Tiny Devotional for Saturday, 06-24-2023

 A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, visualize whirled peas.

If you are slack in the day of distress,

Your strength is limited.

Proverbs 24:10, NASB

Stumped, stumped, stumped.
In 52 minutes, I’m supposed to be in men’s group, and I’ve encountered a really tough verse.

I was alerted to the fact that it’s a tough verse, because NASB, and almost every other English translation, is Captain Obvious.  
OF COURSE, you don’t have enough strength if you can’t handle the tough fight. Why spend a verse saying THAT?

So, I had to look, and I discover that the word that is translated ‘limited’ here, and in other translations ‘weak, small, limited, diminished’ is 

כֹּחֶֽכָה (tsar)

It appears 105 times in the Bible, and this is the ONLY time it’s translated as ‘small.’ In almost every other place, it’s rendered as ‘enemy, adversary, trouble, distress, affliction, foes.’

Look: the translators of the Old Testament were GENIUSES: this verse is expressed in exactly FIVE Hebrew words! And somehow, not only do we get meaning, we also get beautiful, poetic language.

Still, this old man must disagree with those old men on what the verse means.

My brother Walter is a competitive weight lifter, and HE knows what this verse means from his own experience. Walter has said things like this:

“If you fail in competition, it’s because you didn’t train enough. Your ‘strength’ is your enemy.”

(My words, not Walter’s. I didn’t have time to check with him; 22 minutes to men’s group.)

‘Don’t blame the enemy, or your allies, or your other resources when you fail in the crisis; you didn’t do the work to get prepared.’

So, let's do the work.


Peace be on your household.

Comments

  1. BobDJune 24, 2023 at 6:58 AM

    I appreciate your scholarship so much! I am a firm believer in "defining your terms". Total transformation of this verse for me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Moose45RiderJune 24, 2023 at 7:57 AM

    Keep up the great work and dissection of these verses because some of us are entrenched in the face value of these and don't stop and meditate on them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. On Christ the Solid Rock I StandJune 28, 2023 at 2:02 AM

    Amen and Amen my Brother Pat, wonderful idea. Praise God!

    ReplyDelete

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