Daily Bible Nugget #448, Ecclesiastes 3:8

The Nugget:

Ecc 3:8  A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

My Comment:

One of my most valued Facebook friends made the following comment in response to yesterday’s post:

“Amen great teaching. Do you have any suggestion or a good greek study bible that will help me break words down?”

I answered,

“The best one I can fully recommend is my scholar friend Dr. Malcolm Lavender‘s Lavender’s New Testament! It will give you the truth that all other translations have obscured, and will be a spiritual delight for you to learn more of God’s Word.”

My friend replied, “Thank you.”

I continued the conversation, saying:

I made the following comment just yesterday to Dr. R. Lavender:

Popular but very mistaken beliefs about salvation and true holiness are corrected by translating to English the crucial distinctions contained in the grammatical features of the original and inspired Greek text of the New Testament. This is essential information for all Bible believing Christians to know. What most Christians think they know about the teachings of the New Testament is shockingly re-expressed into a biblically and theologically sound presentation of the Gospel message of salvation and personal transformation that takes place when the truth is believed instead of denied.“

My friend responded, “Amen!!!”

Then my friend asked the following question:

Real Bible Study what verse is it that God gave Moses I believe a field where they could kill people?”

My response:

“I don’t recognize that one. If you can think of anything more that relates to the passage, or know of another related passage, I might figure it out. I am sort of “programmed” to recall passages using the King James Version. I stick with the KJV for just that purpose, though I find I can work between other versions in the sense that if I hear a passage in the NIV or NLT or ESV I still usually recognize it.”

This morning, I returned to the question and made the following comment, which I trust will help everyone reading this will find instructive:

“Still thinking about your question. A related subject is the cities of  refuge found in Joshua 20:7 and context. See the note there in my Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury or the New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or the original Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
 
“Another way to get at the subject or topic you mention is to relate ‘killing’ to ‘war’ in your thinking. Then ask a new question, ‘Where in the Bible is it stated that the kings had a regular place and time of year for war?’ I know there is a passage somewhere in the Old Testament about that, but none of the words in my question will lead to the answer using a concordance for the KJV or other translations.
 
“I once spent considerable time searching for the answer to my question. I looked under the topic ‘war’ in single-volume Bible dictionaries old and new. Then I tried Bible encyclopedias like ISBE (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia). Then I tried McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. It had a lengthy article on the subject. Interestingly, I found the same article word-for-word in my four-volume Smith’s Bible Dictionary. But still no mention of anything pertaining to my question.
 
“Then I recalled that there is a verse in Ecclesiastes about “a time of war.” So, I went to that verse (Ecclesiastes 3:8) and checked out my cross references, and I was led directly to the passage I was seeking.
 
“Now, if there really is a Bible text that mentions the subject of your question, you might be able to find it by following the cross references, starting at Ecclesiastes 3:8. I still don’t recall any mention of a “field where they could kill people,” unless it may be connected with the cities of refuge that I mentioned, where if a person did not stay in the city of refuge until the time of a new high priest in Israel, he could be killed by the person or the family member he was seeking refuge from, that might be related. I recall vaguely that there is a related text about taking a person prisoner and killing them at a specific place outside the city involved by a brook or something like that. But where these texts are, I don’t recall specifically. But I have told you enough that you now should know how to find them using cross references from even vaguely related Bible verses that you do know where to find.

 

 

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