More Technical Info Than You Need

[Pastor Dan Howard]

Sometimes when you cast things into the interwebs, you just get lucky. In a Christmas greeting I wrote, "Christ's Peace. Today a Savior is born, His compassion is new every morning." What I tried to do was join the New Testament with the Old Testament, in what I thought would be enlightening. The two references are Luke and Lamentations.  I wanted to link the idea of Jesus' birth to the idea that just one day a year is not enough to remember his birth, life, death, and resurrection. Upon investigation, I was surprised to find the linkage was better than I imagined!

I hope you know that I like to dabble in Greek words of the New Testament. I have started to dabble in Hebrew words of the Old Testament. (There are a bunch of electronic tools that make it rather easy.) There are some good reasons to look at the Old Testament in general, as well as the language. Foremost, the authors of the New Testament were communicating with a people whose history and culture were rooted with that language and imagery. As Christians, especially American Christians 2000 years later, we are rooted in a New Testament interpretation that is culturally different than the first century Church. It could be thought that the Old Testament is three time removed from us. Those who lived the Old Testament; those in the New Testament, looking back to their history; and us, formed by the New Testament as history. The Truth is the same; however, how we relate to it has changed. The telos (Greek word for ending) is the same, the path we take is different.

Back to my Christmas greeting… In looking at what is arguably the "happiest" verse in Lamentations (3:22-23), I found an interesting tie in. The Hebrew word (transliterated) "racham" (Strong's number 7355) is translated in the KJV as "compassions". [If that sentence is confusing, remember that Hebrew letters are read from right to left, and they do not even look like our letters! So to "transliterate" from Hebrew means to make the letters look like something familiar to us. The Strong's number is the entry of the Hebrew word in "Strong's Concordance." Mr. Strong numbered and (briefly) defined every word in the Bible. Scholars still use his numbering system.] The Hebrew dictionary I use gives some other definitions for "racham": compassion (in the plural); bowels, womb, mercy; by extension the "womb" as to cherishing the fetus, by implication a maiden. (If you are interested I will give you the instances where the word is used in the Bible and you can see the context.)

That is the connection that surprised me! The Lord's "compassions" that are new every day are like a cherished baby; a Savior born today and every day! The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases! Just a different word picture for the grace, truth, and mercies from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Great is his faithfulness. Some day we will have to look at [c]hesed and splanchnon.

There is a lot to "deep dive" in the Word, if that interests you as it does me. I'll just keep pointing  stuff out, but always pointing to Jesus. Jesus, that is the information you need. I will just keep putting out more technical information.

 

Merry Christmas, Trust the Promises,

Steve Skiver