Matthew 1

Matthew 1

Matthew 1:1 A birth[1] record of Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, a descendant of Abraham.

Matthew 1:2 Abraham fathered[2] Isaac and Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers,

Matthew 1:3 and Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez fathered Hezron, and Hezron fathered Ram,

Matthew 1:4 and Ram fathered Amminadab, and Amminadab fathered Nahshon, and Nahshon fathered Salmon,

Matthew 1:5 and Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, and Obed fathered Jesse,

Matthew 1:6 and Jesse fathered David, the king. And David fathered Solomon by the wife of Uriah,

Matthew 1:7 and Solomon fathered Rehoboam, and Rehoboam fathered Abijah, and Abijah fathered Asaph,

Matthew 1:8 and Asaph fathered Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat fathered Joram, and Joram fathered Uzziah,

Matthew 1:9 and Uzziah fathered Jotham, and Jotham fathered Ahaz, and Ahaz fathered Hezekiah,

Matthew 1:10 and Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, and Manasseh fathered Amos, and Amos fathered Josiah,

Matthew 1:11 and Josiah fathered Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

Matthew 1:12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah fathered Shealtiel, and Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel,

Matthew 1:13 and Zerubbabel fathered Abiud, and Abiud fathered Eliakim, and Eliakim fathered Azor,

Matthew 1:14 and Azor fathered Zadok, and Zadok fathered Achim, and Achim fathered Eliud,

Matthew 1:15 and Eliud fathered Eleazar, and Eleazar fathered Matthan, and Matthan fathered Jacob,

Matthew 1:16 and Jacob fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

Matthew 1:17 Now all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

Matthew 1:18 and the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When Mary, his mother had been engaged to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be pregnant by the Sacred[3] Breath.[4]

Matthew 1:19 And her husband Joseph, being an honorable man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

Matthew 1:20 But as he thought about these things, notice,[5] an agent[6] of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife because what has been fathered in her is from the Sacred Breath.

Matthew 1:21 She will give birth to a son, and you will call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their failures.”[7]

Matthew 1:22 All this happened in order to fulfill what the Lord had predicted through the prophet:

Matthew 1:23 “Notice, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel” (which translates as ‘God with us’).[8]

Matthew 1:24 When Joseph woke up[9] from his sleep, he did as the agent of the Lord had instructed him: he took Mary as his wife,

Matthew 1:25 but did not have intimacy with[10] her until after she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

[1]γένεσις = birth. Matthew 1:1, 18.

[2]γεννάω = to father (verb). Matthew 1:2-16, 20; 2:1, 4; 19:12; 26:24.

[3]ἅγιος = sacred. Matthew 1:18, 20; 3:11; 4:5; 7:6; 12:32; 24:15; 27:52-53; 28:19.

[4] πνεῦμα = breath. Matthew 1:18, 20; 3:11, 16; 4:1; 5:3; 8:16; 10:1, 20; 12:18, 28, 31-32, 43, 45; 22:43; 26:41; 27:50; 28:19.

[5] ἰδού = notice. Matthew 1:20, 23; 2:13, 19; 3:16-17; 4:11; 7:4; 8:24, 34; 9:10; 10:16; 11:10, 19; 12:2, 18, 41-42, 46-47, 49; 13:3; 17:3, 5; 19:27; 20:18; 21:5; 22:4; 23:34, 38; 24:23, 25-26; 25:6; 26:45-47, 51; 27:51; 28:2, 7, 9, 20.

[6]ἄγγελος = agent. Matthew 1:20, 24; 2:13, 19; 4:6, 11; 11:10; 13:39, 41, 49; 16:27; 18:10; 22:30; 24:31, 36; 25:31, 41; 26:53; 28:2, 5.

[7] ἁμαρτία = failure. Matthew 1:21; 3:6; 9:2, 5, 6; 12:31; 26:28.

[8] Isaiah 7:14.

[9] ἐγείρω = wake up, raise up, get up. Matthew 1:24; 2:13, 14, 20, 21; 3:9; 8:15, 25, 26; 9:5, 6, 7, 19, 25; 10:8; 11:5, 11; 12:11, 42; 14:2; 16:21; 17:9, 23; 20:19; 24:7, 11, 24; 25:7; 26:32, 46; 27:52, 63, 64; 28:6, 7.

[10] γινώσκω know, have intimacy with. Matthew 1:25; 6:3; 7:23; 9:30; 10:26; 12:7, 15, 33; 13:11; 16:3, 8; 21:45; 22:18; 24:32-33, 39, 43, 50; 25:24; 26:10.

Matthew 1 quotes:

“Matthew offers three forms of proof—or witness—that Jesus qualifies as King. He first cites the lineage of Jesus, and he does it in accountant-like terms. Jesus is shown to be a direct descendant of both Abraham and David. Jesus is clearly proclaimed to be a Jew, with Abraham—the father of all who have faith—as both His spiritual and biological ancestor. (See Romans 4:16.) Jesus is also of the lineage of King David, to whom an everlasting throne was promised. (See 2 Samuel 7:13 and Isaiah 9:7.) Not only does Jesus fit the prescribed identity for Messiah, but, according to Matthew, Jesus appears in history after three sets of fourteen generations—these multiples of seven (in couplets representing the days of the patriarchs, the kings, and the prophets), had special numerical meaning to the Jewish people. Six groups of seven have passed, which puts Jesus at the threshold of the seventh seven—a numerical position of perfect rule, since seven is the biblical number that refers to perfection in Jewish tradition.”

Blackaby, Henry T. The Gospel of Matthew. Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2007. p. 15.

“When God made the world in the beginning, we are told that his Spirit was brooding above the waters. In the silence of the world’s non-being, God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, most glorious of creatures. Now the Spirit comes again, into the sheltering darkness of the womb of Mary, who was as open to the will of God as were the waters of the uncreated world. There, in a miracle of smallness and silence, Jesus is conceived, who will be the true light of the world, taking flesh to dwell among us. When on the sixth day of creation God made man, he did for Adam what he had not done for any other creature. The beasts were brought forth from the earth, but God himself breathed the breath of life into the dust of Adam, and he became a living soul. So now the new Adam breaks into the world by a breath, by the Spirit of God, so that all who unite themselves with the death and resurrection of Jesus will be new creations, and will have true life within them.”

Cameron, Peter John. Praying with Saint Matthew’s Gospel : Daily Reflections on the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Magnificat, 2010. p. 22.

“In recalling stories of Abraham, David, and the exile (to name but three), the audience learns something of the nature of God. This God constantly intervenes in human affairs. God took initiative in calling Abraham and selecting David. God promised Abraham land and descendants and David an eternal kingdom. God remained faithful to these promises even when both men failed. Abraham and Sarah’s age threatened the promise, as did the offering of Isaac as a sacrifice (Gen 18-22) and the devastating experience of God’s judgment in exile. Yet God remained faithful and acted powerfully to deliver on the promises. Continually God guided Israel forward into a new future.”

Carter, Warren. Matthew : Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist. Rev. ed, Hendrickson Publishers, 2004. p. 108.

“On the two other occasions in Matthew when a single angel appears — significantly, following Jesus’ birth and resurrection (chs. 2 and 28) — the figure is again identified as angelos Kyriou — a servant and messenger of Yahweh. The opening idou prepares readers for the startling and the significant; this will be true to a yet greater degree in 1:23: ‘Behold [Idou, for Hebrew hinéh] the virgin will conceive….’ In this passage, the angel is the only servant of God whose speech is directly reported. He addresses Joseph by name, and identifies him as ‘son of David’ (1:20). Then the angel discloses the manner of Mary’s conception, together with the name and’the mission of the child she will bear.”

Chamblin, J K. Matthew: A Mentor Commentary. Fearn, Tain: Christian Focus Pub, 2010. p. 197.

“Matthew portrays Joseph not as fearing to break the law through failure to divorce Mary, but as fearing to do wrong by taking Mary to wife when she was pregnant by divine causation. Then the statement in v 18, “she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit,’’ does not come as a piece of advance information to the reader, but bears its more natural sense that Joseph found out the reason for, as well as the fact of, Mary’s pregnancy early in the episode (and presumably from Mary; cf. Luke 1:26-45). That , not a wrong deduction, left Joseph in a quandary. In deference to the Holy Spirit he decided to divorce Mary. In consideration of Mary he planned to hand her the certificate of divorce without any witnesses at all. The Mosaic law did not require them, anyway. They had become customary to protect a man from a divorced wife’s false denial of divorce. But, according to Matthew, Joseph intended to waive that precaution. The angel will repeat what Joseph already believed both to assure him of its truth and to provide a basis for the command to marry. Meanwhile, readers of Matthew have no reason to suspect Mary of what not even Joseph suspected her.”

Gundry, Robert H. Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art. , 1983. p. 22.

“Matthew’s Gospel is a story about Jesus’ birth, public ministry, and his passion, death, and resurrection. Even the larger sections of Jesus’ teachings appear in the context of this overall story line. The Evangelist presents himself as a believer in Jesus’ special importance and as the all-knowing narrator whose words can be trusted. He wrote originally for a largely Jewish-Christian audience that wanted greater clarity about how their faith in Jesus related to their identity as Jews in the late first century.”

Harrington, Daniel J. Meeting St. Matthew Today: Understanding the Man, His Mission, and His Message. Chicago: Loyola Press, 2010. p. 15.

“So the decisive moment has arrived. Israel’s long-awaited Shepherd King has come. How will the people respond? Matthew points to a sharp contrast. Jesus’ coming is an intrusion to some but a joy to others. King Herod and the residents of Jerusalem are “disturbed” —troubled, upset, scared—by news about a king of the Jews. By contrast, some strangers from the east joyfully open their hearts and their treasures to the child born to be King and Savior. Ironically, it is these outsiders who model the right way to respond to Jesus arrival. They recognize that something momentous is happening, and so they pursue him and kneel before him and offer him what they value most.”

Hiigel John L. Partnering with the King : Study the Gospel of Matthew and Become a Disciple of Jesus. Paraclete Press 2013. p. 19.

“The Gospel of Matthew does not begin at the birth of Jesus but with Jesus’ origins, with his ancestry and genealogy, going back to the beginnings of faith, to Abraham and his son Isaac. This long line will end with Joseph of the house of David, the earthly, legal father of Jesus. This listing, this history of believers who lived on the Word of God — the Torah — and its promises, is crucial to understanding who Jesus is. He is the culmination of this nation, his race, and the chosen people of Yahweh God. This is the Genesis of Jesus. As a Jew Matthew thinks, breathes, and lives in the shadow and the light of the Torah. Genesis first recounts creation, the beginnings of the heavens and the earth, then the generations of humankind (see Gn 4 and 5). Just so, Matthew’s Gospel begins with Jesus’ own roots in this people: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham….” He is the offspring of all these people. “Genealogy” signifies “origin,” “beginnings.” And Jesus himself will generate and bring forth a new people of God, those born again in his Spirit as his brothers and sisters, to the glory of our one Father.”

McKenna Megan. Matthew : The Book of Mercy. New City Press 2007. p. 34.

“The fact that Matthew never explicitly refers to Joseph as Jesus’ father reminds us that Jesus was born to an adoptive father. After being named and taken into the family by Joseph, legally, Jesus is Joseph’s son. And being Joseph’s son means that this adoption ties Jesus to the line of David as a royal son. Finally, in terms of how Jesus came, Matthew tells us that all of these things happened amidst a fallen world. Jesus came to a world of sin in need of salvation, which is why it is crucial to see that ultimately, Jesus is God’s Son. The problem of sin needed a divine solution.”

Platt, David. Exalting Jesus in Matthew. , 2013. p. 20.

“Herod made many wrong choices. Although he built fortresses and palaces, he destroyed lives. And other people paid dearly for his bad choices. In contrast, Jesus made the right choices. Even though the devil tempted him directly and tried to lure him with offers of fame, power, and authority, Jesus chose correctly in every decision. Likewise, Joseph had only one desire whenever he was faced with decisions: to do what God wanted. Whatever God desired was Joseph’s desire. We learn from these examples that every opportunity to make a wrong choice is also an opportunity to make a right choice. The right choice will always honor God. How often do you consider God in your day-to-day choices?”

Wilson, Neil S. Matthew : Life Application Bible Studies. Tyndale, 2009. p. 92.

“Joseph was a righteous man, but he was also a compassionate man. He cared for Mary. He could not treat this matter lightly, and neither would he act vindictively. He demonstrates the struggle of a soul trying to be faithful. When a person has both convictions about principles and compassion for people, he or she often faces painful choices. At times neither side of a decision seems to be totally good. Joseph could not figure out how to move through this dilemma in a way that would settle his soul. He needed saving.”

Younger, Carol D. The Gospel of Matthew: Hope in the Resurrected Christ : Adult Bible Study Guide. Dallas, Tex: BaptistWay Press, 2008. p. 28.

Matthew 1 links:

ACST 61- The Advents

Don’t miss Jesus this Christmas!

the earthly family of heaven’s king

the virgin birth of heaven’s king

what has happened to her

Maranatha Daily Devotional – Thursday, August 30, 2018

Maranatha Daily Devotional – Thursday, January 31, 2019

Maranatha Daily Devotional – Wednesday, February 1, 2023

The MATTHEW shelf in Jeff’s library

Deuteronomy 4

Deuteronomy 4

Deuteronomy 4:1 “Now, Israel, listen to the prescriptions[1] and rules I am teaching you to follow so that you may stay alive,[2] enter, and take possession of the land Yahveh, the God of your fathers is giving you.

Deuteronomy 4:2 You must not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it so that you may watch the commands of Yahveh, your God I am giving you.

Deuteronomy 4:3 Your eyes have seen what Yahveh did at Baal-Peor, for Yahveh your God exterminated every one of you who followed Baal of Peor.

Deuteronomy 4:4 But you who have remained faithful to Yahveh your God are all alive today.

Deuteronomy 4:5 Look, I have taught you prescriptions and rules as Yahveh my God has commanded me so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of.

Deuteronomy 4:6 Be careful and do them, because this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the people. When they hear about all these prescriptions, they will say, ‘This great nation is indeed a wise and understanding people.’

Deuteronomy 4:7 For what great nation is there that has a god near to it like Yahveh our God is to us whenever we call to him?

Deuteronomy 4:8 And what great nation has righteous prescriptions and rules like this entire instruction I set before you today?

Deuteronomy 4:9 “Only be careful and diligently watch your throats,[3] or else[4] you will forget the things your eyes have seen and they will slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.

Deuteronomy 4:10 The day you stood before Yahveh your God at Horeb, Yahveh said to me, ‘Collect[5] the people before me, and I will let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the land and may instruct their children.’

Deuteronomy 4:11 You came near and stood below the mountain, a mountain blazing with fire into the heart[6] of the sky and enveloped in a totally black cloud.

Deuteronomy 4:12 Then Yahveh spoke to you from the fire. You kept hearing the sound of the words but didn’t see a form; there was only a voice.

Deuteronomy 4:13 He declared his covenant to you. He commanded you to do the Ten Words,[7] which he wrote on two stone tablets.

Deuteronomy 4:14 At that time, Yahveh commanded me to teach you prescriptions and rules for you to follow in the land you are about to cross into and take possession of.

Deuteronomy 4:15 “Diligently watch your throats – because you did not see any form on the day Yahveh spoke to you out of the fire at Horeb –

Deuteronomy 4:16 or else you will act corruptly[8] and make an idol for yourselves in the shape of some figure: a male or female form,

Deuteronomy 4:17 or the form of some animal on the land, some winged creature that flies in the sky,

Deuteronomy 4:18 some creature that crawls on the ground, or some fish in the water under the land.

Deuteronomy 4:19 When you look to the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars – all the stars in the sky – or else you might be led astray to bow in worship to them and serve them. Yahveh your God has provided them for all people everywhere under the sky.

Deuteronomy 4:20 But Yahveh selected you and brought you out of Egypt’s iron furnace to be a people for his inheritance, as you are today.

Deuteronomy 4:21 “Yahveh was angry with me because of your thing. He swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land Yahveh your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Deuteronomy 4:22 I won’t be crossing the Jordan because I am going to die in this land. But you are about to cross over and take possession of this good land.

Deuteronomy 4:23 Be careful, or else you will forget the covenant of Yahveh your God that he established[9] with you, and make an idol for yourselves in the shape of anything he has forbidden you

Deuteronomy 4:24 because Yahveh, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Deuteronomy 4:25 “When you have children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, and if you act corruptly, make an idol in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of Yahveh your God, angering him,

Deuteronomy 4:26 I call sky and land as witnesses against you today that you will rapidly[10] be destroyed[11] from the land you are about to cross the Jordan to take possession of. You will not live long there, but you will indeed be exterminated.

Deuteronomy 4:27 Yahveh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be reduced to a few survivors among the nations where Yahveh, your God, will drive you.

Deuteronomy 4:28 There you will worship human-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see, hear, eat, or smell.

Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there, you will search for Yahveh, your God, and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and all your throat.

Deuteronomy 4:30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, in the future, you will return to Yahveh, your God, and obey him.

Deuteronomy 4:31 He will not leave you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them by oath because Yahveh, your God, is a compassionate God.

Deuteronomy 4:32 “Indeed, ask about the earlier days that preceded you, from the day God created humankind on the land and from one end of the sky to the other: Has anything like this great event ever happened, or has anything like it been heard of?

Deuteronomy 4:33 Has a people heard God’s voice speaking from the fire as you have, and stayed alive?

Deuteronomy 4:34 Or has a god attempted to go and take a nation as his own out of another nation, by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, by great terrors, as Yahveh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Deuteronomy 4:35 You were shown these things so that you would know that Yahveh is God; there is no other besides him.

Deuteronomy 4:36 He let you hear his voice from the sky to instruct you. He showed you his great fire on the land, and you listened to his words from the fire.

Deuteronomy 4:37 Because he cared about[12] your fathers, he chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by his presence and great power,

Deuteronomy 4:38 to take possession from nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as is now taking place.

Deuteronomy 4:39 Today, recognize and keep in mind that Yahveh is God in the sky above and on the land below; there is no other.

Deuteronomy 4:40 Watch his prescriptions and commands, which I am giving you today so that you and your children after you may prosper and so that you may live long in the land Yahveh your God is commanding you for all the days.”

Deuteronomy 4:41 Then Moses separated[13] three cities across the Jordan to the east.

Deuteronomy 4:42 Someone could flee there who committed manslaughter, killing his neighbor accidentally without previously hating him. He could escape to one of these cities and stay alive:

Deuteronomy 4:43 Bezer in the open country on the plateau land, belonging to the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, belonging to the Gadites; or Golan in Bashan, belonging to the Manassites.

Deuteronomy 4:44 This is the instruction Moses placed before the Israelites.

Deuteronomy 4:45 These are the reminders,[14] prescriptions, and rules Moses proclaimed to them after they came out of Egypt,

Deuteronomy 4:46 across the Jordan in the valley facing Beth-Peor in the land of King Sihon of the Amorites. He lived in Heshbon, and Moses and the Israelites defeated him after they came out of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 4:47 They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings who were across the Jordan to the east,

Deuteronomy 4:48 from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Sion (that is, Hermon)

Deuteronomy 4:49 and all the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Dead Sea below the slopes of Pisgah.

[1]חק = prescription. Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-6, 8, 14, 40, 45; 5:1, 31; 6:1, 17, 20, 24; 7:11; 11:32; 12:1; 16:12; 17:19; 26:16-17; 27:10.

[2]חָיָה = stay alive. Deuteronomy 4:1, 33, 42; 5:24, 26, 33; 6:24; 8:1, 3; 16:20; 19:4-5; 20:16; 30:16, 19; 32:39; 33:6.

[3]נֶפֶשׁ = throat. Deuteronomy 4:9, 15, 29; 6:5; 10:12, 22; 11:13, 18; 12:23; 13:3, 6; 14:26; 19:6, 21; 21:14; 24:6-7, 15; 26:16; 27:25; 28:65; 30:2, 6, 10.

[4]פֵּן = or else. Deuteronomy 4:9, 16; 6:15; 7:25; 8:12; 9:28; 15:9; 19:6; 20:5-7; 22:9; 25:3; 29:18.

[5]קהל = collect. Deuteronomy 4:10; 31:12, 28.

[6]לֵב = heart. Deuteronomy 4:11; 28:65; 29:4, 19.

[7]Exod. 34:28; Deut. 4:13; 10:4.

[8]שָׁחַת = corruptly. Deuteronomy 4:16, 25, 31; 9:12, 26; 10:10; 20:19-20; 31:29; 32:5.

[9]כָּרַת = establish. Deuteronomy 4:23; 5:2-3; 7:2; 9:9; 12:29; 19:1, 5; 20:19-20; 23:1; 29:1, 12, 14, 25; 31:16.

[10]מהר = rapidly. Deuteronomy 4:26; 7:4, 22; 9:3, 12, 16; 28:20.

[11]אָבַד = be destroyed. Deuteronomy 4:26; 7:10, 20, 24; 8:19-20; 9:3; 11:4, 17; 12:2-3; 22:3; 26:5; 28:20, 22, 51, 63; 30:18; 32:28.

[12]אָהַב care about, care for. Deuteronomy 4:37; 5:10; 6:5; 7:8-9, 13; 10:12, 15, 18-19; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:3; 15:16; 19:9; 21:15-16; 23:5; 30:6, 16, 20.

[13]בּדל = separate. Deuteronomy 4:41; 10:8; 19:2, 7; 29:21.

[14]עֵדוּת = reminder. Deuteronomy 4:45; 6:17, 20.

Deuteronomy 4 quotes:

“Deut. 4 is in essence a miniature sermon on the covenant and the law, in which historical recollection is employed in a more general didactic fashion. The “sermon” prepares the way for the presentation of the Decalog and the other laws which begins in ch. 5.”

Craigie Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. Eerdmans 1976. p. 129.

Deuteronomy 4 links:

a consuming fire, a jealous God
are we there yet?
consumed
God of the sky and the land
God’s mercy and the death-state
in retrospect- a great God and a great people
invaded
lesser and weaker
life or death quest
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Friday, August 3, 2018
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Saturday, August 3, 2024
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Saturday, August 4, 2018
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Thursday, August 2, 2018
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Wednesday, May 31, 2023
our responsibility to teach
protective clothing – immortal body
representing the invisible God
respect for life
RETURNING TO THE LORD
The broader scope of the mission
the earlier days
the purpose of obedience
The sky above – shamayim, the land beneath – erets
the transjordon possessions
what God has done for you

The DEUTERONOMY shelf in Jeff’s library.

NOT FITTING

NOT FITTING

Proverbs 26:1 NET.

Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.

Today’s passage is another standalone proverb from the book of Proverbs. It is not part of a series focused on a specific theme. I chose this verse because it is highly relevant to our modern 21st-century culture. We have a biblical responsibility to speak into our current culture and shed light on it with the principles taught in God’s Word. If we don’t do that, we might give people the impression that the Bible has nothing to say about what people are discussing in the public arena.

We need to be cautious when we do this so that we don’t give the impression that we agree with people because we oppose their opponents. This often happens when Christians speak out in the political arena. If we advocate for compassion for refugees, we might be perceived as aligning with Democrats. If we oppose abortion, we might seem like Republicans. However, Christians can support both positions because our understanding of justice is based on the Bible, not the platforms of either major political party.

So, please understand that what I am saying this morning does not come from the right or the left. It is not from the red or the blue. It is a biblical proverb, and those are meant to teach all people how to make appropriate decisions in their lives. In the Bible, the wise choice is not based on strategy. It is not based on majority rule. It is not based on economics. In the Bible, the wise choice is the morally correct choice—always.

The fools will think you are a fool if you do the right thing. The mocker will mock you for being naïve. The sluggard will accuse you of acting recklessly. The schemer will criticize you for not being devious enough. But if you focus on doing what is morally right, God will smile on you. You may not get rich quickly, but you will never have a reason to feel guilty or ashamed of your actions.

Some things just don’t fit right.

Today’s proverb begins by discussing two things that don’t belong together. They are out of place. First is snow in summer. We might expect snow in the cold winter months. But seeing snow on a summer day means something is off. The weather isn’t right for snow. I grew up in Florida, and I remember it snowed once. It landed on the ground but melted right away. The only place it stayed was on the tops of the cars. So, we kids collected it from the car tops to make snowballs—which, of course, is what snow is for. If we got snow here in Delco during the summer, I bet it would melt fast. The point of the proverb is that snow in the summer is out of place.

The second thing that is out of place is rain during harvest. You don’t want it to rain then because it would interfere with the harvest. You need dry weather to get the crops in before they spoil. Once again, the point is that such rain would be out of place. It wouldn’t be fitting.

The thing that these two similes point to – the thing that is not fitting – is honoring a fool.

Some people we should honor.

We know from the Bible that God should always be honored and glorified. He is our creator and sustainer. We are also told that the Son should be honored as well as the Father, so Jesus is worthy of our honor and worship.

The fifth of the Ten Commandments tells us to honor our parents. It is the only commandment that promises that those who follow it will have things go well with them and that their lives will be long.

The Bible also encourages younger people to honor and show respect to the elderly. When my family lived in the Philippines, we got used to younger folks placing their hands on their elders’ foreheads as a sign of respect and blessing.

The Bible also encourages respect and honor for the governing authorities. This includes more than just paying our obligatory taxes. It also means showing community, state, and national leaders respect for their offices. We could use a lot more of that in our society today.

The Bible also encourages believers to honor their church leaders. Some faith communities do this very well, but many of our evangelical denominations are so careful not to idolize their leaders that they wind up not showing respect for church offices at all.

The Bible also encourages us to honor the institution of marriage. We often find this challenging. So many marriages fail. Many of our marriages appear to be under attack, both from outside influences and internal struggles.

The Bible also encourages us to make note of those whose lives reflect God’s wisdom and righteousness. We should honor such people and make them our heroes. We should pattern our lives after theirs.

The Bible also encourages believers to treat one another as equals – especially when it comes to honor and respect. In fact, the command is for us to honor one another above ourselves. That means giving deference to others instead of our own opinions and backgrounds.

With all these instructions about honoring others, it seems odd that the Bible would teach us not to honor someone. But this is the case. There are two reasons why honoring fools is not fitting.

Honoring fools encourages their foolishness.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction (1:7), so if we honor them, we affirm their choice to remain ignorant. They have chosen careless ease when they should have chosen diligence. To honor such a choice is to dishonor the wise. They have chosen the path of destruction, and the more honor we show them, the more they will continue down that path.

In fact, Proverbs tells us that the wise person will inherit honor himself, but he is instructed to hold fools up to public contempt (3:35). It is not wise to simply ignore the foolishness around us. We have to expose it. If we do not expose it, the foolish will never learn how ridiculous they are. Children do silly things, but if their parents are wise, they will rebuke and even punish their children so they know. It is not healthy or loving to ignore it when the child acts up.

The Bible encourages us to choose wise friends so we learn to act wisely as they do. It says, “The one who associates with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (13:20). As teenagers, we learn that if we run with a bad crowd, we will find ourselves doing the bad things that our friends do. Imagine that!

We need to be discerning about who we spend our time with. Both wisdom and foolishness feed on the approval we give them. If we choose to be around foolish people who do irrational things, not only will we learn those behaviors, but the fools will never learn to do anything else.

Honoring fools spreads their foolishness.

The second reason that honoring fools is not fitting is that it turns the wise into fools. If we stay around people who have chosen to live ungodly lives, that ungodliness will spread to us. The people we listen to and learn from will make us like them. They can infest us with their foolishness.

I believe this proverb is highly relevant for our 21st-century audience because we now have many different ways to invite someone into our lives. In the past, if you wanted to establish a connection with someone, you would have needed to visit them at their home or ask them to come to yours. Today, people connect through many different methods. The old ways of mail, television, movies, and the telephone have now been supplemented by texting, email, streaming, and social media.

One of the things this entails is that there are now various ways we can be influenced by people we don’t know. If we don’t know them, we don’t know what their attitude toward God and his word is.

Let me present another analogy to illustrate how risky this is. Imagine you took a bunch of pills and stored them all in one box. You grabbed some pills from your medicine cabinet, others from mine, and some from the local pharmacy. But you don’t recognize any of the pills, and you have no idea what they’re for or their side effects. Would it be wise to open the box, pick a random pill every hour, and swallow it with a glass of water? Anyone would agree that this isn’t a good idea. When it comes to our medicine, we prefer to take only what a trusted doctor prescribes, and even then, we want to know all potential side effects, the condition the pill is meant to treat, how often we should take it, and when we should stop. Pills influence our health, so we are very discriminate about which pills we take.

I hope the Lord comes back soon, but if he delays his coming, I think people will look back on this period of human history and characterize it as one in which the population as a whole was indiscriminate in whom it chose to honor. We let just anybody in to speak to us and tell us what to eat, who to love, what to buy, and how to live.

Some people think we are on the wrong road by introducing artificial intelligence into our culture. That may be true, but it might also be that the human intelligence we have been relying on is already faulty and corrupt. How do we know what we know? If we have no standard to determine whether a statement is true or untrue, how safe is our knowledge?

One of the most elementary ways to show respect to someone is to trust what they say. But in a world full of fools, sluggards, mockers, and schemers, it is not wise to trust everyone. It is not wise to honor everyone. Some of the people trying to educate us deserve public contempt. Some who are trying to lead us need to be voted out of office. Some who are trying to gain a following should be censored because they are telling lies. We can defend their freedom of speech without allowing them to teach our children. We can protect their freedom to believe what they want without allowing them to indoctrinate our children. Respecting them as citizens does not entail our honoring their influence.

We should be asking ourselves how the next generation will evaluate us. Will they consider us wise? The apostle Paul said that Jesus gave the church its leaders so that we could become mature, no longer like children, “tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes but practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head” (Ephesians 4:14-15).

He envisioned a world in which believers matured so they could be influencers. That is what Jesus said he wanted, too. He told us that we are the light of the world.

The world has enough fools. Are you ready to become wise and spread God’s wisdom? Are you prepared to let God change you so that he can then use you to change others? That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Deuteronomy 3

Deuteronomy 3

Deuteronomy 3:1 “Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and King Og of Bashan came out against us with his whole army to do battle at Edrei.

Deuteronomy 3:2 But Yahveh said to me, ‘Do not be afraid of him, because I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.’

Deuteronomy 3:3 So Yahveh, our God, also handed over King Og of Bashan and his whole army to us. We struck him until there was no survivor left.

Deuteronomy 3:4 We captured all his cities at that time. There wasn’t a city that we didn’t take from them: sixty cities, the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

Deuteronomy 3:5 All these were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a large number of rural villages.

Deuteronomy 3:6 We completely destroyed them, as we had done to King Sihon of Heshbon, destroying the men, women, and children of every city.

Deuteronomy 3:7 But we took all the livestock and the spoil from the cities as plunder for ourselves.

Deuteronomy 3:8 “At that time we took the land from the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, from the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Hermon,

Deuteronomy 3:9 which the Sidonians call Sirion, but the Amorites call Senir,

Deuteronomy 3:10 all the cities of the plateau, Gilead, and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of Og’s kingdom in Bashan.

Deuteronomy 3:11 (Only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Notice his bed was made of iron. Isn’t it in Rabbah of the Ammonites? It is nine cubits[1] long and four cubits[2] wide by a standard measure.)

Deuteronomy 3:12 “At that time we took possession of this land. I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites the area extending from Aroer by the Arnon Valley and half the hill country of Gilead, along with its cities.

Deuteronomy 3:13 I gave half the tribe of Manasseh, the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og. The entire region of Argob, the whole territory of Bashan, used to be called the land of the Rephaim.

Deuteronomy 3:14 Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took over the entire region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites. He called Bashan by his name, Jair’s Villages, as it is today.

Deuteronomy 3:15 I gave Gilead to Machir,

Deuteronomy 3:16 and I gave to the Reubenites and Gadites the area extending from Gilead to the Arnon Valley (the middle of the valley was the border) and up to the Jabbok River, the border of the Ammonites.

Deuteronomy 3:17 The Arabah and Jordan are also borders from Chinnereth as far as the Sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east.

Deuteronomy 3:18 “I commanded you at that time: and this is what I said: Yahveh your God has given you this land to take possession of. All your militarily qualified sons[3] will cross over in battle formation ahead of your brothers the Israelites.

Deuteronomy 3:19 But your wives, dependents, and livestock — I know that you have much livestock — will stay in the cities I have given you

Deuteronomy 3:20 until Yahveh gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land Yahveh your God is giving them across the Jordan. Then, each of you may return to his possession that I have given you.

Deuteronomy 3:21 “I commanded Joshua at that time, and this is what I said: Your own eyes have seen everything Yahveh your God has done to these two kings. Yahveh will do the same to all the kingdoms you are about to enter.

Deuteronomy 3:22 Don’t be afraid of them, because Yahveh your God fights for you.

Deuteronomy 3:23 “At that time I begged Yahveh, and this is what I said:

Deuteronomy 3:24 Yahveh God, you have begun to show your greatness and your strong hand to your servant, because what god is there in the sky or on the land who can perform deeds and mighty acts like yours?

Deuteronomy 3:25 Please let me cross over and see the beautiful land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country, and Lebanon.

Deuteronomy 3:26 “But Yahveh was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. Yahveh said to me, ‘That’s enough! Do not speak to me again about this matter.

Deuteronomy 3:27 Go to the top of Pisgah and look to the west, north, south, and east, and see it with your own eyes because you will not cross the Jordan.

Deuteronomy 3:28 But command Joshua and make him strong and tough, because he will cross over ahead of the people and enable them to inherit this land that you will see.’

Deuteronomy 3:29 So we stayed in the valley facing Beth-peor.

[1]13 1/2 feet

[2]6 feet

[3] ‎ כָּל־בְּנֵי־חָֽיִל

Deuteronomy 3 quotes:

“The theology is important; there is no doubt that the people were involved in the reality of the battle, but in the recollection of military success, that success was seen as the Lord’s doing.”

Craigie Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. Eerdmans 1976. p. 119.

“This section highlights the importance of God’s sovereignty and power in delivering the kingdoms of Sihon and Og, identified as Amorites, into the hands of the Israelites. Compared with Numbers 21:21–35, Deuteronomy makes two distinctive points. First, Deuteronomy anticipates the engagement and defeat of Sihon as inevitable from the outset in exodus terms. Secondly, Numbers 21 says nothing about the ban (Heb. ḥērem; Deut. 2:34–35; 3:6–7), suggesting that Deuteronomy viewed the conquest of the Transjordan in the same way as that of Canaan, as part of the Promised Land (cf. Deut. 3:18–20; 20:16–18).”

Woods, Edward J.. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Book 5) . InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

Deuteronomy 3 links:

in retrospect- can’t blame a guy for trying
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Monday, May 31, 2021
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Wednesday, May 29, 2019
no is enough
No, yes, yes
sacrificing for your brothers
Seeing his imprint
success without settling
The sky above – shamayim, the land beneath – erets
there will be giants

The DEUTERONOMY shelf in Jeff’s library.

Deuteronomy 2

Deuteronomy 2

Deuteronomy 2:1 “Then we turned back and headed for the open country by way of the Red Sea, as Yahveh had told me, and we traveled around the hill country of Seir for many days.

Deuteronomy 2:2 Yahveh then spoke to me, and this is what he said:

Deuteronomy 2:3 ‘You’ve been traveling around this hill country long enough; turn north.

Deuteronomy 2:4 Command the people, and this is what you should say: You are about to travel through the territory of your brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so be very careful.[1]

Deuteronomy 2:5 Don’t provoke them, because I will not give you any of their land, not even a foot-width[2] of it because I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his possession.

Deuteronomy 2:6 You may purchase food from them, so that you may eat, and buy water from them to drink.

Deuteronomy 2:7 You see, Yahveh your God has empowered you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this immense open country. Yahveh, your God has been with you this past forty years, and you have lacked nothing.’

Deuteronomy 2:8 “So we bypassed our brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned away from the Arabah road and Elath and Ezion-Geber. We traveled along the road to the open country of Moab.

Deuteronomy 2:9 Yahveh said to me, ‘Show no hostility toward Moab, and do not provoke them to battle, because I will not give you any of their lands as a possession, since I have given Ar as a possession to the descendants of Lot.'”

Deuteronomy 2:10 The Emim, a great and numerous people as tall as the Anakim, had previously lived there.

Deuteronomy 2:11 They were also regarded as Rephaim, like the Anakim, though the Moabites called them Emim.

Deuteronomy 2:12 The Horites had previously lived in Seir, but the descendants of Esau took possession from them, exterminating them entirely and settling in their place, just as Israel did in the land of its possession Yahveh gave them.

Deuteronomy 2:13 “Yahveh said, ‘Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.’ So we crossed the Zered Valley.

Deuteronomy 2:14 The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley was thirty-eight years until the entire generation of fighting men had been finished[3] from the camp, as Yahveh had sworn to them.

Deuteronomy 2:15 Indeed, Yahveh’s hand was against them, to eliminate them from the camp until they had all been finished.

Deuteronomy 2:16 “When all the fighting men had died among the people,

Deuteronomy 2:17 Yahveh spoke to me, and this is what he said:

Deuteronomy 2:18 ‘Today you are going to cross the border of Moab at Ar.

Deuteronomy 2:19 When you get close to the Ammonites, don’t show any hostility to them or provoke them, because I will not give you any of the Ammonites’ land as a possession; I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.'”

Deuteronomy 2:20 This, too, used to be regarded as the land of the Rephaim. The Rephaim lived there previously, though the Ammonites called them Zamzummim,

Deuteronomy 2:21 a great and numerous people, tall as the Anakim. Yahveh exterminated the Rephaim at the advance of the Ammonites, so that they took possession from them and settled in their place.

Deuteronomy 2:22 This was just as he had done for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he exterminated the Horites ahead of them; they took possession from them and have lived in their place until now.

Deuteronomy 2:23 The Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, exterminated the Avvites, who lived in villages as far as Gaza and settled in their place.

Deuteronomy 2:24 “Yahveh also said, ‘Get up, move out, and cross the Arnon Valley. See, I have handed the Amorites’ King Sihon of Heshbon and his land over to you. Begin to take possession of it; engage him in battle.

Deuteronomy 2:25 Today, I will begin to put the fear and dread of you on the people everywhere under the sky. They will hear the report about you, tremble, and be in anguish upon seeing you.’

Deuteronomy 2:26 “So I sent messengers with an offer of peace to King Sihon of Heshbon from the open country of Kedemoth, and this is what they said:

Deuteronomy 2:27 ‘Let us travel through your land; we will keep strictly to the highway. We will not turn to the right or the left.

Deuteronomy 2:28 You can sell us food in exchange for silver so we may eat, and give us water for silver so we may drink. Only let us travel through on foot,

Deuteronomy 2:29 just like the descendants of Esau who live in Seir did for us, and the Moabites who live in Ar, until we cross the Jordan into the land Yahveh our God is giving us.’

Deuteronomy 2:30 But King Sihon of Heshbon would not let us travel through his land, because Yahveh your God had made his breath[4] stubborn, and his heart tough[5] in order to hand him over to you, as has now taken place.

Deuteronomy 2:31 “Then Yahveh said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land to you. Begin to take possession of it.’

Deuteronomy 2:32 So Sihon and his whole army came out against us for battle at Jahaz.

Deuteronomy 2:33 Yahveh our God handed him over to us, and we defeated him, his sons, and his whole army.

Deuteronomy 2:34 At that time we captured all his cities and completely destroyed the people of every city, including the women and children. We left no survivors.

Deuteronomy 2:35 We took only the livestock and the spoil[6] from the cities we captured as plunder[7] for ourselves.

Deuteronomy 2:36 No city was inaccessible to us, from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead. Yahveh, our God, gave everything to us.

Deuteronomy 2:37 But you did not go near the Ammonites’ land, all along the bank of the Jabbok River, the cities of the hill country, or any place about which Yahveh our God had commanded.

[1]שָׁמַר = be careful. Deuteronomy 2:4; 4:2, 6, 9, 15, 23, 40; 5:1, 10, 12, 29; 6:2-3, 12, 17, 25; 7:8-9, 11-12; 8:1-2, 6, 11; 10:13; 11:1, 8, 16, 22, 32; 12:1, 13, 19, 28, 30, 32; 13:4, 18; 15:9; 16:1, 12; 17:10; 19:9; 23:9, 23; 24:8; 26:16-18; 27:1; 28:1, 9, 45, 58; 29:9; 30:10, 16; 31:12; 33:9.

[2] מִדְרָךְ = foot-width.

[3] תָּמַם = be finished. Deuteronomy 2:14-16; 31:24, 30; 34:8.

[4]רוּחַ = breath. Deuteronomy 2:30; 34:9.

[5]אָמֵץ = tough. Deuteronomy 2:30; 3:28; 15:7; 31:6-7, 23.

[6]שָׁלָל = spoil. Deuteronomy 2:35; 3:7; 13:16; 20:14.

[7]בָּזָז = capture as plunder. Deuteronomy 2:35; 3:7; 13:16; 20:14.

Deuteronomy 2 quotes:

“The Ammorites were evidently wholly unsuspicious of the fearful harvest for which they were ripening : they thought not of it, until the very hour when the sickle was put in . One more hope appears to have been offered them by Moses, in the merciful proposition that they should permit the Israelites to pass through their land in peace , as had been already done in the case of the Edomites and the Moabites, but even this they scornfully rejected.”

Blunt, Henry. A Family Exposition of the Pentateuch. London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1844. p. 183.

“Now, at last, the command had come to turn again northward, in the direction of the promised land. But there were particular instructions about the route and the procedure the people should follow.”

Craigie Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. Eerdmans 1976. p. 107.

The DEUTERONOMY shelf in Jeff’s library.

Month: December 2025

Matthew 1

Matthew 1

Matthew 1 quotes:

Matthew 1 links:

Deuteronomy 4

Deuteronomy 4

Deuteronomy 4 quotes:

Deuteronomy 4 links:

NOT FITTING

Deuteronomy 3

Deuteronomy 3

Deuteronomy 3 quotes:

Deuteronomy 3 links:

Deuteronomy 2

Deuteronomy 2

Deuteronomy 2 quotes:

Deuteronomy links: