Bible Geek Word Nerd - Feet, Feet, Feet

 On Obsessions and Fetishes

15 April 2022

It is confession time. Is it okay that I offer some transparency here?

 

I have a foot fetish. 

 

 Now that the shock has gotten your attention, let me explain. I do not really have a fetish in the strictest sense (the origin of the word – in Latin – describes a fetish as something artificial which has magical or religious significance). Nor do I have a fetish in the contemporary sense it is used today. But I do have an obsession for the word as it occurs in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Weird, I know. But bear with me for a bit and you will learn why.

 

The Hebrew word for “foot” is REGEL (רֶגֶל). Like all Hebrew words, it does more work than simply denotate that thing at the terminus of a leg on which a person steps. The word itself occurs 245 times in the Hebrew Bible. As a noun, it actually derives from a verb: RAGAL, which means “to go about on foot”. The verb, used 26 times in the Hebrew Bible, is not nearly as important as the noun (Hebrew has other verbs to carry the meaning of walking about).

 

The first time the noun is used is Genesis 8, where the dove can find no resting place for the sole of her REGEL. It occurs nine (9) times in the context of washing feet. The word is also translated as “footstool”. It occurs more often than the more familiar Hebrew “peace” SHALOM (שׁלם) and “loyal love” CHESED (חסד), and less than “heart/mind” LEVAV (לבב) and “life” CHAYAH (חיה).

 

Some verses wherein REGEL or one of its forms is found:

Gen 8:9 – the dove Noah sent out could not find a resting place for the soles of her “REGEL”

Gen 18:4 – Abraham washed the “REGEL” of the three visitors

Gen 29:1 – Jacob went on his “REGEL” (journey by foot) to the sons of the East

Exo 3:4 – Moshe took the sandals from his “REGEL”

 

But my absolute favorite verse with REGEL – and the one which gave me my obsession – is Isaiah 52:7. For Christians, the prophet Isaiah is arguably the most important of the Biblical prophets, both from the scope and scale of his work, and from the number of times his work is cited in the New Testament.

 

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

 

Whenever I read the English word “foot” or “feet”, I am immediately reminded of this verse from Isaiah and of the role we are supposed to play as proclaimers of the Good News.

Bible Geek Word Nerd - Patriarchy

Someone Else can Talk for a Change:

Peter Leithart on Patriarchy

4 March 2022

On ISH (אִישׁ) and ISHAH or ISHSHAH (אִשָּׁה) as it is often transliterated... "I now pronounce you man and wife..." The redoubtable Peter J. Leithart on patriarchy and its problematic meaning.

 https://theopolisinstitute.com/leithart_post/patriarchy-or-trinitocracy/

Bible Geek Word Nerd getting all theological

Time for Some Criticism

 4 February 2022

We have a Facebook saved items folder (well, we all have one of those out here in Zuckerberg's ghetto to keep track of stuff; our version of a wayback machine). One of our categories we smugly named "Idiots on the Bible", which is funny in a mocking, condescending, and completely uncharitable way. 

 

This was pounded into our awareness by a recent post in this here social media destination. It was written by a friend, someone we respect, someone whose orthodoxy we had no cause to question...until the post in question. 

 

 

We had the uncomfortable realization that someone could be completely and totally wrong about something without being an idiot. And make no mistake: the statement is completely and totally heterodox -- so bad, it's not even wrong. But our friend is not an idiot and we shouldn't call her one. So we're changing the name of the category. Maybe something like “Smart People Misapply the Bible” or “The Bible Behaving Badly” (stolen from a book title).

 

Here's the TL|DR of the refutation:

If Jesus eradicated sin, why is there so much sin still in the world?

 

Our friend's so-bad-it's-not-even-wrong statement has done some good, though, at least for us. We get to explore some of the theological terms surrounding her premise. This will begin a series of posts on the idea of ATONEMENT. It is a bit outside our scope to do theology in any significant way on this page; after all, we are word nerds, not theology nerds. But a meander into Mere Christian orthodoxy is inevitable. So it will be here. So buckle up buttercups. join us for a still-to-be-defined series on ATONEMENT. And have some charity for all the theological idiots out there and the mockers (such as we) who mistakenly believe we are better than they are.

Bible Geek Word Nerd - Creator

God the Creator

29 January 2022

Earlier we posted about beginnings…and we focused on the Hebrew word RESHITH (רֵאשִׁ֖ית) which means “beginning” or “chief”. It is derived from the word ROSH (רֹאשׁ) which means “head”. That word, of course, is used for everything from that anatomical structure that holds your brain to the first part of the year. ROSH HA-SHANAH (רֹאשׁ הַשָׁנָה) means “head of the year”.

 

Keeping with this theme of beginnings, let’s look today at another word that makes its debut in Genesis’s first sentence: BARA (בָּרָא). It is the verb used for “to create”, which is its primary definition. It can also be translated as “cut down” (Ezekiel 23:47). The Hebrew Bible features it more than 50 times, from Genesis to Ecclesiastes, most often as “create” and almost exclusively a verb attributed to G-d Himself alone.

 

“Remember your CREATOR in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’…” Ecclesiastes 12:1

 

“For this is what the LORD says—He who CREATED the heavens, he is God; He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it; He did not CREATE it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited — He says: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.’” Isaiah

 

When the Scriptures refer to human activity in making, the word BARA is never used; Hebrew has other words to describe that. We can make (ASAH). We can build (BANAH). We can erect (QUM). We (and the Avengers) can assemble (QAHAL or ASAPH). We can repair (BADAQ) and renew (CHADASH). But only the Living G-d can create (BARA) in an “ex nihilo” way.

 

#Beginnings

Bible Geek Word Nerd - nerdy on words

 27 January 2022

I am no expert on Biblical languages (Biblical languages respond: “You can say that again…but say please say it in English because your Hebrew and Greek are awful.”). English is my first language, and I have a smattering of Spanish (enough to fool a native speaker for perhaps two lines of a dialog. But Hebrew and Greek? Um… I did not begin anything resembling study until very late in life. As of now, there are many, many, many, MANY things about grammar, parsing tags, prefixes and suffixes, verb tenses, and even just root words that I do not know and probably will never learn. 

 

I would not thrive as a translator (see above about parsing tags et al.), even if I had gotten an early start. It is arduous work. I respect them for their expertise and diligence, whether they labor for the NRSV, NIV, NLT, KJV, NKJV, NASB, HCSB, or any of the other alphabet soup (or should I write ALEPH BETH?) options available to readers of the English language (crikey, there is an abundance of English versions available to us). I wouldn’t say I like every translation equally, though, and some of that disaffection is what led me to begin studying the original languages.

 

True story: I love words. I love definitions and shades of meaning and hints and connotations. I love to explore the ranges of meanings in words of all shapes and sizes. This is particularly true of the words G-d has inspired in His Holy Writ. This little Facebook page is really just an excuse to spout off my wonder at the complexity and beauty of the words in the Text (mostly Hebrew because there are many more words in the Hebrew Bible than in the New Testament).

 

This is not my first post to this page, but today is a new beginning. Candidly, it is a new beginning every day, and His mercies are new every morning, as the prophet tells us. So on this new beginning day – January 27th, Holocaust Memorial Day – we will reflect on the very first words in the Hebrew Bible, which are centered around RESHITH (רֵאשִׁ֖ית), which means “a beginning”.

 

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ

 

“BA-RESHITH BARA ELOHIM ETH HA-SHAMAYIM WA-ETH HA-ARETS”

In English, they are some of the most beautiful words in the entire length of the Text: “In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth…”

 

Everything rests on this fundamental Truth. All starts with G-d, without whom nothing could begin. He is the uncaused first cause. The first mover. The Big Banger of the Big Bang. And future posts are resting on that presupposition: I write as a true believer that G-d began this whole revolving mystery of our world and our universe. And I write and read in wonder at that High Truth.

 

Will I continue making mistakes and getting messy (hat tip to Valerie Frizzle)? Undoubtedly. Is my theology or doctrine on firm footing? Maybe, but sometimes not. Will I be stealing ideas from smarter, more educated, more competent people than I? Maybe (a-hem, Bible Project, Ray Vander Laan, Jerusalem Perspective, Marvin Wilson, NT Wright, EP Sanders, Lois Tverberg, Ann Spangler, Craig Evans, David Stern, David Flusser, and too many others to name – all of whom comprise the shoulders on which I stand and the brains from which I will steal). Am I occasionally rude and often sarcastic? Yes, for sure. But maybe this will be fun. And maybe everyone will learn a thing or two. Care to join me in the Rabbit Hole?

Bible Geek Word Nerd - the Shoah

 18 January 2022

The Hebrew word today is a particularly important one for January 2022. Eighty years ago, on the 20th of January, Nazi leaders, comprising both government and SS ghouls, met at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to plan for the Final Solution to the Reich’s “Jewish question”. Cold-blooded reptilian efficiency, like all of Nazi plans, the conference took all of 90 minutes to decide how to continue what they were already doing with ruthless dispatch. More than six million Jews were murdered, along with 11 million Roma, Slavs, Serbs, and others deemed unfit to live in the brave new world envisioned by the Nazis.

 

The Hebrew word is “SHO” (שׁוֹא), from which we get “SHOAH”. The word is found many times in the Hebrew Bible, in various forms, from the Book of Job, to the Psalms, to the Prophets. Like most Hebrew words, it has a range of meanings in English: desolation, destroy, destruction, storm, devastation, and wasteness. A selection of its uses in the NIV translation:

 

Psalm 35: “May ruin (SHO) overtake them by surprise”

Proverbs 3: “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin (SHO) that overtakes the wicked”

Isaiah 47: “Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe (SHO) you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you.”

 

Zephaniah 1:15: “That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble (SHO) and ruin (SHO), a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness”

There are many ways to honor the fallen from World War 2. We Americans commemorate Pearl Harbor Day, D-Day, and VE & VJ Days. Given that some 20 million were exterminated by the Nazis in Death Camps and other pogroms, including more than 6 million Jews, perhaps a “SHOAH Day” would be worth bringing to our consciousness: January 20th.

 

If you are a DC local, you can take in the world premiere of Fauquier Community Theatre’s production of Harry Kantrovich's “Shoah”, from January 21 to February 6. Go to FCTstage.org for more information. For further edification, navigate out to: 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

https://www.haaretz.com/.../.premium-shoah-how-a-biblical...

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090015/

Bible Geek Word Nerd - Avenger

 23 November 2021

Eliyahu David Kay, a South African immigrant to Israel, was murdered by a Hamas terrorist in Jerusalem on 21 November. As mourners sat shiva, many repeated an Hebrew phrase:

 

“May G-d avenge his blood”

שאלוהים ינקום את דמו

 

The phrase derives from Deuteronomy 32:43, “Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; He will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.” 

 

The Hebrew verb at the heart of this phrase is NAQAM (נָקַם) which means “to avenge or to take vengeance”. It is used in Genesis when G-d promises to avenge Cain sevenfold. It is found in the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet when he pleads with G-d to take vengeance on his persecutors. Interestingly, its prohibition is found in Leviticus 19, when G-d tells His people that they are not to take vengeance on or bear a grudge (NATAR נָטַר ) their fellow Israelites, but rather they are to love their neighbors (REA רֵעַ ) as themselves.

 

NAQAM is about more than retribution and even more than justice in a forensic sense. That is, the word is not about paying someone back for a wrong that has been done. Rather, it is more to do with Justice in the existential sense, which is less about punishment and more about restoration.

 

This is what the concept is challenging for us. We want to set things right. We want the guilty to pay. And indeed, we have legal systems in place to make the guilt pay. But sometimes, they do not. Sometimes, they escape punishment and there seems to be no justice and no peace. 

 

And then we may pray, “May G-d avenge their blood.” Because only the Holder of Absolute and Perfect moral Judgment (MISHPAT) is able to truly NAQAM.