Parable's and Idioms

[Christina]

Matthew 13:10 "And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?"Jesus disciples turned to Christ and asked Him, why are you speaking in parables, in riddles that they can not understand?
Matthew 13:11 "He answered and said unto them, "Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

"What is a mystery? It is something that is unknown. The answer may be in plain sight, only if you cannot put all the details together, and take all the clues and give an understanding to them, you do not know.
There are things dealing with the kingdom of heaven that seem foolish to mankind, and will always remain hidden, unless the Spirit of the Living God reveals them to you.
Every Parable has both "Meaning and Significance" If you intend to understand Parables you must first understand that everyone contains at least one
Parabolic Image. Who's meaning and significance is Concealed in, and Revealed.
Example: In the Parable of the Sower the central Parabolic Image is the "SEED" that the sower sows.
Every Parable has a corresponding Hebrew Idiom (figure of speech ) that will give each Parable a deeper meaning and help one in the understanding of the significance.
In this case the Hebrew Idiom is "Raise up a Seed" ......{Voice of Elijah Ministries}

There are many Hebrew Idioms that will give the deeper student a better understanding of Gods Word. They are used often in Gods words to protect both the Word .... from the unsaved ear and Saved student, who is yet in the milk of the Word, hearing but not understanding.
Without the spirit of the Father one can read the Words but will never fully understand the meaning and the significance.

Another Example of a Hebrew Idiom is found in: Gen 9:22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. " To see your fathers (ones)Nakedness" is a Hebrew idiom meaning to lie (have sex) with your fathers wife.
This same idiom is used in the Lev.18 about ones sister,mother ect. Matthew 13:12 "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath."What are we talking about here? The Word of God!

If a certain amount is given to you, can you sow it, and replant it in someones mind? If you do not sow the Word of God in another persons mind, then God will take the understanding that He has given you, and and He will allow you to become deceived in the ways of the world, just as if you never received the Word in the first place. If you have a truth, share it with someone else, or you will lose it.
However take heed here that it is Gods truth you are planting and not mens words and traditions. All will reap what they sow.
Do not sow false teachings. Matthew 13:13 "Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand."Matthew 13:14 "And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith,
By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
"This was prophesied by Isaiah in Isaiah 6:9, 10; "And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. [9] Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.[10]."Isaiah 6:10 Hebrew; Septuagint 'You will be ever hearing, but never understanding; / you will be ever seeing, but never perceiving.' / 10 This people's heart has become calloused; / they hardly hear with their ears, / and they have closed their eyes

Our Father has sent us His Son, and He performed many great miracles in their sight, and yet these blind and dumb scribes and Pharisees, after seeing and hearing Christ with His many wonderful acts yelled out, "show us a sign". Though they saw with their eyes and heard with their ears, they understood nothing that was going on around them.
Their minds were closed, and they perceived nothing. Jesus is saying it here, Paul said it later, and the prophet Isaiah said it five hundred years prior to Jesus Christ's birth; "these people" are in a stupor. Nothing has changed it is and will continue to be the same until Christ returns.
We are warned of the same things in the End Times even though we have the Word of God religious teachers preachers everywhere we turn.

The whole world except the Elect will believe a lie, the great delusion, of the tribulation and follow a fake christ they will not see or hear the warning. Matthew 13:15 " For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."Jesus gave us many prophesies and rich teachings, as He walked upon the earth, and all the time these scribes and Pharisees, stumbling after Christ missed the whole thing. It's like they went to the ball game, and were more concerned with the lead in the paint on the scoreboard, then the score posted.

It was written long ago, many times, by the prophets, and in the sky that the Messiah would come, and when He came He performed the prophesies, and performed the miracles so that those with eyes to see and ears to hear would understand. God didn't close their eyes, they closed them themselves, then God sent the stupor.
They made the choice, and then God acted on their choice. This is also what will happen again very shortly. Those who choose to study and know the truth will be sealed in their minds with the understanding of God and His prophecies of the end times, And those who choose to believe Satan's lies, God will send them into a stupor, and they will be deceived.Revelation 9:4; "And it was commanded them [Satan's locust army of fallen angels] that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads."The reason for God allowing this stupor to come over even Christians, is for their own protection.
This is what is discussed in Hebrews 5:11, 12; that they become dull of hearing, until the time of teaching.
That time is the Millennium Age, for if they understood now, and committed the unpardonable sin, that time would be closed to them. Matthew 13:16 "But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear."Jesus is speaking to his disciples, His elect even to this last generation. Matthew 13:17 "For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them."Christ is the subject here, He is the one that did the great works of healing and teaching, and it is He that all those prophets of old have desired to see and hear in person.

The prophets heard the words of God in parables, and in most cases they wrote, and did understand what they were writing, because it was prophecy, to be understood at the right time. When Jesus walked, healed and taught, He did things in a simple way, by using parables. When He healed, there was a lesson in the healing. When men watch and here these things, and do not understand, it is not intended for them to understand

.However some of you have a destiny and purpose, When the Word is explained it then comes to life in your mind. That is how it is for those who have eyes to see In Mark 4:13 it is written; "And He said unto them, "Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?" If you don't understand this parable of the sower, then how will you understand any of His parables? The answer is you won't. All the parables dealing with the sower are all tied together,So it is that to fully understand both meaning and significance of the Parables one must have Eyes to see....Ears to hear....And heart to understand...if you are missing any of these the meaning of the Parables will escape you, and to fully understand there significance you need to be ready to leave the milk behind and get into the meat (deeper things) of the Word.

Understanding Hebrew Idioms is a good and necessary place to start.There are literly 100's of Hebrew Idioms in scripture here is a link to some simple ones though it lacks any indepth meanings it will give you a general idea of what some are. http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/24_idioms.htmlhttp://www.christianityboard.com/new-testa...ioms-t1280.html

 

[Christina]

Hebrew Idioms in Scripture
Marji Hughes
I'm going to start by taking a look at idioms. These are phrases that mean something different from the literal meaning of the words they use.

A few American English speakers are familiar with are "hit the ceiling," "kill time," or "eat your heart out."
A non-English-speaker that heard these idioms translated literally into his own language would probably find them amusing.
However, if he didn't suspect that they were literal translations of English idioms and took them at face value, the information he received would be very misleading.

The same principle is true of Scripture. Context Counts. While it is impossible to translate the meaning of words and their "nuances" with complete accuracy from one language to another, Scripture is most accurately interpreted within its Jewish cultural context.
The word "context" comes from the Latin verb, "contextuere" and means "to weave". A book or any other writing consists of words and thoughts woven together.
One of the primary rules of Biblical interpretation is to understand what the original readers would have understood.
This necessarily implies an awareness of the culture that would have affected that understanding. In other words, in order to understand the meaning of words from a different culture, we must understand the culture of the people using that language.
The meaning of the word is in its use. I am convinced that a majority of our doctrinal differences would be resolved if more Believers had an intimate acquaintance and understanding of the ancient Jewish culture that serves as the background for Scripture. one problem with translating one language into another is how to deal with words that have more than one meaning.

Another problem is how to handle cultural idioms. If you translate idiomatic expressions literally there is a chance they will be misunderstood. We understand the common phrase, "It's raining cats and dogs," but put that literally into another language and it probably won't make much sense. Realizing that the Bible came to us from a time and culture different from our own, we have to ask ourselves if there are cases where the biblical writers are using an idiom and the meaning has been lost?
The answer is yes, there are.
I'll give one brief example to illustrate this fact.

The text of Matthew 6:22-23 literally reads: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is good, your whole body is full of light; but if your eye is evil your whole body is full of darkness..." Now, "If your eye is good" is a Hebrew saying that means, "if you are generous." But our English translators have not recognized this Hebrew idiom.
Almost all translations preserve the singular, "eye," even though "eyes" would make more sense in English. Do we need only one of our eyes to be good? Only three translations (Good News For Modern Man, New English Bible, New International Version) have recognized the absurdity of "eye." These translations have translated "eyes" in spite of the fact that the original Greek text has "eye." More variety exists in the translation of the word "good." Weymouth and the NIV translate literally.
But "good" in relation to an eye doesn't make much sense in this particular context. Weymouth tries to solve this problem by translating eye as "eyesight" - "If your eyesight is good".

Other translators simply guess at the meaning of "good." "Single" is the traditional translation of "good" (King James, American Standard). Most modem versions prefer "sound" (Amplified, Goodspeed, Jerusalem Bible, New Berkeley, New English Bible, Phillips, Revised Standard, Williams).
Other suggestions are "clear" (Good News For Modern Man, New American Standard), and "pure" (The Living Bible).
Only James Moffatt translates "good eye" as "generous," but even he uses "sound" in the parallel to Matthew 6:22 found in Luke, even though the same Greek word for "good" appears in both places.
So, if a "good eye" speaks to generosity, what is an evil eye?

Someone not knowing the Jewish background might suppose it is speaking of casting spells. But in Hebrew culture, having an "evil eye," means being stingy - just like having a "good eye," means being generous. Yeshua is warning against lack of generosity and nothing else. This fits the context perfectly: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.... You cannot serve both God and money.

"Now I'd like to make something clear. Although not everyone is aware of this, there is some debate among scholars as to what language the New Testament was originally written, with some claiming an 'original" Hebrew or Aramaic text, often citing the example I just used and others as evidence. I have studied the different positions, but I'm not going to get into the details of the debate, since that is beside the point here. I do want to make my own point however.
There is a reason why God chose to, at the least, preserve the New Testament writings in Greek. Just as there are certain words and sayings that can't be understood outside a knowledge of the Hebraic culture from which they arose, there are also words that are best understood in the Greek. The word from which we get our English "baptism" is a good example.
The Hebrew word for immersion is tevilah and means literally, "to totally immerse" The closest word in Greek for tevilah is baptidzo. Baptidzo is derived from an industry of dying cloth in Lebanon. It's root meaning is "to dip, soak, immerse" into a liquid, so that the thing immersed takes on the characteristics of that which it is immersed into - i.e., a cloth into dye or leather into a tanning solution.
Baptidzo is where we get our word "baptism". There is no other word in any other language that conveys the exact same meaning as the Greek word "baptidzo". If for no other reason than this one word, (and there are other reasons) I would have to reject the arguments for an original Hebrew text.

However, there are many other expressions in the Greek texts of the synoptic Gospels that seem to derive from Hebrew idioms. The phrase "poor in spirit: in Matthew 5:3 is an abbreviated idiom that refers to the "poor and crippled in spirit" from Isaiah 66:2. It means those that have come to the end of their strength and cry out in desperation to God, acknowledging they have no righteousness of their own. The "green tree" and the "dry tree" from Luke 23:31 is another example. Based on a prophecy from Ezekiel 20, . The "green tree" symbolizes righteousness - the "dry tree" symbolizes wickedness. Matthew 16:19 speaks of "binding and loosing" and I have heard some very "interesting" interpretations of this phrase. However, there are many examples in ancient Jewish writings of the rabbinical use of "binding" and "loosing". That which is said to be "bound" is something that is forbidden. That which is "loosed" is permitted, nothing more, nothing less. Another example is the terms "destroy" and "fulfill" (I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it) from Matthew 5:17-18.

These are part of rabbinical argumentation. When it was felt that a sage had misinterpreted a passage, it was said he had "destroyed" the Torah. When it was felt he had interpreted correctly, it was said he had "fulfilled" it. In light of this, we could paraphrase these verses to read, "I have not come to abolish the Torah, but to complete it - to make the meaning full" Yeshua did not come to abolish, but to make full the meaning of what Torah and the ethical demands of the Prophets require.
He came to complete our understanding of the Torah and the Prophets so that we can more effectively try to be and do what they instruct us to be and do. Since all of Scripture teaches that obedience is a recognition of - not a requirement for Gods grace, this understanding in no way contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture that we "are saved by grace alone, not works, lest any man should boast."

A few more examples of often misunderstood words and phrases are found in , Matthew 23:32 (" Fill up the measure of . . . your fathers!" which means to finish what your ancestors began), Mark 10:38 - ("Drink the cup I drink" which is a Jewish expression that means to share someone's fate), John 9::24 ("Give glory to God" which comes from Joshua 7:19 and is a solemn charge, a promise under oath to tell the truth), and Acts 28:27 ("they hear heavily with their ears" which means they are slow to understand).Hopefully, by looking at these "Hebraism's" from the New Testament, we can see the importance of understanding the "Hebraic Background" of our faith, an understanding that is essential, not optional, as it has far too long been considered.2005-2006 Foundations Ministries

 

[winsome]

Very interesting krissThanks for posting that.

 

[tim_from_pa]

Christina:Your posts here are extremely valuable in understanding scripture.First of all, I wanted to say that I bookmarked that site with Hebrew idioms. Many I know, a few I did not at face value anyway. These posts point out a very valuable insight regarding interpretation of scripture when some folks push their point or debate scripture certainly so not have these linguistic thoughts in mind. They see it from an English-speaking perspective when indeed, they were Hebrew idioms.Secondly, along that line, I was thinking of a funny skit that demonstrates a similar idea to what you are saying here.It was a ventriloquist act. The guy asks his puppet friend where his parents immigrated from. The puppet answers "From Moscow". The guy then asks, "Then they were Russian?" The puppet says, "No they were taking their time!"Now, if we translate this to another language, the joke would be lost. In this case, they used "homonyms" or similar type sounding words to play on them. idioms are similar.Lastly, you mentioned all the parables. As much as I studied our Father's Word, I realize that there's things I'm still missing as I peel deeper into the onion layer. But Jesus was not the only one misunderstood. I thought I'd bring up the apostle Paul whose words were wrested because they were hard to understand to their destruction. This comes to mind because in Romans 9-11 Paul talks about Israel and critics of the lost tribes take his words and wrest them if you notice to "prove" there is no such thing---- and it reminds me of the wresting that the bible warns about. What Paul stated is not overly obvious since the bible says his writing are "hard to understand". therefore, I get wary of taking what he says at the English face-value the way critics would do and then they swear up and down that they have God's only interpretation.

 

[Christina]

Thankful God allows me to help

 

[dewey]

Christina,I just read your post of Hebrew Idioms in Scripture and I do believe the importance of understanding the culture in order to get the deeper truths of our Fathers' word.Thank you for allowing God to work through you in your posts. Thanks to all of you who only want to help others to understand and Bless The Father.God Bless You and Yours'dewey

 

[Jordan]

(dewey;65753)
Christina,I just read your post of Hebrew Idioms in Scripture and I do believe the importance of understanding the culture in order to get the deeper truths of our Fathers' word.Thank you for allowing God to work through you in your posts. Thanks to all of you who only want to help others to understand and Bless The Father.God Bless You and Yours'dewey

Thank you dewey, I appreciate it you thanking us. Because that what a true child of God do, is to build up the Body of Christ. To help people learn in the Faith.

We can only plant the seed. God is the only one that can grow it.God :blessyou:

 

[Pastor Ron]

Just wanted to thank you for the helpful insights. Am presently studying Manners and Customs of Bible times for the 2nd time in seminary, and I sense the Lord leading me deeper into the idioms and parabolics of the Hebrew. So I am hooked, because I want to know the truth!

 

[Christina]

Bless you for wanting to know more of Gods truth Pastor Ron May God bless your search and give you wisdom

 

[Siskim]

My goodness Kriss, what valuable info and insights you offer! I havn't been herein some time or often but am quite happy to see some of the sincere word going out here.I've had just one class in Apologetics and yes was quite enlightened to learn justwhy the average Christian will benefit from such deeper study of the Word. One interesting thing I discovered was that "talent" did not then have the meaning thatis so populary attached to it today, which today is thought of as a "gift" that wecan cultivate and use to bring forth some fold. Apparently "talent" was more like an"amount" or measure, so that god gave some 1 and some 10 talents etc. In this way I saw rather God giving some amount of substance to use in this life, notnecessarily a talent as we think of it, but more like an amount of provisions. I was inspired that regardless of how many talents God gave us, even 1 talent comes with potentialto grow it and multiply it, and I think of how we often sq

 

[Isabell]

Very interesting and educating, Christina. Thank you.Isabell