Home » Old Testament »
Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent 2B
Today “comfort” conjures up a cloud of images ranging from La-Z-Boy recliners to Royal Caribbean cruises. “Comfort food” is all about the personal satisfaction that can come from mashed potatoes and meatloaf. “Creature comforts” are all about having the nicest stuff even as the words “luxury and comfort” get yoked to describe things like the…
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Advent 1B
Notes and Observations You might think Psalm 80’s poet addresses Yahweh the way you’d address a napping grandfather: Wake up, Grandpa. Listen to me. I need you to help me. Yet the one to whom the psalmist speaks is no drooling, doddering geriatric. The poet clearly thinks of the Lord not only as a shepherd,…
Isaiah 64:1-9
Advent 1B
Comments, Observations, and Questions: At their honest best, biblical writers—psalmists, prophets, and others—are seldom able to call down judgment on others without also, in utter humility, admitting that when it comes right down to it, they aren’t any great spiritual shakes themselves. You see this at the end of Psalm 139: after so many verses…
Isaiah 49:8-16
Epiphany 8A
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Isaiah talked to people who wondered if anything was stable in the world. Like any number of people in our world at any given moment, so the Israelites of Isaiah’s day found themselves going through hard times in a world where the unexpected had become normal. Their country had…
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Epiphany C
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider One possible exercise for those who preach and teach the psalms is to ask what an “anti” Psalm 72 might look like. Psalm 72 is the poet’s prayer for an (unidentified) king. So like what might its opposite prayer look? For what sorts of things do we naturally ask…
Isaiah 60:1-6
Epiphany C
Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Oh how we love Isaiah 60 these days! But I wonder if the full sweep of these half-dozen verses really sounded that great to the folks way back when who first heard this. Israel had lately been held captive by foreign types. Their land and Temple had been sacked. …
- « Previous
- 1
- …
- 109
- 110
- 111
Content related to Old Testament