Opus 2025-293: Names I Missed

I have already reviewed the names given to the three persons of the trinity.  Yahweh (Jehovah) which means “I am”, Jesus (Yeshua) meaning savior and Immanuel announcing that God is with us, and the Paraclete which is translated various ways such as Helper or Comforter.  I recently came across a list of additional names that I should have remembered.

Isaiah 9:6 (KJV) For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

With the perspective of the New Testament these are terms referring to Jesus, the Son.  I am used to reading them and hearing them but I found a few interesting things about the list as I broke it down.

Take the two terms “Wonderful” and “Counselor”.  They are put together different ways but when I looked at them with the Blue Letter Bible software I was surprised to find that “wonderful” (6382) was a noun, not an adjective, and “counselor” (3289) was a verb being used as an active participle.  It made me think of an English part of speech called a gerund which is a verb with “ing” added, turning it into a noun.  It would seem that the two terms either stand alone or “wonderful” becomes “wonder” or “wonderful one”.

You run into the same type of thing further down with “everlasting” (5703) “Father” (1).  “Everlasting” is a noun.  It is the same grammatical structure as “Prince of Peace”.  I might suggest “Father of Eternity”.

Hebrew is still a mystery to me even with all the crutches available.  The mysteries are deep and wonderful.  Still, the names are significant because they tell us who Jesus is.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-060: God’s Pronouns

Why does the Bible emphasize the Fatherhood of God and not the Motherhood?  Although I understand there are a few places where a female pronoun is used the overwhelming mass is for a male figure.  Is this just cultural or is it an eternal truth?  I did a quick search for the words “father” and “God” and came up with 160 matches.  It seems that most of the matches had the words separated and the “father” was an earthly father.  There were a few exceptions though.  One stands out,

(Isa 9:6 KJV)  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

There are no apologies, watering down or compromise in that statement.

A second search for the exact phrase “God the Father” came up with twelve matches, all in the New Testament.  A typical one was,

(Gal 1:3 KJV)  Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,

So the testimony of the written word is that God is a masculine not a feminine.

This seems to offend the logic of our post-modern generation of 47 genders.  Wouldn’t a trinity of Father, Mother, Son make more sense?  After all it would reflect the reality of the family.  Maybe that is why the Muslims think Mary is part of the trinity.  It seems more logical.  Ignore that they got the idea from the heretics of Egypt.  It isn’t logical to our way of thinking.  That is one of the differences between a God who made man and a god made by man.

Keep in mind that the Bible was not written to “make sense” to the average skeptic.  It was written to reflect truth.  It was written to teach truth.  It is considered “God breathed”.  That is what inspired means.  To further confuse the issue we have

(Gen 1:27 KJV)  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

For those who tend toward male chauvinism this wall is put up to be run into.  While God is distinctly male the woman is also created in His image.  This was not an issue when I was growing up and I don’t think it was an issue for the preceding 6,000 years.  It is an issue today when we have our major institutions controlled by people who hate the God of the Bible.

homo unius libri

Opus 2014-313: Wonderful Counselor

Over the long holiday season I usually fall further behind on listening to Alistair Begg.  Early this year I was listening to a Christmas sermon and the subject was the prophecy in Isaiah about the child in Isaiah 9:6.  One of His titles was Wonderful Counselor.  The only problem is that we don’t read and understand that correctly.

Compare two translations:

(Isa 9:6 KJV)  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

(Isa 9:6 NAS77)  For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Begg points out something that had slipped by me.  He says that in the Hebrew the “wonderful” is not an adjective.  If you look at the KJV it comes through.  If you look at the NASB it doesn’t.  I went through the collection of fifteen translations I have on my software and the pattern was consistent.  The older translations bring through the sense of the Hebrew.  The newer translations muddle it.

According to the definition “wonderful” is a noun.  That does not mean that it cannot modify counselor but it can stand alone also. 

Another familiar use of the verse is in Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.  If you think back over the presentation, the word “wonderful” is presented in such a way that it shows Handel understood it to be a separate characteristic.  Begg calls it an “abstract.” 

So take it either way.  The coming Messiah was to be a “wonderful Counselor.”  He was also to be Wonderful.  You can have your cake and eat it too.

homo unius libri