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Week 28  Isaiah 45

I have a couple of lists I add to while I’m reading through. They’re my Concentration-Intensification Lists. They help me focus.
One of them is titled About God and any time I read something about the Lord – what he’s like or his characteristics or qualities or like that – I add the reference to the list.
I added several items from Isaiah 45:
I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God
There is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other
I am the Lord and there is no other
There is no God apart from me…there is none but me
I am God and there is no other.
At first I feel pretty pleased with my find. But then it occurs to me that even though Isaiah is saying something about-the-Lord he isn’t describing the Lord’s attributes or qualities. He’s getting at something else.
And I wondered if there was some kind of Deity Caste System back in Isaiah’s day – a ranking scheme of great-greater-greatest gods – and Isaiah’s point was that no matter what people thought there wasn’t actually a great-greater-greatest hierarchy. There was just The Lord.
Whatever-all other beings exist – whoever and however special they are – there’s just the one God. A singularity. A stand-alone. A one-of-a-kind.
On the left: The Aggregate of Everything/Everyone Else.
On the right: The Lord.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 45:5 6 18 21 22 (NIV)

Week 28  Isaiah 36-39

I start reading chapter 36 and know right away that I’ve read it before. And not just last year. This year. I read this story late-April or early-May. I check a marginal cross-reference…find the same story in 2 Kings…then page through the two accounts. 2 Kings 18-20 is roughly equal to Isaiah 36-39.
I’m wondering how “roughly equal” they are so I find a second copy of the same version of the bible and lay the two side-by-side on the kitchen counter: left index finger on Isaiah 36:1…right finger on 2 Kings 18:13.
Right away I find a glitch – 2 Kings 18:14-16 is an extra paragraph that Isaiah skips. But after that it’s very close. I line them up verse-by-verse: 2 Kings 18:17 = Isaiah 36:2. Then 18:18=36:3. Then 19=4 20=5 21=6 22=7 23=8 24=9 25=10. Like that. 2 Kings adds a couple of phrases and names. But the two are about 97% the same.
I only take time to compare one chapter of the two accounts word-for-word. After that it’s paragraph-for-paragraph. But they keep looking very similar (the one huge difference is that Isaiah adds what looks like a psalm written by Hezekiah).
Isaiah was right there when the Assyrians threatened Jerusalem so I wonder if he wrote this account first and then had his story copied by the person who wrote Kings. Hard to say. I’m sure there’s an argument for both sides.
But it’s hard to say and maybe not worth the argument.

Note: Hezekiah’s psalm is in Isaiah 38:9-20

Week 27  Isaiah 9

It was 27-degrees Celsius & sunny in the Hat yesterday and I thought about Christmas.
I thought about Christmas because Handel wrote Handel’s Messiah and part of that included Isaiah 9. Every Christmas I hear The Messiah sung: for unto us a child is born…unto us…a son is given…unto us…a son is given. Every Christmas. Handel. Isaiah 9.
I’m pretty sure Handel thought that Isaiah 9 referred to Jesus.
By contrast I’m not sure what Isaiah thought when he wrote it. What kind of idea did he have about who the son was?
I look at the titles/names Isaiah gave the son:
Wonderful Counselor
Mighty God
Everlasting Father
Prince of Peace
I guess that within his own framework Isaiah could have imagined a future Wonderful-Counselor & Prince-of-Peace. With titles like that the son would have to be an exceptionally talented guy. But he’d still be in the Talented Guy category.
The other two titles wouldn’t be so manageable. What to do with Mighty-God & Everlasting-Father? If an exceptionally-talented-guy’s resume also included being Mighty-God & Everlasting-Father then he wouldn’t exactly fit the Talented Guy category. A Talented Guy – no matter how qualified – is still a guy. Isaiah’s ‘son-who-is-given’ is a Talented Guy (with a lot of natural talent) but he also has those added remarkable talents & competencies.
According to Isaiah he’s still a son. Still a Talented Guy. But a guy who also has inordinate & extra-dimensional potentialities.

Note: quote from Isaiah 9:6 (KJV)

Week 27  Isaiah

Even though my reading schedule is in pretty good shape I hurried through Isaiah 1-6 today. The sixth chapter is Isaiah’s vision-experience of the Lord.
I think if I was editing Isaiah I’d put that vision story in chapter one right at the beginning. The book opens: the vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.
If it was me I’d go directly from that verse into Isaiah’s vision and the commission he got from the Lord: in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted…
I did a quick scan through the rest of the prophets to see what happened with them…
Jeremiah’s commission comes in chapter one.
Ezekiel has a spectacular and mind-boggling vision in chapter one and he’s commissioned in chapter two.
Hosea Joel Jonah Micah Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah & Malachi all open with the phrase ‘the word of the Lord came to…’ They all move straight into their assignments.
And oracles or visions open the books of Obadiah Nahum Habakkuk & Malachi.
All of those things happened right away. So I wonder why Isaiah waits ‘til chapter six.
But I realize it’s not something to get jammed-up about so I don’t over-think it. There’s more than 100 other verses between 1:1 & 6:1 and reading through them today I thought quite a few were pretty instructive.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 1:1 6:1 (NIV)

Week 27  Ecclesiastes

If I organized all the bible books in a list that went from the Most Religious to the ones that seemed Least Religious then Ecclesiastes is going to be near the bottom (Ecclesiastes could flip with Song of Solomon for #66) .
I checked a word book to see how many times the writer used the expression under-the-sun (for instance – what does a man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun). I counted 32 times (three of those he used the phrase under-heaven – which I figured was roughly equivalent to under-the-sun).
I doubt that the writer set out to write the Least Religious book of the bible. But he focused so intently and concentratedly on life under-the-sun that there wasn’t much room for any other life. Anyway the Key Question was: what-can-I-make-of-life-under-the-sun? And the Key Answer was: life under-the-sun is utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. (I get the sense the phrase everything-is-meaningless is a short version of everything-under-the-sun-is-meaningless.)
Even though I figure Ecclesiastes is the Least Religious bible book it isn’t a Non-Religious book. It’s more like life under-the-sun dominates all other life regions.
In the bigger and all-inclusive region of all-life (i.e. areas under-the-sun plus areas beyond-the-sun) life isn’t necessarily futile or meaningless. It’s just that I’d also have to start looking for meaning above – not just under – the sun.

Note: quotes from Ecclesiastes 1:3 2 (NIV). Added note: Ecclesiastes’ writer admits that there are some consolations & satisfactions to be had under-the-sun. But not meaning.

Week 26  Ecclesiastes

I start reading Ecclesiastes today and right away get reminded of something that happens in bible-reading. It’s that I read something and I get it, and then maybe right away, maybe right in the next verse I see something that doesn’t make much sense to me.
It’s a bit like this: Ice cream. Txhjkow. Hydro-electricity. %%%dppyo8. Herd of elephants. Thhg &44) kkol. A kind of bible-reader’s parkour. I land on a spot where I’ve got some pretty solid comprehension then I hop over a gap where I’m feeling baffled. I move ahead and then stall. Think I know…think I don’t.
Reading any kind of Not-So-Easy material I can pretty much figure on this happening – this mix of getting-it & not-getting-it. Today I get that reminder when I start Ecclesiastes.
Not-so-easy reading more-or-less insists that I try to understand. Entertaining reading  is more appealing because it puts understanding way down on its list of requirements.

Note: month-end reading report. It’s the last day of June (so 50% of 2022 is in-the-books). I calculated that I’ve read 54% of the bible. When I finish with Ecclesiastes I’ve got a heavy diet of prophets through the hot days of summer. Isaiah & Jeremiah – two of the longest books in the bible – are up ahead. Since my plan is to finish the OT by August 31 I’ll have to pick up the pace a bit.

Week 26  Song of Solomon

There are different orders I can choose to read the OT. For instance:
Consecutive order (beginning-to-end – Genesis > Revelation)
Chronological order (oldest-to-most-recent – maybe Job > Nehemiah(?))
Longest to shortest (Jeremiah > Obadiah(?))
Most-Interesting to Least-Interesting? I’ve never actually seen this one recommended. If it was the 39 OT books could be arranged in a thousand variations since most-favorite to least-favorite would be different for everyone.
Personally I’m not sure where I’d start. Genesis Ruth Esther Daniel Jonah would all be right up there. But I wouldn’t think twice about the last book at the very bottom of the list. Song of Solomon. Hands-down.
The thing is…every other OT book gives a bible reader some kind of detectable tip-off about structure or mechanics or operations in the Total World. They all talk about some things that’re pretty evident to me and other things that aren’t. (What I do with the-things-that-aren’t is another question. I’m just saying there’re there).
Anyway my point is that Song of Solomon reads like a this-material-world-only story. There’s a guy. There’s a girl. He loves her. She loves him. He wants to marry her & have sexual intercourse with her and she wants to marry him & have sexual intercourse with him. A pretty normal love-story.
So… Q: what tip-offs do I get about the Total World in Song of Solomon?
A: none.
I’m not saying there aren’t any tip-offs. Just that they aren’t obvious to me.

Note: on second-thought Esther reads like a this-material-world-only story too.

Week 26  Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon is a pretty tricky book.
That’s not the same as saying it’s totally incomprehensible. It’s not like it’s written in Xhosa. I can read the words and get a kind of baseline idea about what’s going on. I can see that there’s a guy and a girl who are tangled-up in a romantic and dreamily-erotic longing & hoping. So I’d say it’s a kind of love-story (how much of a story I’m not sure).
More important for me today is that I notice how easy it is to lose track of who’s talking. I’m reading chapters 1-4 and saying: hold on a sec’…who’s-actually-saying-this?
It usually helps a reader to know who says something. Luckily the words and ideas sometimes tip me off:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth – that’s the girl talking
If you do not know, most beautiful of women… – that’s the guy
My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts – the girl
How beautiful you are – sounds like the guy
How handsome you are – likely the girl
His left arm is under my head – girl
My lover is mine and I am his – girl
Your two breasts are like fawns – guy
Let my lover come into his garden – girl.
I know this isn’t much of a discovery. But it all helps. I finish chapter 4 reminding myself: I’ve gotta learn to walk before I can run.

Note: quotes from Song of Solomon 1:8 13 15 16 2:6 16 4:5 16 (NIV)

Week 26  Job 38-41

Two years ago I counted up 70 questions the Lord asked Job in chapters 38-41.
This year I wondered how many of them Job could have answered. I got a sheet of paper and divided it into two columns:
Questions Job Could Answer (on the left).
Questions Job Could Not Answer (on the right).
I only had time to look at chapter 38. There were 28 questions and I calculated that ~24 of them were answerable. Which surprised me. For instance:
Q: where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
A: I didn’t exist at that point.
Q: who marked off (the earth’s) dimensions?
A: you did.
There were only a couple of questions Job couldn’t answer:
Q: on what were (the earth’s) footings set?
Q: where does darkness reside?
Answering 24 of 28 questions is a score of ~86%. Which is really good. Except it wasn’t that kind of quiz at all. That’s why when he got the chance to answer Job just said: I am unworthy – how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth.
It wasn’t so much an I’m Going to Test You to See What you Know as it was a Here Are Some Interrogatives to Think About That Highlight What You Don’t.

Note: quotes from Job 38:4 5a 12 6 19b & 40:4 (NIV). And see back to May 30, 2020 post ‘something or nothing’.

Week 26  Job 38

The first thing the Lord says in his wrap-up is: who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
Eliphaz Bildad Zophar & Elihu – each one had given his opinion. And the first thing the Lord did was ask this worrisome question.
The Lord talks about Counsel as if it was colourable. He doesn’t specify the original colour of Counsel but it’s got be in the white-vanilla-beige range because he says his original Counsel has been discoloured and darkened down.
How is it possible to darken White Counsel? It’s possible by adding words-without-knowledge (there might be other ways to tone down White Counsel but if there are they’re not mentioned here).
I admit that I’ve been impressed by some of the things EBZ and Elihu have said in their conversation with Job. Quite a few have sounded pretty good & pretty knowledgeable. But now it looks like the Lord hasn’t been nearly as impressed as I have. He says that these men had started with White Counsel – fresh & bright & clean – and worked at darkening it down. Blue. Purple. Mauve. Brown. Black. Doesn’t much matter which colour they used. They’re all darkeners. White Counsel’s preferred tone is white. But see how easy it is to tone it down. To tint it into Dark Counsel.
So there’s at least two kinds of advice/counsel:
The kind that brightens knowledge.
And the kind that muddies it up.
And Job 38-41 is a reminder of counsel’s Colour Management.

Note: quote from Job 38:2 (NIV)