Nobody Talks Like That! (Ps 102:12) – Mondays with Mounce 291
You know you have been talking too much about translation when your spouse throws your own words back in your face. Robin was reading Ps 102:12 the other day. “But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations” (NIV).
“Renown,” she laughed, what’s renown? And then she quoted my common response: “That’s not English; nobody talks like that.”
Now Robin knows precisely what “renown” means. “The condition of being known or talked about by many people; fame.” But would we use a word like that? Probably not; “fame” would be the normal way of saying it.
But this brings up the interesting issue of active vs passive vocabulary. The average adult has an active vocabulary of 20,000–35,000 (read more
Extracurricular Activities 4.4.15— Psalms for Easter, Thomistic Protestants, & Shedd’s Trinitarianism
Michael Bird On Preaching the Psalms this Easter
How did the early preach about Jesus if they did not have a New Testament? The obvious answer is that they must have preached from the Old Testament! Of course, it wasn’t ‘old’ to them, it was the only Scripture they knew, the Law, the Prophets, and Writings were God’s Word to Israel. Even so, how do you preach Jesus’ cross and resurrection if you don’t have the Gospel of St. Mark, St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, the epistle to the Hebrews, of the Revelation of St. John the Divine? Well, they did it, by and large, by going through the Psalms!
As one reads through the New Testament, it becomes clear that the authors detected in the Psalms various pattern and images which reminded them of Jesus, specifically, who he…
“The Best Comment on Yahweh” via Bruce K. Waltke
We just found this piece by Bruce K. Waltke in our blog archives, unpublished since 2008. I can’t explain the delay, but here it is now. —Adam Forrest, Zondervan Academic Blog
Together, Professor James M. Houston and I have written a commentary on selected Psalms (The Psalms as Christian Worship: An Historical Commentary—Eerdmans, 2010). Professor Houston, formerly Lecturer of historical geography at Oxford, with a specialization in the history of ideas, and founder of Regent College, cites this passage from Hillary of Poitiers, first bishop of Gaul (4th century), on the meaning of the Name [Yahweh]. It is the best comment I have read.
Houston comments:
He (Hillary of Poitiers) narrates that as he was searching how he should live his life, “I chanced upon those books which according to Jewish tradition were written by Moses and the Prophets. In…
Wednesday Giveaway – The Essential Bible Companion to the Psalms
8 Who is like you, LORD God Almighty? You, LORD, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you.
9 You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them. 10 You crushed Rahab like one of the slain; with your strong arm you scattered your enemies. 11 The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it. – Psalm 89
Beautiful and evocative, these are the words that come to mind as I read this Psalm. Other Psalms though are joyous, or pained, or even angry. Singing of the Creator and his creation might resonate with us, but what do we do…