Hi papias,
You wrote:
‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
So, you believe that a simple turn of phrase is the same as: So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
Tell me please, what's the turn of phrase in that sentence?
And again:
So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubithigh all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
What's the turn of phrase found in this passage?
And again:
You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
What's the turn of phrase found in this passage?
And again:
The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
Can you point out the turn of phrase in this passage?
And again:
And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground,
male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
Same question.
You see, I get that when God said that He had saved Israel from their oppression in Egypt that He had brought them to him on the wings of eagles, that this 3 word phrase was using a turn of phrase in which He wanted to impress upon the Israelites how He had saved them as if they had been flown out of Egypt as one might be saved on the wings of eagles. I honestly get that and then we know by the actual account of God's saving Israel that it wasn't actually by sending an eagle into the midst of Egypt and having everyone jump on and he flew them out of Egypt on this, what must have been, huge and powerful eagle. After all, we know that there were at least several thousand people involved here. That would require a pretty big eagle.
However, most people understand that the 3 word phrase is what's called a turn of phrase or, what one might say, a simile. But in the flood account, we have the same thing as we find in the actual account of God's saving Israel from Egypt. It explains, in quite detail, how Noah built an ark and then filled it with all kinds of animals and then Noah's family and the floodwaters came and lifted the ark above the flood waters. The account is several paragraphs long, although yes, I understand that the original Hebrew likely wasn't broken into paragraphs as we see today, but nevertheless, it was a lot longer and more detailed than a simple turn of phrase. Just as the full account of God's saving Israel from their Egyptian oppressors tells us how He caused 10 plagues to befall Egypt. Then He commanded them to be ready to leave Egypt and to ask the Egyptians for their valuables and then had them go out into the wilderness and parted a sea for them. All so that they could be rescued from Egypt.
Later in reminding the Egyptians of the reality of what He had actually done to save them, He said to them that He had brought them out on 'wings of eagles'. It honestly baffles me that anyone would see that God's later saying to Israel that He had saved them on 'wings of eagles' as a reminder to them of what He had done is 'proof' that the whole account of how exactly God saved Israel from both Egypt and Noah's family from the flood is all just a really, really, really, really long turn of phrase.
There are, according to Jesus, none so blind as those who
will not see.
God bless you,
In Christ, ted
