Hard or Harden in Exodus 1 – 14

This study help is for Exodus 911 (will be live 10/1) and The Wonders that Plagued Egypt. These listing from the Strong’s are for hard or harden, and several other words in the Exodus 1 – 14. The list of verses at the bottom are every time the Hebrew words were used. (God bless translators.) Not all of the listing will show “hard” I saw things like the staff being in the hand. I did put biblehub.com and blueletterbible.org listings; both are great, and I have no connection to either, they are just great study aids.

Looking at other references that use these words can give you an idea of the scope of what God did with Pharoah and how he reacted. you will notice that the Hebrew has good and bad side to each of these words.

H 2388 – chazaq: to be or grow firm or strong, strengthen

H3513 – kabad or kabed: to be heavy, weighty, or burdensome

H3515 – kabed: heavy

H7185 – qashah: to be hard, severe or fierce the word for Rachael’s labor Gen.35:16, before the plagues began Ex 7:3, and what the fathers told children about leaving Egypt13:15

qasheh: hard, severe

Exodus

  • 1:14 – 7186
  • 4:10 – 3515
  • 4:21 – 2388
  • 4:21 – 2388
  • 4:4 – 2388
  • 5:9 – 3513
  • 6:9 – 7186
  • 7:3 – 7185
  • 7:13 – 2388
  • 7:13 -2388
  • 7:14 -3515
  • 7:22 – 2388
  • 8:15 – 3513
  • 8:15 – 3515
  • 8:19 – 2388
  • 8:19 – 2388
  • 8:24 – 3515
  • 8:32 – 3513
  • 8:32 – 3515
  • 9:2 – 2388
  • 9:3 – 3515
  • 9:7 – 3513
  • 9:7 – 3515
  • 9:12 – 2388
  • 9:18 –3515
  • 9:24 – 3515
  • 9:34 – 3513
  • 9:35 – 2388
  • 9:35 – 2388
  • 10:1 – 3513
  • 10:14 – 3515
  • 10:20 – 2388
  • 10:20 – 2388
  • 10:27 – 2388
  • 10:27 – 2388
  • 11:10 – 2388
  • 11:10 – 2388
  • 12:33 – 2388
  • 12:38 – 3515
  • 13:15 – 7185
  • 14:4 – 2388
  • 14:4 – 3513
  • 14:8 – 2388
  • 14:8 – 2388
  • 14:17 – 2388
  • 14:17 – 3513
  • 14:18 – 3513

H__llow – A or O, You Decide?

Hallow or hollow as a question comes from a study on the Lord’s Prayer, Hebrew 10:14, and a short night of sleep. Grammer, tenses, and etymology are not real big in this study.

Hollow has several uses, but they revolve around something having an empty or not filled space inside.  

Websters Dictionary 1828 – Webster’s Dictionary 1828 – Hollow

Hallow is associated with being set apart as holy or sacred.

Websters Dictionary 1828 – Webster’s Dictionary 1828 – Hallow

The 1828 Websters’ is a good resource; it has Bible references, when appropriate, and is missing 200 years of humanism and cultural references. The contrast can be striking at times.

Hallow is what caught my attention. It is a good 1500’s Geneva and King James Bible word and is used in many modern translations. If you continue on your internet search, you might find a few references to the Lord’s Prayer or Father God. That may not be inappropriate, I just found it a bit odd to purposely leave them out. There were videos on hallowing the Name of the Lord.

This post started as a pointed and cute question on whether you are empty or filled with the Holy Spirit because of Jesus. We are holy because of Jesus’ sacrifice and His blood covering us in the sight of the Father. So, are you hollow or hallow?

Father God is holy, and He has agape for us; He loves righteousness and justice. These are important to Him. So, they should be important to us. The Father and Jesus wants a family that chooses to belong to Them and allows the Holy Spirit to work in them and through them.

Yes, things and places are holy and hallowed in the Bible. I see that as occurring because God ordered them that way, but He wants a holy people. In Man’s attempt to prove ourselves holy we add things to God’s Word and Works. An example is the Sabbath. God declared it holy and said to rest; Man, then started listing things to make sure that we “rest”. Jesus even talked about Man making the gold in the Temple more important than the Temple or Altar it was on (Matthew 23:16 +17), or gifts that should be helping Family but were being withheld. To put this into perspective, God paved the streets in heaven with gold, has a glassy sea (sapphire?) that His throne sits on, and pearls for gates. They are holy because He is in Heaven, the Holy City. (On a science note, glassy may just be smooth and something can be clear and have a color.)

To further your study, use this as a help.

Leviticus 22:32 Hebrew Text Analysis (biblehub.com) This passage has both words in it.    

Strong’s Hebrew: 6942. קָדַשׁ (qadash) — to be set apart or consecrated (biblehub.com)

Strong’s Hebrew: 6944. קֹ֫דֶשׁ (qodesh) — apartness, sacredness (biblehub.com)

To make holy.  ἁγιάζω | Free Online Greek Dictionary | billmounce.com

Perisseuō

This is more than enough post about Greek words! Okay, my pun will be clear later. My objective in this post is to talk about perisseuō, Strong’s number: G4052, and give some tools for understanding our study helps, like Strong’s and Mounce’s Greek Dictionary.

Concordances do not list every form of a word. That is why they will have more than one definition in a listing. Especially in the On-line Mounce Dictionary you will see something that looks like this: fut pass ind 3 sg. Ignoring those is easy, after all its Greek to me, right. But those strange letters behind some italicized words can further your study, if you take the time to do look that up. These may help. Do not feel bad if, like me, it takes a while.

Matthew 13:12 shared the word perisseuthēsetai with Matthew 25:29 and my study overflowed into this post. My reference tool was – περισσεύω | Free Online Greek Dictionary | billmounce.com

Depending on your translation those two verses are saying the exact same thing – If you have it, you will get more and have an ABUNDANCE; if you don’t have it, even that is taken away. (Mark’s Translation) Then I noticed (fut pass ind 3 sg) for both of them and decided to learn something new. I possibly learned about parsing in high school, enough said. This is from the Lesson V link above.

  • The future is used to describe a simple or ongoing action in the future.
  • The passive voice is used to show that the subject of the verb is acted on.
  • The indicative is the most common verb form you will encounter. It is used for simple statements and questions.
  • The English third person singular (3 sg) pronouns are ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’.

Yes, both are in Matthew but the “where and who” really pushed me to look further in. The back story of 13:12 is it is early in Jesus’ ministry; I call it the Second Block of Kingdom Teaching. This story seems to start in Chapter 12 and may cover only a few days. Jesus has upset the Religious; healings, casting out demons, not preforming on-demand miracles, and taking care of business on the Sabbath. This verse is referring to knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom and why He speaks in parables. Jesus then goes on to talk about more seeds, weeds, treasure, pearls, and nets. After all of this He leaves for Nazareth. Block Three more or less starts with John’s beheading, Chapter 14.

Matthew 25:29 is in His last block of kingdom teaching, and I have been referring to them being His Sermons on Two Mounts. This verse is in the Parable of the Talents and this sermon was given to His followers on the Mount of Olives after He left the Temple Mount. Money or using your gifts and giving them back to God are two favorite lessons taught from one of the last teachings He gave before His death.

Jesus wants an ABUNDANCE of knowledge of His Kingdom and your talents used in His Kingdom for every one of us. He rode into Jerusalem to pay the Bride’s Price so He could gather His Family in advance of His Second Return.

If you continue studying perisseuō, you will find it associated with the bread in the feeding of the four and five thousand, and Paul uses it 1 and 2 Corinthians several times. I hope I have given you more than enough for you to continue this study.

ARMOR in Ephesians

The armor in Ephesians 6 has been the object of at least one other study and probably will get a few more. See Putting On or Spandex Tight | Mark’s Bible Study (ificouldteachthebible.com) for my first post. Today, I will write on some of the reasons why Paul told us to put that armor on (enduo).

The Struggle or palē – This word is also translated wrestle and fight. Strong’s Greek: 3823. πάλη (palé) — wrestling, generally fight (biblehub.com) It is used once in the New Testament. (For a little advanced learning. Translators will use other Greek sources, like Homer and Herodotus, to get the meaning of these words.) The winner of Greek wrestling matches won only when they “stood” on the loser’s neck. This is what we are to do to the rulers, authorities, powers, and spiritual forces of darkness and evil. Unfortunately, we ignore this is not for flesh and blood, and certainly not fellow believers in Christ Jesus.

Stand or histēmi – See Strong’s Greek: 2476. ἵστημι (histémi) — to make to stand, to stand (biblehub.com)  This word is used many times in the New Testament and in a variety of ways.

Stand or anthistēmi – See Strong’s Greek: 436. ἀνθίστημι (anthistémi) — to set against, i.e. withstand (biblehub.com)  The KJV translates this as “withstand”; this seems weak in today’s uses of that word. Some Greek literature uses this as a military term, which fits the context of Paul’s writing. We are to oppose the darkness with force using the armor we are being instructed to wear/use. I think I might say “defend your ground”.

My Observations

  1. Jesus won.
  2. Our Old Testament has spears, bows and arrows, and slings. Did Paul forget these? They are long range weapons.
  3. I tend to think of this in Roman terms, which could be fair, expect armor has been around long before them. See 1 Samuel 18:4, this is Jonathan giving David his armor and weapons.
  4. The armour and weapons usually listed are for personal protection or close-quarter combat.
  5. The enemy uses flaming arrows.
  6. Christians have a Sword! Lol our “S – word”. Our Holy Spirit Word.
  7. Two things that do not make the list very often are the Spiritual weapons – Praying and Watching, verse 18. These may make us “Weap-on”.
  8. Have you ever seen a Sunday School lesson with a woman clothed in her armor and ready to anthistēmi?
  9. Notice the order of putting on the armor and weapons in Ephesians 6:13-18, it is how someone would get dressed by themselves to go into battle.

I like the Book of Ephesians, and the Armor section in Chapter 6. No, it is not an accident that Paul ended Ephesians with the armor in Chapter 6.

Bread in the Bible – Epiousios

Because epiousios is in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3 it is the second best-known bread in the Bible. Those references are in the center of the Lord’s Prayer, along with forgiveness, and they contain the special Greek word epiousios. How special? It is only used twice in the corpus of Greek writings and literature. Okay, I did not say just the Bible, I said all of Greek literature before the time of Jesus. (God bless translators.) It has been rendered “daily”. Never have I heard this word or how special it is; take some time and check out these links. O the verse- Give us this day our DAILY bread. (Mark translation.)

Since there is nothing to compare it to, my first reaction was MANNA! What is this special concept in the Lord’s Prayer that is sandwiched between “give us this day” and “bread”? “Daily” has worked; “for the coming day” may be just as good, or is there even more? As this is a study, I will put it in context with the Sermon on the Mount and then break that compound word down. After all of that, I will share my crust with you (The crust on a loaf of bread is special to me.).

Luke – Only Matthew and Luke recorded this prayer by the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit. Luke had heard this prayer many times before he wrote it to Theophilus. There are slight variations between the two in the Greek text but that should be expected. Others have added more and bigger changes than these slight variations. (I am working on a study on the Lord’s Prayer.) Luke 11 to me is the start of his version of the Sermon on the Mount, it does go for a few chapters.

Thoughts on the Word

The Author of Creation and the Word of Life coined a word. Epiousios was not a mistake or an accident. If you look at verse 11, it could have been said “Give us today our bread” and the meaning would have been clear.

I thank the Father for the food we have to eat and His grace for willingly taking care of my family. Do I have a simple explanation for epiousios. No, but the study has moved some “tent pegs” because my God has pushed my box out of shape. I will try to put this compound word into the context of Jesus’ sermon and His teachings for His Kingdom. Now, let’s think above our possessions.

The Sermon – I need to start/mention the baptism of Jesus (3:13), which compares to the Children passing through the Red Sea. He then goes into the wilderness and is tempted (4:1-4). The first temptation is about bread or what He needs to live on. (If it is just a number reference it is from Matthew.) Jesus then picks up and adds to John the Baptist’s message; the good news that the kingdom of heaven/God is near (4:17) and He is healing every disease (4:23). Remember that the Children came out of Egypt healed. Relax take a breath and view the Sermon as a Jesus version of the Ten Commandments and the Law. Now consider how food, water, manna, and quail played into the trip to the mountain where they met God. A note to myself – they had gold, silver, and possessions but no food or water; what did they complain about?

The Sermon has several references to food, eating, and what is needed to maintain our lives. I decided the best way to study these was to list them.

  • 5:6 – those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
  • 5:13 – you are salt (needed for life) stay flavorful
  • 5:42 – help those who need to borrow from you
  • 6:11 – gives us bread every day and “more”. We could be praying every day for what we need tomorrow. It could be a statement to give us above what we need so we can share.
  • 6:19 – watch what you are storing up
  • 6:25 – life is more important than food, Father knows we need it so don’t worry
  • 6:31 – don’t worry about what to drink or eat
  • 7:9 – if you ask Father for bread or fish, He is not going to give you something harmful
  • 7:16-20 – good fruit comes from good trees

Actual and metaphorical these verses help to open the Kingdom and show the righteous relations that God wants with the Body of Christ and that we are to have with the other parts of the Body. Luke 6:38 with the “good measure” being poured for us, then pressed, shaken, and running over is exhorting us to get out of our box and give above what is sufficient. I am beginning to feel that is a good picture of epiousios.

The Parts

Epi is a prefix in Greek, and I have seen it as a word. It can mean upon or above. We are talking about Father God, the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills.

Ousios in our “modern” jargon carries the concept of substance or being. In the Wiki article above that concept was part of the trinitarian doctrine and the controversy that arose in the early church. See Luke 15:12+13.

My Musings

I may say “daily” but I am not sure I can go that small in my thinking ever again.

Metaphorically I can see epiousios as the crust on a loaf of bread. It is on top of the substance that most people like. It has formed from the heat changing the dough to make a shield for the soft inner part. The crust can have a pleasant color. It gives me something to chew on while I enjoy the softer inside. Personally, I like to eat the crust.

Many kernels of grain are needed to make a loaf of bread. They are picked, ground up, and mixed together to make bread. The Body of Christ has many individual “kernels” that are being prepared so we can be the Bride and be presented spotless and perfect.