Read: Genesis 2:15-25

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner” (Genesis 2:18).

What on earth does it mean for woman to be created as man’s “helper? Even if you don’t take the creation stories literally, this is an important question.

For years Genesis 2:18 has been used to put women “in their place.” By this people (read: some men) generally mean that they interpret the verse as a divine mandate that women are created to be in a subservient role to men.  It will surprise no one that this is not a view I favor either as a woman or a biblical scholar.

Again, I ask: What does it mean to be a “helper”? And why do so many interpreters assume that it implies subservience?

Translation is important here, although it doesn’t tell the whole story. In Hebrew, the word ezer can indeed mean “helper.” Yet, there are a couple of things we ought to consider before we draw too many conclusions from this.

First, the full phrase in Hebrew means “a helper as his partner” (NRSV). Another possibility would be, “a helper as his counterpart” (my translation). When we consider the full phrase, it’s much harder to come away with the impression that the woman is created as some kind of second-class citizen.

The other consideration is how the word ezer is used elsewhere in the Old Testament. Most often, this is a word that used to describe God. Yes—God!

Psalm 33:20 says, “Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and shield.” In Psalm 121:1-2, the psalmist lifts up his eyes to the hills and asks, “from where will my help come?” Then he answers his own question: “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.”

So, why are we assuming that being a “helper” is a subservient thing?

I think it says something less than flattering about us when we try to downgrade the role of helpers. I call as my witness Fred Rogers, who once said:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.

Can I get an “amen,” anyone?

Helpers are not only sent from God, they are imitators of God. If we can’t get that through our heads, then—well—God help us.

Ponder: Why do you think so many interpreters have read Genesis 2:18 to imply that women should be subservient to men? How does the reminder that God is a helper change your view of this verse? How does it change your view of your calling?

Pray: Help me to be a helper, O God.

Read: Job 42:1-6

I had heard you with my ears, but now I see you with my eyes. Therefore, I recant and relent, being but dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6, JPS).

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” we hear as ashes are smudged on our forehead on Ash Wednesday.

If that’s not a stark enough reminder of our mortality, let’s move to the cemetery. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” the officiant says, and we toss a symbolic handful of dirt onto our loved one’s coffin.

Most of us don’t like such reminders. In fact, we go out of our way to avoid them. And if you think it’s uncomfortable receiving the ashes on Ash Wednesday, try stepping into the shoes of the one who is imposing them. Imagine reminding your favorite teacher, your child, your grandchild that “they are dust.”

Yet, like it or not, we are dust. Genesis 2 gets it right in depicting humans as humus. There’s a similar word play in the Hebrew. Adam (human) is from the adamah (earth). Ellen Davis points out that in the Bible, the soil is less of a resource than a relative.

All of this is important background for our verse du jour from the book of Job. The trouble is, most translations obscure our ability to get its point.

For instance, the NRSV reads: “…therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” This makes it sound like an expression of self-loathing—or worse—an admission of the “secret sin” that Job’s friends have been making such a fuss about. It is neither of those things, but only a better translation will help us to understand why.

Here’s one from the Jewish Publication Society that I find helpful: “I had heard you with my ears, but now I see you with my eyes. Therefore, I recant and relent, being but dust and ashes.”

Bear in mind that Job has just been on a whirlwind tour of, well, a whirlwind. After demanding an explanation for why bad things happen to good people—namely him—Job braces himself for an explanation from the Almighty. He seems to assume he will understand such an explanation. To God’s credit, God responds, but not with the explanation Job (and we) are hoping for. Instead, God spends chapters 38–41 with a whirlwind of “where were you when” questions designed to put Job’s question into perspective.

If you’ve ever experienced the power of a hurricane or a tornado, you’ll understand why the whirlwind is such an apt metaphor for Job’s reality check. We’re powerless to control it. Completely out of our league. Just so, the God who made the morning stars sing together and leads Leviathan around with a fishhook has a level of wisdom that is exponentially beyond human understanding. In short, God is God and we are not.

It’s in the wake of this reality check that Job “reconsiders.” Sure, he still has questions (don’t we all?), but he now understands the limits of his own wisdom in a way he didn’t before. He understands that he is “dust and ashes”—a phrase that is used to describe the human condition. In Genesis 18:27, for instance, Abraham dares to dicker with the Almighty over the fate of Sodom, but he does so knowing that he’s doing so at his own risk. “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord,” he says carefully, “I who am but dust and ashes.”

We’re only human. Yet, as Job discovers, there is some real freedom in that. At the end of the day—and a whirlwind of a day it has been—God asks us to live without having all the answers. Job does just that, reinvesting in a new family knowing full well that no amount of “let’s make a deal” obedience can guarantee their safety. Faith is about trust, not calculation.

It’s a lot to ask. But that’s what the life of faith is. And that’s part of what it means to be “dust and ashes.”

Ponder: Being “dust and ashes” doesn’t mean we aren’t worth anything. What does the incarnation tell you about how God values our humanity? The crucifixion? The resurrection?

Pray: Frail children of dust and feeble as frail, in Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail. Your mercies how tender, how firm to the end—our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.*

*From the hymn, “O Worship the King, All Glorious Above!” by Robert Grant.

Read: Psalm 145

The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 145:8, NRSV).

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “There ought to be a word for that!”? Half the fun of learning other languages is discovering such words. For instance, iktsuarpok is Inuit for “that feeling of anticipation you have when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet.” Or there’s the German word, kummerspeck, which refers to “the excess weight one gains from emotional overeating.” (Literally, it translates as “grief bacon.”) Or there is the Scots word, tartle, for “that panicky hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can’t remember….”*

I don’t know about you, but I need all of these words.

Whenever it takes more than one English word to capture something from another language, it’s a sign that there might be more going on than we realize. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly the case with the Hebrew word that I would argue is the most important word in the whole Old Testament.

I’m talking about the word ḥesed. In the NRSV it’s usually translated as “steadfast love.” Other times you’ll see it as “mercy” or “kindness,” or even “goodness.” If you grew up with the King James Version, you’ll know it as “lovingkindness.” But all these translations are attempts to capture something we don’t really have a word for in English.

Ḥesed (pronounced chĕsĕd) is love that goes above and beyond the call of duty. It’s selfless, covenant love. Sacrificial love.

Most of the 248 times this word is used, it is used to describe the way God loves. When God comes to Moses on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 34:6, for instance, it says that “the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (ḥesed) and faithfulness….’” The fact that God shows up at all just two chapters after the golden calf incident is the perfect illustration of a love that goes “above and beyond.”

The psalmists are understandably fond of this word. In Psalm 51, for instance, the psalmist knows that it will completely change the calculus between his sins and their consequences. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love (ḥesed); according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.”

The prophet Jonah is the only one who has the temerity to complain about God’s ḥesed, but that’s precisely because he doesn’t want God to show it to people Jonah doesn’t like (see Jonah 4:2). There you go again God, he whines, loving extravagantly. I hate when that happens—unless, of course, it happens to me.

Petulant prophets aside, ḥesed is sometimes a human quality. Ruth and Boaz, for instance are both people who go above and beyond the call of duty—acting with love and loyalty even when there’s nothing “in it” for them.

The fact that the English language has no precise equivalent for ḥesed makes me wonder about how this has shaped those of us who use that language. Maybe it’s time we learned a new word.

Ponder: How does the Hebrew word ḥesed lay a foundation for what we learn about God in the New Testament?

Pray: May our own ḥesed reflect your own, O God.

*Taken from 51 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent

Read: Psalm 23

 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long (Psalm 23:6, NRSV).

I am not a fan of zombie movies. I don’t even like chase scenes. Life is too full of anxiety as it is. I don’t need to top it off with manufactured pursuits that will only work their way into my dreams.

There is one special exception to this aversion, however, and I’m guessing you might appreciate it as well.

Tucked onto the end of Psalm 23 is a familiar line that most of us take for granted. We’re being followed, the psalmist says, by the “goodness and mercy” of God. (“Mercy,” by the way, is the word ḥesed—which we’ll unpack in a subsequent blog. For now, remember that it means “steadfast love”—love that will not let us go.)

Given that the prevailing metaphor in this, the “shepherd’s psalm” is of God as the Good Shepherd, it’s hard for me not to imagine “goodness and mercy” as a pair of enthusiastic sheep dogs, circling around the back of the flock to make sure the stragglers make it into the fold. In fact, if I ever own a pair of dogs, I’m going to name them Goodness and Mercy. Half the fun will be watching to see whether people get the “joke” when I introduce them to my furry companions.

The fact that God’s goodness and mercy are following us is no joke, however. It’s some of the best news we’ll ever receive. And it’s even better than most English translations suggest. Here’s why.

In almost every other instance in Scripture, the verb radaph is translated as “pursue.” People are always radaphing their enemies in the book of Joshua, for instance. In Exodus 14, Pharaoh radaphs the fleeing Israelites with his horses and chariots. In these instances, it’s clear that there is nothing casual about the action. This verb means business.

Whenever someone asks me about what “happens” in a baptism, I think of this verse from Psalm 23. The liturgy says that in baptism, we are “marked as Christ’s own forever.” Surely, this is another way of saying that we are being pursued by the goodness and mercy of the Good Shepherd our whole life long. And even if we’re lagging behind or going astray or just not paying attention, those two will make sure we make it, finally, into God’s fold.

So, smile if you want. But better yet, sing and whoop and celebrate the fact that we’re not just being followed—we’re being pursued by the goodness and mercy of God.

Ponder: Someone once suggested that whether we believe in God is not nearly as important as whether God believes in us.

Pray: Thank you for pursuing me, O God, even when I don’t know whether I believe in you.

Read: 1 Kings 19

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:11-12, NRSV).

Is it just me, or does the prophet Elijah strike you as someone who is seriously depressed?

I know it’s dangerous to diagnose someone from a distance—especially a distance of 3000 years—but the symptoms are staring us right in the face. In spite of the fact that Elijah has just come off what is arguably the peak of his prophetic career, this chapter finds him running for his life. Gone is the confident, sarcastic, swash-buckling prophet who defeated the 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah in the previous chapter. Here, Elijah is meek as a mouse. He has lost his appetite, just wants to sleep, and has lost all interest in his “daily activities.” While it doesn’t quite count as “suicidal ideations,” asking God to end it all for you comes pretty close.

God is not open to this suggestion, however, and spirits Elijah off to Mt. Sinai for a little lesson in perspective. Unimpressed by Elijah’s lament (“I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away”), God rustles up an impressive series of special effects. Yet God is not “in” any of them. Instead, God’s presence shows up in the least likely of places: in the “sound of a faint whisper” (my translation).

Why should we care how this obscure little Hebrew phrase gets translated? Because if we get it wrong, it’s impossible to get God’s point. And as it happens, it’s a very important point—especially now.

Everyone assumes that God’s power will come through the earthquake, wind, and fire. Those, after all, are the usual suspects in any self-respecting theophany. But this passage—when translated literally—reminds us that God’s power can also be made manifest in weakness.

While I’m usually a fan of the NRSV (I’ve made generations of students buy it), the NRSV’s translation of this phrase is spectacularly misleading. Even in the new “updated edition,” they render the relevant phrase as: “a sound of sheer silence.” At the risk of revealing my age, I think this translation is under the influence of Simon and Garfunkel. Sure, it alliterates nicely, but it completely misses the point.

So, what’s the point? Elijah thinks he’s alone and powerless. He feels like his voice is no bigger than a whisper—and a faint one at that. God’s point is that the Lord of the universe can work through faint whispers.

That, it seems to me, is a particularly important point—not just for Elijah, but for us. “I alone am left!” we whimper as our denominations shrink and our voice gets drowned out by all manner of noise. “What difference will my one vote make?” we wonder in the face of super PAC politics.

This story suggests that we need to get over ourselves. So what if we’re little more than a faint whisper? God can work through that.

Ponder: Elijah seems to miss the point in v. 14. (His answer is precisely what it was before God’s demonstration.) What can we learn from what God says to him in vv. 15-18? Are we really as alone as we think we are?

Pray: Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire Thy still small voice of calm.

Read: Song of Solomon 3:1-4

Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but found him not; I called, but he gave no answer. “I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves.” I sought him, but found him not. The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me” (Song of Solomon 3:1-4, NRSV).

Navigators rely on something called the “one degree rule.” If you’re flying a plane, this means that for each degree you’re off course, you’ll miss your destination by one mile for every 60 miles you fly. In practical terms, this means that if you’re trying to fly from LaGuardia to O’Hare, but you miscalculate by even one degree, you’ll end up in Lake Michigan. Not good. The longer one flies, the more drastic the deviation. If you’re trying to circumnavigate the globe, you’ll end up a whopping 500 miles off course.

It’s obvious why this rule matters for navigation. But as an analogy, I think it matters for interpretation as well.

In case you’re just joining this series, we’ve been looking at examples of just how much interpretation goes into translation. The series is called, “What a Difference a Word Makes,” and it seeks to highlight a handful of words that may be translated in different ways, but which have very different meanings.

This week’s word is nephesh, for which there is no good English equivalent. In my opinion, this word wins the prize for how a bad translational choice can skew one’s entire theology. One degree off can—and has—ended us up in the drink.

With this as preface, let’s look at a passage that makes liberal use of the Hebrew word, nephesh.

In four short verses, the female protagonist in Song of Solomon 3:1-4 refers to her lover as the one “whom my nephesh loves” four times. Most English translations render this as the one “whom my soul loves.” It’s beautiful, I suppose. But before you use the line on your homemade Valentine’s Day card, you might want to examine your assumptions.

The English word “soul” denotes “the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being…the part that is regarded as immortal.”

You don’t have to read very far in the Song of Solomon to know that the lovers’ relationship is more than spiritual. Whole chapters are devoted to enumerating each other’s physical attractions. One has to allow for changes in “love language”—perhaps you will be less thrilled than the woman in the Song to have your lover describe your neck as a “tower of David”—but the physicality of the descriptions is undeniable.

Why should we care, you may ask.

Here’s why. The Hebrew word nephesh includes the physical, the spiritual, and the psychological. When the female lover talks about the one whom her nephesh loves, she’s essentially saying, “All of me! Why not take all of me!” I love you with every part of my being.

I do have some sympathy for translators in this instance. As I’ve pointed out, English has no good equivalent for the Hebrew word, nephesh. (What does that say about us?) But when we translate nephesh as “soul,” we risk spiritualizing something that was never meant to be exclusively spiritual.

There is a lesson in this for those who see sexual intimacy as purely physical as well. The use of the word nephesh in the Song elevates the couple’s relationship in a way that should serve as both a caution and an inspiration to our sex-obsessed, pornography-prone culture.

So, how would I translate nephesh? I appreciate the NRSV’s efforts in translating it as “living being” in Genesis 2:7. When God forms Adam from the dust of the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, Adam becomes a “living being.” That preserves something of the “package deal” that nephesh implies. And it saves a lot of heavy lifting when we get to the New Testament and people start talking about the “resurrection of the body.”

But I wonder if this is one of those instances where we might just have to buckle down and learn a new word. I’m a nephesh, you’re a nephesh, all God’s creatures are a nephesh. Anything less risks getting us seriously off course.

Ponder: Try substituting the Hebrew word nephesh every time you encounter the English word “soul” in the Old Testament. How does it change the meaning of what you read?

Pray: All of me. Why not take all of me, O God? I offer all that I am to you.

Read: Habakkuk 2:1-4; 3:16-19

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith (Habakkuk 2:1-4, NRSV).

“The righteous live by their faith,” the prophet Habakkuk assures us.

That’s one of those things that is true until it isn’t. If you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where you feel like your faith is pretty much running on fumes, you’ll know what I mean. “I know that I’m supposed to live by faith,” you say to yourself. “But it’s my faith that’s flagging. How am I supposed to live by something so unreliable?”

The irony here is that we often make faith into a kind of commodity—or worse—an achievement. If you’re familiar with the role this verse played in the Reformation, this is mind-blowing. Martin Luther famously relied on this verse to argue that we are justified by faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ—and not by our own works. New Testament writers blazed the trail for this important point by also quoting this pivotal verse from the prophet Habakkuk (see Romans 1:17, Galations 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38). I suspect all of them would be horrified at this tendency to make faith itself one of the “works” by which we seek salvation.

I’m not here to pick a fight with Martin Luther, or much less, with these New Testament writers. Like Luther, I am one of those people who is cursed with a low sense of guilt and a high sense of responsibility. Works are exhausting. I could out-do all the do-gooders in the world and it would still not be enough. I’ll take faith over works any day. And yet….

We’re right back where we started, aren’t we? If the righteous are supposed to live by faith, then what happens when our faith is not always as strong as we’d like it to be?

There is help here, I think, in taking a closer look at Habakkuk’s word choice. The Hebrew word, emunah, is one of those words that can mean two things at once. Yes, it means “faith”; but it also means “faithfulness.” In our hurry to hear the canonical echoes with the New Testament, we often fail to listen for this equally important meaning. “Yes,” Habakkuk is saying, the righteous shall live by their faith. But at the very same time, they shall live by their faithfulness.

If you want an example of what he’s talking about, read all the way to the end of his little book. There, in a few verses of poignant poetry, the prophet gives us a glimpse of this kind of “one foot in front of the other” faith/faithfulness. Even if you’re not a farmer, I think you’ll appreciate the pain and the courage of these words:

Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there is no fruit on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

and makes me tread upon the heights.

What’s the message here? Maybe it is simply this: When faith flags, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes faith is less of a feeling than it is an act of gritty determination. And both, in the end, are a gift from God.

Ponder: What does living by faith/faithfulness look like in your own life right now?

Pray: I believe. Help thou my unbelief. Help me to be faithful even when faith is in short supply.

Read: Genesis 1:24-31

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26, NRSV).

We don’t have to take the Bible literally to take it seriously.

So, let’s take a serious look at what it means for us as humans, created in the image of God, to have “dominion” over our fellow creatures.

Bible-reading believers over the centuries have assumed that this word gives us a license to plunder the earth and its creatures. It doesn’t help that the word “dominion” (radah) is aided and abetted by another word in verse 28 (kabash) that means “subdue.” Together, these two words have been responsible for more ecological damage than fossil fuels and plastic put together.

If I could run to my Hebrew lexicon and make these words mean something else, I would. But I can’t. The usual English translations mean what they seem to mean. So, in a sense, we need to start by acknowledging that these two words win the “what a difference a word makes” contest in a negative sense.

Still…is it fair to blame the words? It seems to me the problem is not so much the words themselves as the interpretation of them.

Old Testament professor, Ellen Davis, claims that “the ecological crisis is essentially not a technological crisis, but a theological one. It is a massive disordering in our relationship with God, the Creator of heaven and earth” (Getting Involved With God, p. 185). If she’s right—and I think she is—then we need to pay careful attention to what this passage says about what God intends for that relationship to be.

It seems to me that being created in the image and likeness of God should make a monumental difference in how we exercise our “dominion.” If this first chapter of the Bible tells us anything about God, it is that God delights in creation. The least we can do as God’s image-bearers is to see to its flourishing.

Perhaps if we read this passage with an eye toward responsibility rather than privilege it would help. It is, after all, a profound responsibility to be tasked with the care and feeding of something as exquisite as the earth and all its creatures.

Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLuhan, reminds us of our responsibility by pointing out that: “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”

So, welcome to the crew of spaceship earth. It is both an exhilarating and sobering responsibility.

Ponder: How does the second creation story help to balance the first? Consider especially God’s command “to till and to keep” the garden—or as Ellen Davis translates these words, “to work and to watch.”

Pray: Forgive us for all the ways we have misinterpreted our job description, O God. Show us how to be better members of creation’s crew.

Read: Ecclesiastes 1

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NRSV).

I was watching a murder mystery the other day. It was in Italian, but the subtitles made sense of it for me. Or at least, they made sense until the detective turned to the bereaved wife and assured her that the police would do their utmost to “frame” the murderer.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what the detective meant. “Convict” maybe, but not “frame.” Something had gotten lost in translation.

So it is with this famous verse from the book of Ecclesiastes. The Hebrew word at issue is hevel. The NRSV renders this as “vanity,” which makes it sound like something a narcissist would get up to. We even have a piece of furniture by that name which features—predictably—a mirror. I once re-painted an antique vanity for my daughter’s room. Before I put my paintbrush away, I couldn’t resist writing “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!” on the bottom of the vanity’s drawer. Someday, she’ll find it and roll her eyes at her mother’s weakness for bad Old Testament jokes.

Of course, the English word “vanity” can also mean “the quality of being worthless or futile.” That seems to be the sense that the NIV wants to emphasize with this translation:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

While this rendering makes more sense than “vanity” in contemporary English, it couldn’t be more misleading. In fact, this translation actually twists the meaning of the Hebrew word into the exact opposite of what the Teacher is trying to convey.

Maybe it will help to know that the name “Abel” is based on this same Hebrew word: hevel. Abel, as you’ll recall, is the name of Cain’s ill-fated brother in Genesis 4. It’s the Bible’s first murder mystery, and Abel is the victim.

Ancient listeners must have felt a chill when they first heard Abel’s name. Like the Hebrew word on which his name is based, it means “ephemeral.” When you’re introduced to a character with that name, it’s a sign that you’d best not get too attached. He won’t be around for very long.

No reader of Genesis 4 would argue that Abel life is “meaningless.” In fact, one could argue that the brevity of his life makes it even more meaningful. We should cherish even more those things that are only with us for a short time.

This, I think, is what the Teacher is trying to tell us in this famous—but misunderstood—verse from Ecclesiastes. When he reminds us that “all is hevel,” he is telling us to savor our “one wild and precious life” (Mary Oliver). Or to quote another poet, Robert Herrick:

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

Ponder: What do you think? Is life “meaningless” or “ephemeral”?

Pray: Teach us to treasure every moment of our short but precious lives, O God.

This reflection is the first in a new series called, “What a Difference a Word Makes.” Here is the series introduction:

If you’ve ever tried to learn a new language, you’ll know that it can be a humbling experience. For my sins, I’ve been trying to learn Italian. I once tried to order a cheese gelato when I was trying to order a strawberry gelato. The waitress’s face was my first clue that something was amiss. OK, so the only thing that formaggio and fragola have in common is the letter “f,” but I maintain that it was an understandable mistake.

Then there are the words that sound almost identical to the untrained ear but carry quite different meanings. If you’re trying to order pesce for dinner and you accidentally ask for pesche, you’ll get peaches instead of fish. And don’t even get me started on the “false friends”—words that are spelled exactly the same way in both languages but mean vastly different things. These are “false friends” because they lure the novice into a sense of false confidence. “Ah,” she says to herself. “I know what a piano is!” No, you don’t. This becomes obvious when someone tells you they live on the first piano. That’s how they refer to the floors of a building in Italy. Oops.

None of this should come as a surprise to me, since I’ve been translating Hebrew for over thirty years in my capacity as an Old Testament professor. Still, it has reminded me of just how much interpretation goes into translation.

In this series, I’d like to highlight a handful of words that may be translated in different ways, but which have very different meanings. This can make a huge difference for how we interpret a passage. In some cases, a bad choice can skew one’s entire theology. Words have power.

Curious? Then read this series. It’s called, “What a Difference a Word Makes.”

Enjoy!

Carol M. Bechtel

P.S. If you have been reading these blogs faithfully from the get-go, you will notice that I am revisiting a few of my favorite “teachable moments.” Consider it a review! I’m hoping that it will be useful to group all of these key passages in one place.