Blogging the Apocrypha - Wisdom of Solomon 18

Wow, I started this entry 7 months ago. Time to get back to it so we can finish it up and move on!

Wisdom of Solomon
I find myself on a quiet weekend. Lots of things to do - I'm so lucky. Went and spent some time with Amber, downtown, helped her get a prescription, then we bought some lunch for a few people. Always wish more could be done, you know? I was just thinking about that - I suppose I should count myself lucky in being able to say that I've spent my best years helping others.

Hey wow, only one more chapter to go after this one. We should celebrate.

We left off with the Roman occupation, ghosts, and a lesson in philosophy. Let's see what we've got for today.

"Their enemies heard their voices but did not see their forms, and counted them happy for not having suffered, and were thankful that thy holy ones, though previously wronged, were doing them no injury; and they begged their pardon for having been at variance with them."

Interesting conclusion of the occupation - their enemies seem a bit wonderous that only they were afflicted and were surprised at the behavior of their "victors." Imagine that, if all wars ended that way - imagine if the Japanese were like, "Oh, sorry we bombed Pearl Harbor."

"Therefore thou didst provide a flaming pillar of fire as a guide for thy people's unknown journey, and a harmless sun for their glorious wandering. For their enemies deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned in darkness, those who had kept thy sons imprisoned, through whom the imperishable light of the law was to be given to the world. When they had resolved to kill the babes of thy holy ones, and one child had been exposed and rescued, thou didst in punishment take away a multitude of their children; and thou didst destroy them all together by a mighty flood."

Interesting how this speaker is now suddenly speaking to God. The audience seems to have shifted. I wonder how it sounds to an outsider when you're talking to God. There either seems to be more history here that I'm not familiar with or stuff pulled from random places - imprisonment of Jews, scurge of Hebrew children (we've seen that before a few times!) - is he referring to Moses being rescued? Jesus? Then there's a reference to a flood - The Flood? Or another flood? I'm confused here. What's the point though? That the enemies deserved to be punished, but God had grace for them and even gave them useful gifts - more unmerited grace. And a little throwback to the Lord clothing Adam and Eve on their way out of the Garden.

[6] That night was made known beforehand to our fathers, so that they might rejoice in sure knowledge of the oaths in which they trusted. [7] The deliverance of the righteous and the destruction of their enemies were expected by thy people.

Prophecy is an interesting subject for me. I don't follow others' prophecies blindly, especially when they're self-fulfilling, unless they really feel supernatural. I have a friend who is afraid prophecy is more like the fortune telling he did back when he was into witchcraft. Anyhow, forknowledge of your for sure destruction is another thing. Reminds me my other friend's father is dying - but the doctors haven't come up with a reliable time frame for that either. At least Christians already know the end of the story. The deliverance of the righteous and the destruction of our enemies is on its way - even non-Christians can speak of their own sure descent into hell. Boggles the mind how they don't care or are trying to get validation from you.

[8] For by the same means by which thou didst punish our enemies thou didst call us to thyself and glorify us. [9] For in secret the holy children of good men offered sacrifices, and with one accord agreed to the divine law, that the saints would share alike the same things, both blessings and dangers; and already they were singing the praises of the fathers.

Reminds me of Jesus...by the same way the Lord allowed him to be destroyed and beaten in every way, he used that to call us to himself and glorify us through the blood of Christ. Although I don't know who the "fathers" are. "Fathers of faith..."? The fathers of the "holy children of good men"? The gift of an innocent child...reminds us of the gift of Abraham laying down Isaac, the small children coming to Jesus, and the baby Jesus, later tattered on the cross.

[10] But the discordant cry of their enemies echoed back, and their piteous lament for their children was spread abroad. [11] The slave was punished with the same penalty as the master, and the common man suffered the same loss as the king; [12] and they all together, by the one form of death, had corpses too many to count. For the living were not sufficient even to bury them, since in one instant their most valued children had been destroyed.

If God was able to sacrifice his only child, we must be able to do the same, willingly. Letting go for me isn't an issue - it's getting it in the first place. Perhaps I should take comfort in the "blessed is she who has not borne children." Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Ah, to love with reckless abandon. I can only love my God like that. And my cat, if he'll let me.

[13] For though they had disbelieved everything because of their magic arts,yet, when their first-born were destroyed, they acknowledged thy people to be God's son.

Woah...there's some kind of grammatical error here. Reminds you of the final plague of pharoah even though this worlds away and generations later. Thy people to be God's son...like...Moses...? Like...the Jews were God's people/children/child - like the church is Christ's bride?

[14] For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, [15] thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior [16] carrying the sharp sword of thy authentic command, and stood and filled all things with death, and touched heaven while standing on the earth. [17] Then at once apparitions in dreadful dreams greatly troubled them, and unexpected fears assailed them; [18] and one here and another there, hurled down half dead, made known why they were dying; [19] for the dreams which disturbed them forewarned them of this, so that they might not perish without knowing why they suffered.

A very powerful and poetic passage but, the WORD leaped from the royal throne of heaven - the authentic command of God - filled things with DEATH!? Ok, now I can see how from an enemy's apocolyptic view one might see things that way, but certainly not a victor of Christ's blood. Interesting how God continue to show us why we suffer and yet we refuse to acknowledge or believe it. Sometimes, however, the knowledge is worse than the suffering, so we persist in the pain of one rather than the other. Like a family member of mine and her father.

[20] The experience of death touched also the righteous, and a plague came upon the multitude in the desert, but the wrath did not long continue. [21] For a blameless man was quick to act as their champion; he brought forward the shield of his ministry, prayer and propitiation by incense; he withstood the anger and put an end to the disaster, showing that he was thy servant.[22] He conquered the wrath not by strength of body, and not by force of arms, but by his word he subdued the punisher, appealing to the oaths and covenants given to our fathers. [23] For when the dead had already fallen on one another in heaps, he intervened and held back the wrath, and cut off its way to the living.

Sounds like someone was daydreaming about the Savior before the Savior came. They did think he would be some great warrior. They almost get it right. The experience of death does continue to touch the righteous. But we have not lost our Champion. He still does all the things in v. 23. Praise Him!

[24] For upon his long robe the whole world was depicted, and the glories of the fathers were engraved on the four rows of stones, and thy majesty on the diadem upon his head. [25] To these the destroyer yielded, these he feared; for merely to test the wrath was enough.

I'm still confused here about the roles being played here. The Word comes and brings death, but there's some kind of Savior/Champion who bows to the "glories fo the fathers"? How Hellenistic! The voice switches here again to speaking to God - "thy majesty". The helmet of truth - the majesty of God covers all who wish to be covered.

Fascinating, and enough for today. Hopefully I'll finish 19 in the next 6 months. *LOL*!

Blogging the Apocrypha - Wisdom of Solomon 17

Wisdom of Solomon

Well, friends, I'm ready to restart this "I'm bored at work and need something to do" project. Also known as my "working out my salvation" effort. You might think I never have anything to do and work at boring jobs, but no, I always have something in the fire and am very grateful to have time to work at each of them!

So, whoever you are, ("to an unknown audience,") since we last left off I am coming to you from work in a different city! Nashville, the Belt Buckle of the Bible Belt. Oh how joyous it is to be a Christian in this city. It's so much easier for me to be friendly here and unsuspicious. I'm spreading my wings here!

So back to the work at hand. Let's pick up where we left off on fake Bible Books - Chapter 17!

"Great are thy judgments and hard to describe; therefore uninstructed souls have gone astray."

I really like verse 1 - very interesting. His judgments are great and hard to describe on many levels - their magnitude, their purpose...and if we do not learn our lessons we are surely uncorrected in our evil courses. Though I would argue that the two parts should be switched, "Uninstructed souls have gone astray, therefore great are thy judgments and hard to describe." It is certainly interesting how the Lord corrects us in ways that we can understand if we choose. There are some however that are just plain terrible - those are just meant to get our attention, I think. I think we always know in some way what He really wants us to do - and leaves the rest up to our discretion. (Free will, baby!)

"For when lawless men supposed that they held the holy nation in their power, they themselves lay as captives of darkness and prisoners of long night, shut in under their roofs, exiles from eternal providence."

Sounds like what's going on in the Middle East with Israel. God bless the Holy Nation of Israel!

"For thinking that in their secret sins they were unobserved behind a dark curtain of forgetfulness, they were scattered, terribly alarmed, and appalled by specters. For not even the inner chamber that held them protected them from fear, but terrifying sounds rang out around them, and dismal phantoms with gloomy faces appeared."

Okay, could I have picked a better day than Halloween to restart this blog and have this passage in here about darkness, fear, weird sounds, ghosts, and phantoms?? Yes, the haunting of people outside of the protection of the Lord! If believers are tormented, how much more non-believers! And yet, many are not even aware of it.

"And no power of fire was able to give light, nor did the brilliant flames of the stars avail to illumine that hateful night. Nothing was shining through to them except a dreadful, self-kindled fire, and in terror they deemed the things which they saw to be worse than that unseen appearance. The delusions of their magic art lay humbled, and their boasted wisdom was scornfully rebuked."

Methinks this refers to the Roman occupation, although I'm no historian - I just gleaned that off a cutting of an article from Encyclopedia Britannica. Ironic last line about their wisdom being rebuked. Example of the separation between man's wisdom and God's referred to in this text. Although one (me) might argue, in too many places they overlap here.

"For those who promised to drive off the fears and disorders of a sick soul were sick themselves with ridiculous fear. For even if nothing disturbing frightened them, yet, scared by the passing of beasts and the hissing of serpents, they perished in trembling fear, refusing to look even at the air, though it nowhere could be avoided."

Make no promises to cure or heal! That's sound. Only God has that power. How frightening is that? Refusing to look at the air! Perishing in fear! Talk about a "dark night of the soul."

"For wickedness is a cowardly thing, condemned by its own testimony; distressed by conscience, it has always exaggerated the difficulties. For fear is nothing but surrender of the helps that come from reason; and the inner expectation of help, being weak, prefers ignorance of what causes the torment."

Thick and confusing here. Wickedness is indeed cloaked fear. Interesting connection to being distressed by conscience - sounds like Paul in Romans 2:15. This is a lot of great psycho-babble. Well, the Hellenistic Athenians were great philosophers. This is almost like a direct quote from Epicureanism! (I wonder if it is! HA!) Although the negating attitude is leaning toward Stoicism! I have an image of a British chap looking down his nose and down his pipe saying, "Really dahlin, if you'd just be reasonable, you'd stop being so fearful." Hehe :)

"But throughout the night, which was really powerless, and which beset them from the recesses of powerless Hades, they all slept the same sleep, and now were driven by monstrous specters, and now were paralyzed by their souls' surrender, for sudden and unexpected fear overwhelmed them. And whoever was there fell down, and thus was kept shut up in a prison not made of iron; for whether he was a farmer or a shepherd or a workman who toiled in the wilderness, he was seized, and endured the inescapable fate; for with one chain of darkness they all were bound. Whether there came a whistling wind, or a melodious sound of birds in wide-spreading branches, or the rhythm of violently rushing water, or the harsh crash of rocks hurled down, or the unseen running of leaping animals, or the sound of the most savage roaring beasts, or an echo thrown back from a hollow of the mountains, it paralyzed them with terror. For the whole world was illumined with brilliant light, and was engaged in unhindered work, while over those men alone heavy night was spread, an image of the darkness that was destined to receive them; but still heavier than darkness were they to themselves."

This reads like a Shakespearean prologue. Very descriptive and imaginitive, but where is it going? Perhaps we'll find out in Chapter 18! But seriously, we have changed tones here - another reason this is not a true prophetic book. We've gone from Proverby advice and prattlings about the importance of Wisdom to a history book! What's going on here? Be wise...but not too wise...what is Wisdom without action? Oh, yeah, this was written by a Stoic. Know all, do nothing! Oh, wait, don't get too passionate about that.

Ok folks, Happy Hallowed Eve and All Saints Day - I'm looking forward to rejoining you soon for our next installment! (I feel like I'm announcing Masterpiece Theatre...or is it Tales from the Crypt!!?!!?) *Insert Evil Laugh*

Blogging the Apocrypha - Wisdom of Solomon 16

Wisdom of Solomon

Welcome to another exciting installation of the fake books in the Catholic Bible. (Tee hee - ouch.)
Right now, I come to you live from the scanner at work, where I am scanning in another 1,000 pages of boringness. My pages are being "rasterized" - is that related to Zionist prostylization? (Oh my good Lord, I spelled that right on the first try. Yes, this English teacher uses spellcheck.)

Let's take a look at Chapter 16.

The first verses reveal the Lord's kindness to the Egyptians (notice this author never uses names likein other parts of the Bible when history is being invoked to prove a point?) It also refers in verse two about the quail the Lord provided in the desert. We were joking about this recently about how the Lord says, in essence, you want quail? I'll give you quail until it's coming out of your nose, you ingrates." Seems like the Lord expressed anger through this "blessing" of "lovingkindness of delicacies" - completely different message.

It is true the Lord gets our attention in myriad ways - we are often "troubled for a little while as a warning." Thankfully His grace and mercy and lovingkindess are seen - often as an afterthought to this flesh. We forget Him so easily when we do not get what we want when we want it. When we heed His warning, however, and remember His benefits and promises aloud, our enemies can not use our flesh as argument against God. Indeed, one who uses one of His servants complaints as an argument against Him does not know Him indeed. But, you know, we must show our humanity at times, or our faith would not be real. They must wonder, why do they keep going back for more? Even though they suffer, they love Him. They must love Him awfully far above and beyond the suffering they have endured. Ah, but those who love Him, do love Him far above and beyond anything and everything. This world has nothing for us. No joy, or pain, comes close to the joy and sweet pain of knowing Him.

The language becomes a bit muddied here and the history criss-crossed. The memories of the Lord's warnings seem to be reminiscent of the prophets, and the punishments of the Israelites in captivity w/ Egypt. The Lord did not punish His faithful in Egypt - He delivered them. And it was only because of their disobedience that they were "reminded" of the Lord's power. Strange stuff indeed. Unless the author wants to categorize Egyptians and Israelites in the same category - which is even stranger - that concept only really comes in the new Testament - after argument!

Haha - verse 13 gives it all away when it refers to God leading men to Hades and back. Our cultural reference points give it away. There are earlier mentions of Sheol and "the depths" but this is clearly a Greek location and concept.

Verse 14 is a pointer ahead to the purity of Jesus. Only a perfect man/god could bring life in death and set free souls. And we, in the vine of the purity of Jesus can do the same.

"To escape from thy hand is impossible..." (verse 15) truly true.

The next verses muddle together several stories - manna from Heaven, the fire and rains in Egypt? Maybe I'm not clear on my Israeli history, but this author isn't any more so! It mentions something about everyone eating the taste that suited himself - where is that? I have no clue. This might be a made-up part about the flavor of the manna, because, as far as I know, they got so bored with it they cried out for meat! If the manna changed flavor, why wouldn't they imagine it to be meat?

Verse 24 is a mind-boggler. Creation serves the Lord, it "exerts itself to punish" and "in kindness relaxes" - that's way too much personification of the Creation. While the Creation has the Breath of Life, it does not have the Mind of the Creator. The Lord does seem to punish various areas with natural disasters and yet modern man will not accept that idea. What do you think? I'm still blown away by the connections I see - yet the words will sometimes not leave my mouth. Was Louisiana punished by God for its sin? Did the Towers fall because of the sin of the financial world? Do the mudslides and earthquakes come upon the heathen in Asia so they might see the Hand of God? I am not the one who decides this, but I do take note. Hopefully I take action too - Lord strengthen me.

Deuteronomy is quoted in verse 26 - a verse that Jesus speaks aloud to Satan in the desert.

I don't really know what the fire, sun, ray, and ice refers too - I should reread some chapters and do some research on that for you. The last line of this chapter is thoughtful - "the hope of an ungrateful man will melt like wintry frost, and flow away like waste water."

Lord, I am grateful for my friends, my family, those who rule justly, for the basic needs you have more than covered, for the prosperity I enjoy. For ample food, protection, service, and that all my needs are taken care of by you. You serve me well. I wish I could serve you a fraction of how well you serve me. But I can not, as you made me to need you. So, I am your friend, your bride! AMEN.