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Showing posts with the label isaiah

The Royal Prophets

Many of us may not know that two of the sixteen classical prophets in the Old Testament were from royal families. By the way, classical prophets is a technical term for the prophets whose names we have books, like Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, etc. At the same time, despite their antiquity and prominence, Elijah, Elisha, Gad, or Nathan do not fall in this category since we do not have books in their names. The classical prophets came from a variety of backgrounds. Biographical information on most of the prophets is scanty. Still, we know Amos was a farmer and a sheep breeder, while Jeremiah and Ezekiel were priests. The two prophets with royal connections are Zephaniah and Isaiah. The Book of Zephaniah introduces the prophet as a descendant of King Hezekiah. "The word of the LORD that came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah" (Zeph 1:1). But there is nothing in the rest of the Book to ...

Walking with God in Love and Justice

I recall the days sharing an apartment with a few other single men.   None of us knew cooking so we had a lady sending us lunch-boxes every day. We noticed that over the weeks this kind lady has customized our lunch boxes to suit each individual’s likes and dislikes—each of us had our favorites dishes more often while the dishes that we detested have disappeared from the menu. We were amused. How did this woman know what each of us like though she hasn’t even met most of us even once? We quizzed the man who brought the lunch for us every day. He told us the secret. She would check all the lunch boxes that we returned and made a note of what remains in them. Whatever, a person did not eat she considered it as a dislike and whatever was eaten, she considered as his favorite. Thus, over the weeks she knew what each of us like and what we detested. Now you know why we adored her! Knowing God’s will and pleasing him by doing what he likes is even more noble. That is what we are call...

The Sin of Silence

There is an Indian saying: Silence is the glory of the wise! It means the wise person keeps quite and by implication it means the fool keeps talking (certainly all nonsense!). But silence at times could be malicious, dangerous and even a grave sin. So let us say that like tumors, silence could also be of two types: the benign ones and the malign ones. In his vision of God Isaiah confessed: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Isa 6:5). The word "ruined" could be a mistranslation. It is equally possible to translate it as "been silent" though many modern translations still follow the KJV in this regard. The translation "silent" fits the context too. The sin of the people of Isaiah has to do with speech (unclean lips) and the cleansing that God does has to do with speech. Moreover, the commissioning that Isaiah receives is to speak! Al...

True Spirituality and the Vision of Peace

Terrorists who have some religious associations give religions a bad name. Recent events like the attack on Mumbai (26/11) make us think if religions promote violence only. However, the picture is far from truth. There are narratives of conflicts, violence and bloody battle accounts in the Bible. This makes some think that Bible promotes violence. However, they miss out the many visions of peace that the bible have. One such vision is found in the prophecy of Isaiah in the second chapter. Part of this vision is inscribed on the walls of the UN building in New York: "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4). This probably was a very popular vision about the future in those days since another prophet by the name Micah also has this in his book (Micah 4:3). Thus it should rather be called a shared vision of the prophets of the Bible in the eight...