Bible Notes: Mind
Originally appeared on spirituality.com
Hebrew: Amos 4:13 For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadethupon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.
The Old Testament is like a library that evolved over centuries, with its earliest traditions rooted in storytelling. Within this expansive collection, traditions like the Israelite creation story could appear in many different genres, or types, of literature. The creation account that opens the Old Testament is highly stylized, very much like a song with stanzas and predictable refrains, telling an orderly story as a ballad does. It has many features that make it easy to listen to, understand, and learn by ear.
In the prophets, however, there are many reflections on that creation story that are much more inventive with language, much more like poetry than song. In this text from Amos we have one of these lovely inventions based on the creation story, embellished with majestic detail, definite imagery, and clever wordplay that moves the imagination to contemplate divinity. Hebrew metaphors tend to mix the metaphysical with the concrete, using things as symbols for divine realities The masterful parables of Jesus are consummate examples of how ordinary scenes can be used metaphorically to dislocate thought from the concrete to the divine. .
Here the English word treadeth translated the verb darak, to go in the way. This is not merely about going on a physical track, but of walking in the way of life—or living according to the wisdom and law of God, which was a very important theme in Israel. In addition, the high places—or bamoth—of the earth are not merely elevated terrainbecause bamoth is most often used for the high places in which idols were worshipped. So the magnificence of Amos’ vision embraces not only world creation, but a message in which the way of God subjugates idolatry.
Greek: Romans 3:3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make thefaith of God without effect?
As often happens in translation, the wordplay of the original is not reflected in the new language. An English reader cannot really tell that not believe, unbeliever, and faith are from the one word, pistis and its negation, apistis. Pistis has many shades of meaning including active confidence, faith, trust, and reliance. It was used to describe the Christian “faith”; being committed to Christian principles, the believer’s virtue of fidelity and transcendent trust. In personal relationships it denoted the steadfast reliability of fidelity. In some senses it represented the guarantee of doctrine by its proof. Apistis is the negation of all these qualities, translated here in the sense of not believing. Paul contrasted faith with its negation faithless, and his conclusion bears out his elegant choice of words. The last words, without effect, translate katargeo, a compound word consisting of the prefix kath—against plus a form of ergon – to work, literally meaning to work against. But Friberg’s Lexicon remarked, “The term always denotes a nonphysical destruction by means of a superior force coming in to replace the force previously in effect, as, e.g. light destroys darkness.” How cleverly Paul indicated that faithlessness cannot extinguish faith any more than darkness can banish light!