And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days, Leviticus 23:40. It is rare that the King James translators differed widely from the Orthodox Jewish translation of certain texts. The above verse is such a place. Christians tend to view the Old Testament through the prism of the New Testament. Jews tend to view the Old

And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept, Genesis 21:16. A particularly astute reader recently asked me about the phrase "over against".  He was having trouble establishing a meaning.  My first reaction was to wonder why he was making it so hard.  Then I looked at the phrase in the 91 verses which contain its 103 uses.

(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.) Numbers 12:3. I received a phone call this morning from a single mother who has only been in Christ for a few years. (For Her Testimony Click Here.) She had been reading in Job and it had struck her how that it was the taunting and provocation of Job's friends that really got him started making self righteous statements. That opened the door to do a little pastoring on the subject of

And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened, Mark 7:34. As stated in the last post on Talitha Cumi, Mark's need to interpret the Aramaic words of Christ proves that the Gospels were not written in Aramaic.  There already a couple of other lessons that can be drawn from Jesus Christ's use of Aramaic. One of the great transgressions recorded in the Book of Nehemiah is the children's lack of ability to speak Hebrew.  And their children

And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise, Mark 5:41. It is both interesting and instructive to note that when Jesus Christ spoke to the dead girl, he spoke to her in Aramaic.  Many years later when the Holy Ghost gave Mark the perfect recall to record the entire incident for us, Mark recorded the exact words that Jesus Christ said at the time, and he interpreted those words into the Greek

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? James 2:14. Surprisingly, most Fundamental Baptists answer, "yes". It is no problem to them at all if a person professes faith but never has a single work that would indicate the presence of faith. Their ears are deaf to John's admonition; Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous, 1st John 3:7. They wave

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting, James 1:1. It is fashionable in most many Fundamental circles to relegate the Book of James to a book which has no doctrinal significance to the church. It makes people uncomfortable with what it says. It appears to contradict Paul's writings and it says that it was written to the twelve tribes. When something uncomfortable is quoted from James or it appears to

And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not, Ruth 2:16. There are times when a good translator needs to supply words to properly interpret a verse. Through Facebook, our good friend Avi Gold from Beer Sheba, Israel was asked by someone about the words "of purpose" in Ruth 2:16. Avi has read the Hebrew bible as his principal text all of his life. He took time to help his friend understand the King Jam

He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he, Deuteronomy 32:4. The second bible that I ever read through completely was the New American Standard Bible. At the time, I couldn't have been more ignorant of the various bible versions. One of their claims to fame was that they often capitalized pronouns when they referenced deity. “The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are [a]just; A Go

Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom the LORD put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the LORD had commanded, Exodus 36:1. A young man somewhat renowned as a carpenter pointed out this verse to me and asked if that meant that the Tabernacle was built perfectly. We can go a step further than just this verse and we can throw in Exodus 31:2-5; See, I have called

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, Matthew 1:18.  It is interesting to note that the manner of Jesus Christ's birth is well documented but the timing is purposely obscured.  I know that we have people who claim that they can trace back the course of Abia (Luke 1:5 and 2nd Chronicles 8:14) and by noting Zacharias's time of duty, they claim that they can establish a date.  The odds of going back and setting the time when Solomon established the courses, keeping tra

And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer, Revelation 10:6. Time no longer? What does that mean? Increasingly, I am hearing more and more expositors suggesting that time itself will cease. They have grown up on science fiction and speculative physics. They envision a future in which eve

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Ephesians 3:20. Is it unreasonable to think that God could give a perfect bible to 21st century English-speaking people?  If you were a Deist like Thomas Jefferson the answer would be , "no".  A Deist believed that God created everything and gave all things their start.  They then believed that God washed his hands of human affairs.  In other words,

How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality, 2nd Corinthians 8:2. One of the grievous tenets of our day is the confounding of bible words until they lose their meaning. In the bible a liberal is a good thing to be yet when we look into the matter, to be a liberal in the bible is quite different from being a liberal in today's society. To be liberal in the bible is to be generous and f

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word, 1st Kings 18:21. I was recently reading behind a preacher of old who when he came to the above passage, took time to explain that the Hebrew word translated as "halt" was in actuality a word that meant to be crippled or to have unequal legs. He wanted his hearers to know that Elijah was in

And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean, Ezekiel 44:23. It is sometimes taught that to be profane is to be unholy.  I'm sure that profanity is unholy, but never make "unholy and "profane" to be synonymous.  That can be seen by the King James Translators using both the words "unholy" and "profane" in the same verse. Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;  That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God, Ephesians 3:16-19. A few days ago, I debunked the idea

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver, Proverbs 25:11. This morning, to my delight I saw a post in the King James Bible Debate on Facebook by Innocent Mosely Munemo a resident of South Africa. I have been planning for some time to highlight the ridiculousness of using Greek and Hebrew in sermons to make a passage more clear, when this morning I read the following post. LUKE 15:15 AND THE GREEK GAME I sat in a service this Sunday where the pastor re

And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know, 1st Corinthians 8:2. I have recently been asked to expound upon progressive revelation. To be precise, the person asked, "What do you have on progressive revelation?". In a nutshell, I believe in progressive revelation. Since I now have a few Gladys Kravitz viewers to this site, I will first send some time explaining what progressive revelation is not. For those of you not so unfor