Monday, March 30, 2020

Lev 2-3; Jn 21; Pr 18; Col 1

Leviticus 2:13 Moreover, you must season every one of your grain offerings with salt; you must not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be missing from your grain offering—on every one of your grain offerings you must present salt.

"Covenant of Salt" - most commentators agree that salt refers to sureness and legal nature of the transaction (https://www.gotquestions.org/salt-covenant.html)

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Ex 40; Jn 19; Pr 16; Phil 3

John 19:1 ​ 
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged severely.
Note: sn This severe flogging was not administered by Pilate himself but his officers, who took Jesus at Pilate's order and scourged him. The author's choice of wording here may constitute an allusion to Isa 50:6, "I gave my back to those who scourge me." Three forms of corporal punishment were employed by the Romans, in increasing degree of severity: (1) fustigatio (beating), (2) flagellatio (flogging), and (3) verberatio (severe flogging, scourging). The first could be on occasion a punishment in itself, but the more severe forms were part of the capital sentence as a prelude to crucifixion. The most severe, verberatio, is what is indicated here by the Greek verb translated flogged severely (μαστιγόω, mastigoo). People died on occasion while being flogged this way; frequently it was severe enough to rip a person's body open or cut muscle and sinew to the bone. It was carried out with a whip that had fragments of bone or pieces of metal bound into the tips.

John 19:25
Now standing beside Jesusʼ cross were his mother, his motherʼs sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
Note: sn Several women are mentioned, but it is not easy to determine how many. It is not clear whether his mother's sister and Mary the wife of Clopas are to be understood as the same individual (in which case only three women are mentioned: Jesus' mother, her sister Mary, and Mary Magdalene) or as two different individuals (in which case four women are mentioned: Jesus' mother, her sister, Mary Clopas' wife, and Mary Magdalene). It is impossible to be certain, but when John's account is compared to the synoptics it is easier to reconcile the accounts if four women were present than if there were only three. It also seems that if there were four women present, this would have been seen by the author to be in juxtaposition to the four soldiers present who performed the crucifixion, and this may explain the transition from the one incident in 23-24 to the other in 25-27. Finally, if only three were present, this would mean that both Jesus' mother and her sister were named Mary, and this is highly improbable in a Jewish family of that time. If there were four women present, the name of the second, the sister of Jesus' mother, is not mentioned. It is entirely possible that the sister of Jesus' mother mentioned here is to be identified with the woman named Salome mentioned in Mark 15:40 and also with the woman identified as "the mother of the sons of Zebedee" mentioned in Matt 27:56. If so, and if John the Apostle is to be identified as the beloved disciple, then the reason for the omission of the second woman's name becomes clear; she would have been John's own mother, and he consistently omitted direct reference to himself or his brother James or any other members of his family in the Fourth Gospel.

John 19:31
Then, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not stay on the crosses on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was an especially important one), the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to have the victimsʼ legs broken and the bodies taken down.
Note: sn To have the legs broken. Breaking the legs of a crucified person was a way of speeding up his death, since the victim could no longer use his legs to push upward in order to be able to draw a breath. This breaking of the legs was called in Latin crurifragium, and was done with a heavy mallet.

Friday, March 27, 2020

Ex 39; Jn 18; Pr 15; Phil 2

Exodus 39:42-43
42 The Israelites did all the work according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses. 43 Moses inspected all the work, and they had done it just as the Lord had commanded—they had done it exactly—and Moses blessed them.
Notes: sn The situation and wording in Exod 39:43 are reminiscent of Gen 1:28 and 31, with the motifs of blessing people and inspecting what has been made.
sn All of Exod 39:32-40:38 could be taken as a unit. The first section (39:32-43) shows that the Israelites had carefully and accurately completed the preparation and brought everything they had made to Moses: The work of the Lord builds on the faithful obedience of the people. In the second section are the instruction and the implementation (40:1-33): The work of the Lord progresses through the unifying of the work. The last part (40:34-38) may take the most attention: When the work was completed, the glory filled the tabernacle: By his glorious presence, the Lord blesses and directs his people in their worship.


Phi 2:12 — Phi 2:13
So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort - for the sake of his good pleasure - is God.


Thursday, March 26, 2020

Ex 38; Jn 17; Pr 14; Phil 1

John 17:1-3 
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward to heaven and said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you— 2 just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. 
Note: sn This is eternal life. The author here defines eternal life for the readers, although it is worked into the prayer in such a way that many interpreters do not regard it as another of the author’s parenthetical comments. It is not just unending life in the sense of prolonged duration. Rather it is a quality of life, with its quality derived from a relationship with God. Having eternal life is here defined as being in relationship with the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom the Father sent. Christ (Χριστός, Christos) is not characteristically attached to Jesus’ name in John’s Gospel; it occurs elsewhere primarily as a title and is used with Jesus’ name only in 1:17. But that is connected to its use here: The statement here in 17:3 enables us to correlate the statement made in 1:18 of the prologue, that Jesus has fully revealed what God is like, with Jesus’ statement in 10:10 that he has come that people might have life, and have it abundantly. These two purposes are really one, according to 17:3, because (abundant) eternal life is defined as knowing (being in relationship with) the Father and the Son. The only way to gain this eternal life, that is, to obtain this knowledge of the Father, is through the Son (cf. 14:6). Although some have pointed to the use of know (γινώσκω, ginōskō) here as evidence of Gnostic influence in the Fourth Gospel, there is a crucial difference: For John this knowledge is not intellectual, but relational. It involves being in relationship.

Philippians 1:29-30
29 For it has been granted to you not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for him, 30 since you are encountering the same conflict that you saw me face and now hear that I am facing.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Ex 36; Jn 15; Pr 12; Eph 5

John 15:8
My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples. 
15:8 b tn The ἵνα (hina) clause is best taken as substantival in apposition to ἐν τούτῳ (en touto) at the beginning of the verse. The Father is glorified when the disciples bring forth abundant fruit. Just as Jesus has done the works which he has seen his Father doing (5:19-29) so also will his disciples.

Jn 15:9 — Jn 15:10
“Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain in my love. If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Fatherʼs commandments and remain in his love.
John 15:14
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
15:14 a sn This verse really explains John 15:10 in another way. Those who keep Jesus' commandments are called his friends, those friends for whom he lays down his life (v. 13). It is possible to understand this verse as referring to a smaller group within Christianity as a whole, perhaps only the apostles who were present when Jesus spoke these words. Some have supported this by comparing it to the small group of associates and advisers to the Roman Emperor who were called "Friends of the Emperor." Others would see these words as addressed only to those Christians who as disciples were obedient to Jesus. In either case the result would be to create a sort of "inner circle" of Christians who are more privileged than mere "believers" or average Christians. In context, it seems clear that Jesus' words must be addressed to all true Christians, not just some narrower category of believers, because Jesus' sacrificial death, which is his act of love toward his friends (v. 13) applies to all Christians equally (cf. John 13:1).

Ephesians 5:5
For you can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 

Monday, March 23, 2020

Ex 35; Jn 14; Pr 11; Eph 4

Exodus 34:21-22 
 21 Everyone whose heart stirred him to action and everyone whose spirit was willing came and brought the offering for the Lord for the work of the tent of meeting, for all its service, and for the holy garments. 22 They came, men and women alike, all who had willing hearts. They brought brooches, earrings, rings and ornaments, all kinds of gold jewelry, and everyone came who waved a wave offering of gold to the Lord.
Note: tn The expression in Hebrew is “men on/after the women,” meaning men with women, to ensure that it was clear that the preceding verse did not mean only men. B. Jacob takes it further, saying that the men came after the women because the latter had taken the initiative (Exodus, 1017).

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Ex 34; Jn 13; Pr 10; Eph 3

Exodus 34:5-7
5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the Lord by name. 6 The Lord passed by before him and proclaimed: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, 7 keeping loyal love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”
Note: tn Here is one of the clearest examples of what it means “to call on the name of the Lord,” as that clause has been translated traditionally (וַיִּקְרָא בְשֵׁם יְהוָה, vayyiqraʾ vshem yhvah). It seems more likely that it means “to make proclamation of Yahweh by name.” Yahweh came down and made a proclamation—and the next verses give the content of what he said. This cannot be prayer or praise; it is a proclamation of the nature or attributes of God (which is what his “name” means throughout the Bible). Attempts to make Moses the subject of the verb are awkward, for the verb is repeated in v. 6 with Yahweh clearly doing the proclaiming.
sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 439) suggests that these two names be written as a sentence: “Yahweh, He is Yahweh.” In this manner it reflects “I am that I am.” It is impossible to define his name in any other way than to make this affirmation and then show what it means.

Exodus 34:14 For you must not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. 
Note: sn Here, too, the emphasis on God’s being a jealous God is repeated (see Exod 20:5). The use of “name” here is to stress that this is his nature, his character.