I’ve just finished translating the Old Testament. “Excuse me?” you ask. Well, about eight years ago Philip Law (then of Westminster John Knox) invited me to write a series of commentaries called “The Old Testament for Everyone.” When I was nearly done (the last ones will come out this year) he asked if we could bring together the translation elements in each volume and produce the complete translation on its own. It would also mean my translating the remaining twenty per cent that wasn’t included in the commentaries.

It didn’t seem a big task, but it took much longer than I thought. The bits I had omitted were often the difficult bits. But also I hadn’t needed to worry about consistency when I was working book by book. When the translation was in one volume, there needed to be consistency. So I’ve spent several hours almost every day over the past year or so just working through the translation of the Old Testament again with nothing much on my desk but the Hebrew text and a dictionary.
It’s been an extraordinary experience. The depth and the wonder of the words I have been reading have come home to me more and more. I’ve sat there marveling that I’m privileged to let this sacred text soak into me. I’ve felt more and more that I have been on hallowed ground. Yes, they are holy scriptures. Of course it’s because they’re all about God. So simply reading them for hours every day has made we wonder at the God whose activity lies behind them and who is the most prominent character in them.
(Until it’s published next year, the translation is on my website, under the tabs for different parts of the Old Testament. There’s also a paper about translation which includes some reflections, under the “Interpretation” tab.)

John

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the reign of heaven” (Matt 5:3).

Who are the poor in spirit to whom the reign of heaven belongs?

Here as elsewhere Jesus is picking up the language of Isaiah 61. There, they are the people to whom Isaiah 61 declared good news of freedom, vindication, and restoration. Isaiah 61 was an important passage for Jesus; he quotes in his sermon at Nazareth. Luke includes that story at an equivalent place in his Gospel to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew (Luke 4:16-21). Jesus echoes it in describing his ministry to John the Baptizer (Matt 11:2-6). The poor in spirit are people who are neglected, ignored, put down, insignificant, and powerless. They will no doubt thus be materially needy, but also oppressed and depressed.

It’s impossible for someone like me or for most readers of this blog to be poor in spirit. That’s not something to feel guilty about, though. Arguably it’s something to thank God for. But it’s also something to be wary of. The poor in spirit are the people to whom the reign of heaven naturally belongs. People like us are the rich for whom it’s hard to enter to the reign of heaven (Matt 19:23-24). Fortunately it’s not impossible to get in (Matt 19:25-26).

We can redefine “poor in spirit” so it applies to us. But do we then take the description away from the people to whom it belongs? That might well mean we can’t get in.