There was no mention of God. Or of the Lord. Or angels. Or the devil. Or sin. I didn’t see animal sacrifices or the Ten Commandments or Solomon’s Temple.
The Song sounds like a romantic poem about a guy & girl in love. But I wonder if it’s about more than a guy & girl in love. The Song seems unambiguous. But I don’t feel reassured that it is. And don’t feel I know what to do if it isn’t.