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Week 27  Isaiah 5

Isaiah says that destruction is certain for you who buy up land so others have no place to live… What would this look in 2024?
Let’s say I’m a rich guy and I buy up properties & houses and then improve them so I can sell them to lower-income people at affordable prices so they get started and get ahead and eventually succeed. Nothing much wrong with buying to help others who can’t.
The other option – the kind that Isaiah is talking about – is more like this. Let’s say I’m a rich guy and I buy up a lot of properties. Poor people can’t afford a house so they have to rent space from me. And I keep my rents high enough that my renters are stuck. They never get ahead. But I do.
It’s a slightly different situation but I heard about a billionaire who’s buying up a lion’s-share of the farmland south of the border. I wonder why.
It’s possible he’s going to grow affordable crops so that poorer people don’t get ripped-off and have to go hungry during a food-crisis. Nothing much wrong with that.
But what if he’s buying land so he can a) control agricultural production and b) set high food prices and c) make a big profit so that d) poor people can barely afford food? Well then he’ll be in the driver’s seat. But according to Isaiah only temporarily.

Note: quote from Isaiah 5:8 (NLT). Reading report end-of-June: 679 of 1189 chapters = 57%.

Week 26  Isaiah 1 

This is a good section on religious practice. It’s a reminder that the obvious & visible religious & ceremonial parts of religion (for instance killing an animal for a burnt offering) will only get me so far. Isaiah makes that pretty clear right up front. The Lord is sick of Israel’s religious practices:
Animal sacrifices? Sick-of-them
Incense? Sick-of-it
Religious festivals? Sick-of-them
Fasting? Sick-of-it
Prayers? Sick-of-them.
It’s a serious situation when the Lord is sick of religion.
Isaiah doesn’t leave it there. He tells them why the Lord is sick-of-religion: because your hands are covered with the blood of your innocent victims (so…formal religious practice + bloody hands = sickening religion).
Fortunately Isaiah gives the Lord’s starter solution: wash yourselves and be clean. Let me no longer see your evil deeds. Give up your wicked ways.
Fortunately (again) Isaiah then recommends follow-up steps – several concrete things-to-do:
learn to do good
seek justice
help the oppressed
defend the orphan
fight for the rights of widows
Unfortunately Isaiah doesn’t spell out a third-level solution. For example he said to help the oppressed but he didn’t spell-out an action-step to actually help-the-oppressed  (like maybe giving donations to the food bank). That might come later in the book. Or maybe Isaiah figured I could dope them out for myself.
Either way religious formalities & ritual actions aren’t stand-alone projects. No doubt they’re okay as far as they go. But where they get me to isn’t far enough.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 1:15 16 17 (NLT)

Week 26  Job 42

As I got to the end of the book I wondered what I’d say if someone asked me: “what do you think are Job’s top three comments?”
There’s quite a bit to choose from. In Job there’s about 1069-verses and Job himself spoke 522 of them (by my count). So 48.8% of the book is the words of Job. But I didn’t have much trouble finding my Top Three.
The first was where Job’s wife told Job to curse-God-and-die. Job told her she was foolish. And asked a great question: shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?
The second was where Job said: I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. Under the circumstances this is a pretty eye-opening and far-seeing and heroic view to take (and almost sounds like Job had read the NT.)
The third is my favorite. After the Lord’s long speech Job throws up the white-flag. He admits: surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. Despite all his qualities and virtues Job realized that – when confronted by the Lord – despising himself and repenting was the obvious thing to do.

Note: quotes from Job 2:10 19:25-26 42:3-6 (NIV)

Week 26  Job 20 & 21

Reading these two chapter back-to-back I realized how far apart Job and his friend Zophar really were.
Zophar’s view was that even if evil people were successful their success was temporary. The hammer would soon fall.
the joy of the godless person lasts but a moment
he will perish forever
he will not enjoy the profit from his trading
his prosperity will not endure
terrors will come over him
a flood will carry off his house
Job’s view was quite a bit different. He thought it was obvious that evil people were not only successful but that their success could last a lifetime.
the wicked live on, growing old an increasing in power
their homes are safe and free from fear
they spend their years in prosperity and go to the grave in peace
the evil man is spared from the day of calamity
who repays him for what he has done?
watch is kept over his tomb
Zophar figured that bad living was going to result in bad life outcomes.
Job on the other hand said an evil person living a consistently bad life could still end up having pretty good and successful life outcomes. And that’s why he finally told Zophar: how can you console me with your nonsense? Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood. They were friends I guess…but on opposite sides of the fence.

Note: Zophar quotes from Job 20:5 7 12 & 15 18 21 25 28. Job quotes from Job 21:7 9 13 30 31 32 34 (NIV)

Week 26  Job 32

Yesterday I read what frustrated Eliphaz Bildad & Zophar (EBZ) about Job: he was righteous in his own eyes. That’s the gist of the Job vs. EBZ debate – they thought Job was wrong because he was righteous in his own eyes.
The EBZ Rule was: a bad person experiences negative consequences. Things were going badly for Job so that proved that Job had to have done something bad. Bad things don’t happen to good people. They happen to bad people.
I got to thinking about the upshots of my life inputs. If I whittle it down to pretty simple terms I can practice either a) good life inputs or b) bad life inputs. And the results will be either a) good upshots or b) bad upshots.
Working with those four factors I end up with four basic combinations:
1. Good upshots can happen to people with good inputs
2. Bad upshots can happen to people with bad inputs
3. Good upshots can happen to people with bad inputs
4. Bad upshots can happen to people with good inputs.
EBZ were operating on a two-option model:
1. Good upshots happen to people with good inputs
2. Bad upshots happen to people with bad inputs
Even though EBZ never got a chance to read Galatians they knew very well that a man reaps what he sows.
What they didn’t read and didn’t realize was that sometimes a man also reaps what he doesn’t sow.

Note: quotes from Job 32:1 & Galatians 6:7 (NIV)

Week 26  Job 32

I don’t know who wrote the book of Job but whoever it was didn’t get much opportunity for creative input. He was mostly a stenographer copying and recording the speeches of Job & Eliphaz Bildad Zophar (EBZ) & Elihu.
I wondered how much the editor actually said for himself so I went back and counted the verses. I found 47 descriptive verses plus another 23-verses of intros (Job said this. Eliphaz said that). There’s about 1069-verses in Job so that means that the editor only got to write his own comments in 6.5% of the book.
Anyway the point is that here in chapter 32 the writer is writing his own 6-verse introductory comment about Elihu and he summarized chapters 3-31 like this: EBZ stopped answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. This was an interesting phrase to me: Job was righteous in his own eyes (another version says that Job kept insisting on his innocence).
So if someone asked me for a one-sentence synopsis of what Job thought about his situation it would be: “I am innocent”. And that was the whole reason for the conflict between Job & EBZ (and eventually Elihu).
Job: “I’m innocent”
EBZ&E: “You’re not innocent”
There’s not much room for negotiation there. There’s mostly just room for debate.

Note: quote from Job 32:1 (NIV & NLT). The verse-number counts are approximate so don’t take them to the bank.

Week 25  Job 1 & 2

I was thinking about Satan again. Wondering about him.
I got out my word book and looked up “Satan”. I was surprised to see that the name only shows up eighteen times in the OT. Once in Chronicles. Three times in Zechariah. And fourteen times right here in Job 1 & 2.
In those first two chapters of Job Satan’s view starts to take shape. He said that Job (who the Lord described as blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil) was only loyal to the Lord because he is wealthy and successful.
Satan asked: if Job’s wealth & his health were gone what would Job do?
Satan answered: he’d curse the Lord!
Satan’s Theory of Religious Devotion was that loyalty to the Lord was directly connected to Life Circumstances. There were two linked principles:
1) When life is good then my devotion & loyalty are stronger
2) But if things go bad God gets shelved.
It’s a pretty straightforward view and I’m pretty sure Satan isn’t the only one who has it.
Satan thought that by dialing-back the good circumstances of Job’s life he would produce a negative religious reaction.
I think Satan was likely onto something. Which means I have to keep in mind not to hitch my faith-in-the-Lord wagon to the good life.
Good things in life might tell me something affirmative about the Lord.
But bad times have nothing negative to tell me about him.

Note: quote from Job 1:8 (NIV)

Week 25  Job 1

The second scene in the book is an odd one. Satan appears before the Lord. They are on speaking-terms. The Lord asks Satan where have you come from? and Satan replies from roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.
The book of Job doesn’t say how much roaming around on earth Satan does.
I check a word book and see that ‘roaming’ is only used twice in the bible – both in Job. The back of the word book says roaming can also mean things like:
go back and forth
move to and fro
roam to and fro
rush back and forth.
They aren’t too helpful. I wonder which apply to Satan.
The word ‘roam’ can give the impression of wandering (maybe even aimless wandering). That might be but in this case I don’t think there’s anything very aimless about Satanic roaming. My sense is that he’s very deliberate. Intentional. Diabolically-focused.
I check an NT cross-reference where Peter implies that Satan is roaming more-or-less all the time. He’s always on-the-prowl. The reason why? He’s looking for someone to devour.
In Job Satan’s roaming starts out seeming like it could be a pretty neutral activity. But only at first. I just have to read to the end of the chapter to see that Satan doesn’t operate indifferently. Satan on-the-roam is someone to be concerned about.

Note: quotes from Job 1:7 & 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV). Word meanings are from the NASB Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

Week 25  Song of Solomon

Today I’m wondering: what does Solomon have to do with the Song of Solomon?
I tend to think that Song of Solomon means “A Song: Written by Solomon”. But it could also mean “A Song About Solomon”.
If it’s a song about Solomon then I’d think Solomon would be featured.
I decide to go back and check to see what I can find about Solomon.
I find “Solomon” three times.
I find “King Solomon” twice.
I find the word “king” twice (I figure that the king is Solomon).
Out of the seven references four of them don’t help much.
The other three aren’t quite so fuzzy. The girl says:
Let the king bring me into his chambers
While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance
Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon…But my own vineyard is mine to give.
If Solomon is ‘the king’ in the first two quotes then it sounds like there’s some kind of connection or contact between him and the girl. But in the end the girl turns her back on him (my own vineyard is mine and I’m not giving it to you).
If Solomon is part of the cast he plays a pretty small part (and he doesn’t seem like a good guy). So I have my doubts about this being “A Song About Solomon”. But if it is it isn’t flattering.

Note: quotes from Song of Solomon 1:4 12 8:11-12 (NIV). The four other mentions are 1:5 3:7 9 11.

Week 25  Song of Solomon

I’ve never really thought much about the title of the book. But when a book calls itself a “Song” then it’s a pretty good guess that that’s what it is.
It’s called Song of Songs. Or maybe Solomon’s Song of Songs.
Sometimes it’s called Canticles (“canticle” in English means song).
I think the reason I got to thinking about this was because in the bible version that I’m reading there are a bunch of subheadings in italics that identify who is saying what. And there are Three Characters: the Beloved. The Friends. And the Lover.
The Lover is a guy
The Beloved is a girl
The Friends are – maybe – observers. Responders.
So this year the Song of Solomon started to look more like it’s a song. The words of a piece of music.
I wondered what it would be like to see a young woman appear on a stage. There’s a back-up quartet of instruments. She sings let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
A choir or chorus is spotlighted: we rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine.
Then a guy is on stage replying to the girl: your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of pearls.
Back and forth. The girl. The guy. The chorus.
Seeing and hearing a bit of musical theatre vs. reading the script is a totally different experience.

Note: quotes from Song of Solomon 1:2 4 16 (NIV)