Medicine Hat Joe

Week 2  Psalm 4

I see the pre-psalm subtitle first: “For the choir director; on stringed instruments”. I already knew that some psalms were lyrics meant to be put to music. But today I wonder how many psalms are Musical Psalms.
I paged through all 150 of them looking at the subtitles (it was a quick search so my numbers are approximate).
I was mostly looking for the subtitle “For the choir director” and I found it quite a few times. But I saw that some psalms were just subtitled “A Song” (for instance there are 15 psalms that said “A Song of Ascents”). I added up everything that looked musical. I found 68.
The majority of music-psalms showed up the first half of the book.
A couple of psalms were called “A Shiggaion” (the margin said this was a “dithyrambic rhythm; or, wild passionate song”).
I found one that was for “soprano voices”.
About 10 music psalms were also called “Maskils” (the margin said “Possibly, Contemplative, or Didactic, or Skilful Psalm”).
The “Miktam” psalms were “Possibly, Epigrammatic Poems” that (it looks like) were set to music by the choir director.
Instruments were recommended – “flutes” and “stringed instruments”.
My main goal was to find out how many psalms were musical in some way and it looked like about 45% were – give-or-take.
It’s a reminder to me: psalms are not all necessarily literal & precise & concrete lists of factual statutes & regulations. Some of them sing.

Note: subtitles & quotes from NASB

Week 2  Psalm 2

This year psalm 2:1-3 reminded me of Genesis 6:5 (I’d just read the Flood story a couple of days ago so that’s likely why Genesis came to mind). Anyway to test my point about their similarity I sketched-up a two-column table so I could read the texts side-by-side. At that point they seemed less similar than when they were floating around in my head.
It looked like Genesis 6 focused on the actual practicing of evil-doing. By contrast Psalm 2 highlighted people’s internal anger and combative adversariality against the Lord.
But then when I read down to the end of both paragraphs I saw a similarity in outcome. Both had an ominous threat of destructive potential:
In Genesis the Lord said: I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I made them.
Psalm: …be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear…Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Similar sounding outcomes. And I’m getting a double-dose reminder of the serious side of things.
In general it’s nicer to stay on the Sunny Side of the Street when it comes to finding out what the Lord is like. Which is fine – as long as I remember there’s another side too.

Note: quotes from Genesis 6:7 Psalm 2:10-12 (English Standard Version)

Week 2  Genesis 12

I started reading the story of Abraham today but I still had Ham in the back of my mind.
Noah had three sons: Shem & Ham & Japheth. There’s no reason to think they weren’t on some kind of equal-footing at first. But Ham did something – some kind of unspecified evil – and so Noah cursed him and his son Canaan. The curse said that Canaan would become like a slave to his brothers.
Anyway the years passed. The tribes of the Canaan family settled in what was Canaan Land.
Eventually Abraham left his home country and moved west. When he arrived in Canaanite territory the Lord told him: to your offspring I will give this (Canaanite) land. So Abraham built an altar there to the Lord.
Then one chapter later the Lord told Abraham again: Look from the place where you are. Look north and south, east and west, for I will give you and your offspring forever all the land that you see.
And two chapters later: the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River…”
I’m not saying that centuries later when the Canaanite families lost their homeland to the Shemite family of Israel that that was the fall-out from the Ham-Canaan curse. I think it’s likely more complicated than that. But the connection is a pretty intriguing one to me.

Note: quotes from Genesis 12:5-7 13:14-15 15:18 (CSB)

Week 1  Genesis 10

I was still thinking about the Curse on Ham. It seemed like a serious malediction: cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. Bottom-of-the-Barrel Ham.
I still wasn’t sure why exactly Ham was cursed. But in chapter 10 I got to thinking about how the curse played-out.
In that chapter there’s a list of the families of Noah’s three sons: Japheth. Ham. Shem.
I looked at what was said about Ham and about his son Canaan:
Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.
Some of the names rang a definite bell for me – the Hittites Jebusites Amorites Girgashites & Hivites – I remember that they’re the names of tribes that inhabited the land of Canaan. They’re mentioned frequently from Genesis to Joshua.
There’s a cross-reference in the margin and it takes me to something the Lord said to Abraham: to your descendants I give this land…the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.
Only the Hittites Jebusites Amorites & Girgashites show up on both lists. But it looks pretty clear that they – Ham’s family – are going to eventually lose their land to Shem’s family – the sons of Abraham.
I’m still not sure why exactly Ham was cursed. But I see how some of the curse might unfold – Ham’s land would be lost to Shem’s clan.

Note: quotes from Genesis 9:25 10:15-18 15:18-21 (NIV)

Week 1  Genesis 9

Sometime after the flood Noah got drunk and lay down naked in his tent. One of his sons saw him and went and told his brothers. For that he (Ham) was cursed.
I think there’s a bible-reader’s caution here related to stories like this – stories that don’t give complete information. The problem with incomplete stories is that readers are tempted to start playing the Bible-Reader’s Guessing Game. For example:
Q: Why Ham was Cursed?
A: I don’t know (but I’m willing to guess).
I checked several other bible versions of Genesis 9:22. They all said that a) Ham saw Noah naked and that b) he told his brothers. That’s it. Nothing else. Something’s missing. So I’m wondering: should I guess?
I don’t know how many guesses have been made about Ham’s curse. Likely several. If I’m going to guess I should likely:
a) find out all the answers that have been floated
b) evaluate them
c) decide which one makes the best sense
d) choose that one.
At that point I’d have an answer. Or more correctly I’d have a guess-answer since the fact is I still don’t know what Ham did (I only have my made-up answer).
A guess-answer might be harmless enough. It only gets to be a problem if I decide my guess-answer is The Answer.
So a simple bible-reader’s principle to remember is that a guess is just what it says it is.

Note: the story is in Genesis 9:20-27

Week 1  Genesis 4

Last fall I read through the NT and got a lot of detailed information about managing the Dark Side of my life. But even here in early-Genesis there’s a helpful clue about dealing with my instinct for badness.
After Cain had killed his brother the Lord told him: if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
[I’m concerned enough about getting an accurate read that I cross-check this verse in a dozen other versions of the bible. They use slightly different language but (fortunately) say pretty much the same thing.]
Anyway the key phrase for me was the one about ‘sin desiring to have me’ and the advice about me ‘having to rule over it’ (quite a few versions use ‘rule over it’ but others say ‘master it’ or ‘take dominion over it’ or ‘conquer it’).
The big (practical) question is: how do I do that? How do I ‘master sin’? How do I ‘take dominion over it’? Detailed advice to Cain is thin-on-the-ground but the Lord gives one applicable & doable recommendation: ‘do well’ (some versions say ‘do right’).
Q: how can Cain master sin?
A: by doing well.
There’s not much doubt that there’s more to Mastering Sin than that. But Doing Well sounds like an excellent starting-point.

Note: quote from Genesis 4:7 (NIV) (plus Amplified & International-Standard-Bible & Living-Bible)

Week 1  Genesis 1-3

I started reading Genesis today and recalled a conversation with a guy about the days-of-creation. I realized pretty quickly that the guy figured the days-of-creation were literal 24-hour days – so I subtly finessed my way onto another topic.
There’s no doubt the Creation Days in Genesis could be 24-hour days. The problem – and the question for me – is: are they indisputably 24-hours?
I decided to count up how many times the word ‘day’ was used in Genesis 1-3. I found it 17 times (‘days’ was used 3 times). I double-checked my count in my word book (‘day’: 17 times and ‘days’: 3 times).
Then I looked them over. In Genesis 1 it seems a lot like ‘days’ are 24-hours long. But then in chapter 2 it says: this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. So ‘day’ here means something other than a 24-hour day – more like six days. A 144-hour ‘day’.
I flipped over to the dictionary in the back of the word book to see what the word ‘day’ meant. There were about 75 different ways the word ‘day’ was used in the bible (a lot looked like 24-hour days. But there were quite a few exceptions too).
Meaning my Happy New Year’s Day began with a question – not an answer.

Note: quote from Genesis 2:4 (NASB). Word book: NASB Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

Week 52  Revelation 21

I finished reading Revelation today.
I wondered about the city – New Jerusalem – that John saw in his closing vision. It was a nicely-balanced & geometric & huge cube that measured 1500-miles on all sides. My question was about it’s population-holding capacity. It seemed small. I decided to compare the earth and the Cubical New Jerusalem.
The surface area of the earth is pretty close to 197,000,000 square-miles. By contrast the surface area of a 1500-mile square is 2,250,000 square-miles – big enough to cover most of western Canada…but still only about 1/90th of the earth’s surface.
Will that be enough space for the people in the New Jerusalem?
It’s a hard calculation. For instance: how many people will there be? Let’s say that the total number of all people who have ever lived on earth is ~100,000,000,000. John makes it pretty clear that not everyone will be there. But – for argument’s sake – if they all were would there be enough room?
I also haven’t factored-in the vertical dimension of New Jerusalem – 1500-miles high. Mount Everest is less than six-miles high so the Cube is way higher. How would that vertical space be utilized?
And I really don’t even know whether people will live in the Cubical New Jerusalem. Maybe its the central facility on the New Earth and people will visit it.
So John is short of details (but I assume that space won’t be a serious issue).

Note: see the Cube in Revelation 21:16. Numerical calculations from Wikipedia “Earth” December 30, 2024 and Universe Today (https://www.universetoday.com/25756/surface-area-of-the-earth/).

 

Week 52  Revelation 16

Three creatures (or persons or beings) are mentioned in this chapter: a dragon & a beast & a false prophet.
The bible I’m using has a cross-reference to each one of them – meaning that John refers to them more than once:
The dragon was already mentioned in Revelation 12:3 (The Woman and the Dragon chapter).
The beast showed up in 13:1.
And the false prophet was there too in 13:11.
So by the time I read chapter 16 I’ve already heard about these three beings (and I’ll see each one of them again in chapters 19 & 20).
John says that the dragon & the beast & the false prophet each had mouths and when they opened their mouths unclean spirits come out. These spirits were visible to John – they looked kind-of-like frogs.
The three spirits that looked like frogs were also called spirits of demons or demonic spirits.
These three demonic spirits went out far-and-wide performing signs – or most likely miracles – that impressed leaders around the world so much that they prepared their states for the war of the great day of the Lord.
The location where the big battle would take place was: Armageddon (or Har-Magedon – depending on which version I’m using).
Reading this chapter the thing that stands out as being pretty (ominously) revealing is that the national decisions of leaders & governors & prime minsters & presidents is being prompted by demonic spirits. It’s pretty sobering to think that demons will be foreign-affairs influencers.

Note: quotes from Revelation 16:14 16 (NASB NIV NLT)

Week 52  Revelation 12

This chapter is called The Woman and The Dragon (I checked a couple of bible versions and they both add that title).
The verse that jumped out at me said: the dragon became angry with the woman, and he declared war against the rest of her children – all who keep God’s commandments and confess that they belong to Jesus.
A starting-point Question & Answer here is:
Q#1: who is the dragon angry with?
A#1: the woman
Unfortunately (from the dragon’s perspective) the woman escaped and he missed his chance to murder her son. So…next question:
Q#2: now that the woman has escaped who does the dragon transfer his rage against?
A#2: the woman’s children (i.e. people who a) keep the commandments of God and b) stay loyal to the Lord).
The bible doesn’t exactly say so but I think negativizing Q#2 & A#2 is accurate too:
Q#3: who is the dragon not angry with?
A#3: people who a) don’t obey the Lord and b) don’t have any loyalty to Jesus.
Chapter 12 is complicated in some ways but the basic idea isn’t too difficult: if I don’t have any loyalty to Jesus and I don’t make any effort to follow his ways then the dragon won’t be angry with me and won’t give me a hard time. And one way of looking at it is that there’s a certain appeal to not making a serious enemy of a really bad guy.

Note: quote from Revelation 12:17 (NLT)