Psalm 93: Symbolic Rivers
October 17, 2024
Rivers in the Bible are sometimes symbolic. Maybe, also the ones of Psalm 93.
The rivers have surged, O Jehovah, The rivers have surged and roared; The rivers keep surging and pounding. (93:3)
They have surged. Repeat and add: they have surged and roared. Repeat as continuious action, and escalate to pounding: The rivers keep surging and pounding.
Jehovah is above them all, triumphant, as though the rivers here are a disruptive thing:
Above the sound of many waters, Mightier than the breaking waves of the sea, Jehovah is majestic in the heights. (93:4) The opening two verses set up that scenario, too.
The Research Guide doesn’t touch it. The Insight Book does. Sometimes invading armies are “rivers.” Makes sense.
“Therefore look! Jehovah will bring against them The mighty and vast waters of the River, The king of As·syrʹi·a and all his glory. He will come up over all his streambeds And overflow all his banks.” Isa 8:7
The comparison I like best is the Devil disgorging rivers of water and the earth swallows it up to save the woman:
“And the serpent spewed out water like a river from its mouth after the woman, to cause her to be drowned by the river. 16 But the earth came to the woman’s help, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon spewed out from its mouth.”
So I told Duncan about it, but he didn’t call on me during the gems review. He knew I would just be blowing smoke. Besides, he thought of the river, clear as crystal, that flows from the throne
Turn the page and rivers are clapping their hands. I’m not sure how rivers can do that:
Let the rivers clap their hands; Let the mountains shout joyfully together. (98:8)
At Isaiah 42:10, the rivers are like unmentionables:
It can’t have been easy for Paul, to be followed around for days by a crazy person hollering: “‘These men are slaves of the Most High God and are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.’” To illustrate that it would not be, I told a certain someone at the Hall that I would heretofore do it to him.
Did the demon driving her think he had Paul over a barrel? What’s he going to do—cast it out, upon which the servant would be valueless to her masters and the cops would beat Paul up? But Paul cast it out, the servant became valueless to her masters, and the cops beat him up:
“Now it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a servant girl with a spirit, a demon of divination,l met us. She supplied her masters with much profit by fortune-telling. This girl kept following Paul and us and crying out with the words: “These men are slaves of the Most High God and are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. Finally Paul got tired of it and turned and said to the spirit: “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.
“Well, when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the rulers. Leading them up to the civil magistrates, they said: “These men are disturbing our city very much. They are Jews, and they are proclaiming customs that it is not lawful for us to adopt or practice, seeing that we are Romans.” And the crowd rose up together against them, and the civil magistrates, after tearing the garments off them, gave the command to beat them with rods. After they had inflicted many blows on them, they threw them into prisonu and ordered the jailer to guard them securely.” (Acts 16:16-24)
****** The bookstore
I only saw a reference - from a 1951 wt article- to this:
ISA 33 [yours sounds better]
20 Behold Zion,+
the town of our festal occasions!+
Your own eyes will see Jerusalem an undisturbed abiding place, a tent that no one will pack up.+
Never will its tent pins be pulled out, and none of its ropes will be torn in two.+
21 But there the Majestic One,+
Jehovah, will be for us a place of rivers,+
of wide*
canals. On it no galley fleet will go, and no majestic ship will pass over it
22 For Jehovah is our Judge,+Jehovah is our Statute-giver,+
Jehovah is our King;+
he himself will save us.+
Gen. 4:26 "At that time people began calling on the name of Jehovah.”, but not in righteousness?
I think this was right after Eve said “w/ Jehovah I have produced a man” [Cain, her firstborn] perhaps thinking she and Cain were fulfillment of Gen 3:15?
Catholic Church- maybe others?- have said it is Mary [“the woman” in Gen 3:15]
Both these interpretations might remind one of the many typical pagan mother and son deity- duos? [“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” -Acts 19]
I was thinking maybe the demonized woman in Cesarea Philippi that Paul “exorcized” was kind of like “taking up The Name in a worthless way.”?
>similar demon recognition, but unwanted< :
Matt 8
28 When he {Jesus} came to the other side into the region of the Gad·a·renesʹ, two demon-possessed men coming out from among the tombs met him. They were unusually fierce, so nobody had the courage to pass by on that road.
29 And look! they screamed, saying: “What have we to do with you, Son of God? Did you come here to *torment [*jail, imprison] us before the appointed time?”
30 A long way off from them, a herd of many swine was feeding.
31 So the demons began to plead with him, saying: “If you expel us, send us into the herd of swine.”
32 And he said to them: “Go!” With that they came out and went off into the swine, and look! the entire herd rushed over the precipice into the sea and died in the waters.
33 But the herders fled, and going into the city, they reported everything, including the account of the demon-possessed men.
34 And look! all the city turned out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they urged him to depart from their region.
Posted by: pc | October 23, 2024 at 11:39 PM
Once you know ‘the pattern of the healthful words,’ you don’t have to spit them out verbatim. You can generate your own, as you have done. A lot of verses are barely touched upon in prior research.
Posted by: Tom Sheepandgoats Harley | October 24, 2024 at 08:09 AM