Psalm 1

In my OT class we are beginning to study the book of the Psalms, and my professor is a Hebrew scholar, and spent much time specifically studying the beginning of the book, Psalms 1-2. In preparation for class I decided to begin to translate through the first two chapters to get a better grasp of where he is coming from.
Verse 1 of chapter 1 is pretty straight forward. While some translations render the first word "happy," thats probably not the best translation, as studying God's Word doesn't always make us happy (since if we are correctly applying it, we will necessarily have to change our life in order to line up with what it teaches, which isn't always fun) it will bless us. Here is the text of Psalm 1:1 and my translation:
אַשְֽׁרֵי־הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר ׀ לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים לֹא עָמָד וּבְמֹושַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָֽׁב

Blessed is the man who/which does not walk in the council of the wicked and stand in the path of sinners and does not dwell in the seat of scoffers.

Fairly straight forward translation. While most translations in the last part of the verse go with "sit," this is word also can mean "dwell," which I think might be more appropriate for this verse.

כִּי אִם בְּתֹורַת יְהוָה חֶפְצֹו וּֽבְתֹורָתֹו יֶהְגֶּה יֹומָם וָלָֽיְלָה׃

Because in the Law of the LORD he delights, and in the law does he murmur, growl speak to himself, meditate day and night.

This word is an interesting one, and has a wide semantic range. It is also used of a lion growling or even drooling over his prey. Another way of picturing it is for a man to be murmuring to himself about the Word. This is how this man is being presented as reading the Bible, consuming it. This idea I've gotten to some extent from the book entitled "Eat this Book" by Eugene Peterson. He presents the idea of how we are to read the Bible not as a text book, but consume it so it will touch every part of our life. This is the idea that is presented here as well

As I continue to translate and study through these few chapters, I will fill more this idea of who this man is presented as, and explain more about how it should be applied to us.

Hebrew

I am currently having a love/hate relationship with Hebrew.

I'm taking two summer class, one of which is over, and I'm about halfway through with the second class; those classes being Hebrew I & II. At first it wasn't too bad, but we have a vocabulary quiz every day, with at least 14 or 15 new words to learn, all while keeping sharp on the old vocabulary words!!! Needless to say, I'm struggling to keep up.

Thats the hate part of the relationship.

And this is the love part:

יְהוָה נָתַן וַיהוָה לָקָח יְהִי שֵׁם יְהוָה מְבֹרָךְ

I really love that verse. It is Job 1:21, and this portion says

"The LORD gives and the LORD takes away let the name of the Lord be blessed"

I do love being able to read the original language, seeing the little nuances that the English translations miss (for some reason). Considering I just started learning this language about four and a half weeks ago, and I can read that, is pretty awesome.

Guilty as Charged

So to start off this blog, I figured I would start with admitting some things about myself to the world. I love biking a lot, and there currently is one of the three biggest races going on in Italy, the Giro d'Italia. Admittedly, I spend far too much time following biking, the latest frames, components, wheels, etc. and far too little time on school work. The three sites that aid in this addiction are Cyclingnews.com , Cycleto.com and finally Bikeradar.com. Its something that I am learning how to juggle, work/studies and fun stuff. I'm getting better at working more and playing less, but I'm still a work in progress.

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A New Venture

A new venture that I am beginning is HTML editing. My neighbor is a programmer/web designer and has gotten me interested in web development stuff, so I'm beginning to learn how. I actually did a bit of it on this post! Hopefully as the blog continues it will get more involved/better.