Biblog

Found this interesting definition/etymology for bless and blessing...
-- [ETYMOLOGY: Old English 'blædsian' - to sprinkle with sacrificial blood; related to blood]

Lsten to Psalm 1 (audio) in Hebrew...

beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum et in via peccatorum non stetit in cathedra derisorum non sedit.
see complete Latin version of Psalm 1 here....

William Whitaker's Latin Dictionary is here...
Beatus
beat.us VPAR 1 1 NOM S M PERF PASSIVE PPL
beo, beare, beavi, beatus V TRANS
bless, make happy, gladden, delight; enrich (with);
beat.us ADJ 1 1 NOM S M POS
beatus, beata, beatum ADJ Late
blessed, blissful; "Saint" (in early Church, less formal);
beat.us N 2 1 NOM S M
beatus, beati N M uncommon
happy/fortunate men/persons (pl.); the rich;
beat.us ADJ 1 1 NOM S M POS
beatus, beata -um, beatior -or -us, beatissimus -a -um ADJ
happy, fortunate, bringing happiness; rich, wealthy, copious, sumptuous;


http://douay.mrklingon.org/ has Latin bible linked to dictionary so as you read the Latin bible, you can click on the links and see english translations of each word or phrase.

Wessler-Rogets thesauri - beatus

Psalm 1 - The blessed man is all about Jesus Christ.
(If it's about you - you are in trouble...)
I already knew that, but I keep finding more reasons why it's true. (eg. Augustine's blog of Ps.1)


When you ponder such passages as Psalm 1:1, Matthew 1:1, John 1:1 and Rev. 1:3 -- and you meditate upon these things day after day for several days, weeks or months -- you begin to see a pattern as all the threads come to together in God's beautiful plan.

Psalm 1 shows us the model of the perfectly blessed man who avoids all sin, sinful thoughts, delights in the law/word every hour of every day and thus prospers in all that he does.

Matthew 1:1 says Jesus Christ is the son of Abraham and the son of David.
God promised that through Abraham, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. (Gen.18:18) Psalm 1 is the gateway (preface) to the Psalms (book of David) and the only "house of blessing" is the "house of David" -- the everlasting throne and kingdom. And as the angel told Mary when announcing the birth of the Messiah (Luke 1:32,33), "He shall be great... and the LORD GOD shall give him the throne of his father David."

[2 Samuel 7:29 Therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue for ever before thee: for thou, O Lord GOD, hast spoken it: and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever.]
[2 Sam 7:16 'Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.' ]
[1 Chronicles 17:27 Now therefore let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may be before thee for ever: for thou blessest, O LORD, and it shall be blessed for ever. ]

Wall Street Journal reviews 'The Passion' -- Mel Gibson's upcoming film about Christ .... well actually Peggy Noonan's review of Pope John Paul II's 5 words about it...

New thoughts on Psalm 1 from Greg Herrick? the NET Bible team....

And yet another Catholic translation of the Psalms.... see Psalm 1

Psalms of David in Metre with Notes by John Brown of Haddington... see Psalm 1

from CCEL preface - translators comments on Calvin's Commentary of the Psalms.

To exhibit the Psalms arranged in the metrical order, was an idea which appears never to have suggested itself to the mind of Calvin. In his time, indeed, and long after it, the peculiar character of Hebrew Poetry was not understood. It was not till a recent period that any steady light was; thrown on the laws of its composition. A vast amount of learning had indeed been expended on the subject, and a variety of hypotheses had been suggested by successive writers to unravel a question so intricate and mysterious; but no satisfactory result was attained until it was investigated by the learned Bishop Lowth, to whose genius and erudition we are indebted for the discovery of this long lost secret. He has proved, with a clearness and force of evidence which has now commanded universal assent, that Hebrew Poetry bears no resemblance in its structure to the Poetry of Greece and Rome, that it has no rhyming termination of lines as in the Poetry of our own language, and that its peculiar, and perhaps its sole characteristic, lies in a felicitous arrangement of words into what he denominates Parallelism. In other words, its leading peculiarity is that. each sentence consists generally of two parts, closely corresponding to each other, not indeed in the number of syllables, but in the ideas which they express, or in their grammatical constructive form, the second being synonymous (or, as Bishop Jebb would denominate it, cognate) with the first, -- or antipathetic to it in its terms and sentiments, -- or similar to it in the form of grammatical construction, such as noun answering to noun, verb to verb, member to member, negative to negative, interrogative to interrogative.

[ This sentence expresses the three specific heads into which Lowth discovered Hebrew parallelism, -- which involves in it much variety and many gradations, -- may be generally And more loosely distributed, Parallels Synonymous, (or, according to JEBB, Parallels Cognate,) Parallels Autithetic, and Parallels Synthetic or Constructive. For an example of the first, see Psalm 1:1-5; of the second, see Psalm 20:7, 8; and of the third, see Psalm 148:7-13.]

The division of these sacred poems into hemistichs or lines is, therefore, the form in which they ought naturally to be arranged; and such an arrangement is attended with great advantages. It exhibits to the eve the peculiar structure of Hebrew poetical composition, and is, besides, an important aid in Scriptural Interpretation, as it often contributes to the elucidation of obscure and difficult passages, and enables even the mere English reader to discover a thousand beauties, which, without such a help, would escape his notice.

Bless the house (phrase search)
A new thread... bless the house ...

Psa 115:12 The LORD hath been mindful of us: he will bless [us]; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron.
Psa 115:13 He will bless them that fear the LORD, [both] small and great.
Psa 115:14 The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children.
Psa 115:15 Ye [are] blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth.

Blessed-man == sins forgiven, trusting in God.
Continuing study of Psalm 1:1,2
Parallel passages on the theme of blessed man, blessedness....

Ps. 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.

Ps. 32:1 Blessed [is he whose] transgression [is] forgiven, [whose] sin [is] covered.
-- Blessed-man = transgression forgiven (sins covered).

Ps. 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD [is] good: blessed [is] the man [that] trusteth in him.
-- Blessed-man = trusting in YHWH.

Ps. 84:12 O LORD of hosts, blessed [is] the man that trusteth in thee.
-- Blessed-man = trusting in the LORD.

Ps. 112:1 Blessed [is] the man [that] feareth the LORD, [that] delighteth greatly in his commandments.
-- Blessed man = fears YHWH, delights in his law/word.

From Jesus Takes God' Word to Heart
-- MS-Word document --

(Deut. 6:6; Mt. 13:15, Psalm 1)

Mark records comparatively few of the words of Jesus, and focuses our attention fully on the person of Jesus. Matthew concentrates on the words of Jesus to such an extent that he arranges them in five carefully constructed discourses... But Matthew presents not only the words of Jesus. He shows how Jesus himself is the perfect expression of these words. As we read Matthew, we should not only listen to the Lord's words, we should see these words alive in the very life and person of Jesus. He fulfilled in his own life the words of God which he proclaimed. For example, read the eight beatitudes (Mt. 5:3-12) as a living portrait of Jesus himself, and see this portrait throughout Matthew's Gospel, Thus you will see the words of Jesus as directions for living the life of Jesus.

1. Jesus as presented by Matthew fulfills the ideal of the just man: "The just man's mouth tells of wisdom . . . the law of God is in his heart" (Ps. 37:30). Jesus has the Scriptures in his heart, for they leap to his lips spontaneously, for "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Mt. 12:34).

a) He quotes the Scriptures spontaneously to defeat Satan:

Mt. 4:4 = Deut. 8:3

Mt. 4:7 = Deut. 6:16

Mt. 4:10 = Deut. 6:13.


2. Accused of violating the Law, he fulfills its true spirit, which is wholehearted, merciful love (hesed) -- Mt. 12:7; 9:13.

3. Because he does the Father's will, he is manifest as the Father's Son (17:5) and brother of all who do the Father's will (12:48-50; 21:28-31). He has listened to the Father's word ("Listen, O Israel..." Deut. 6:4), therefore we must be obedient to the obedient Son: "Listen to him!" (Mt. 17:5).

4. Who is truly a son of God? The one who shows wholehearted love of neighbor (Mt. 5:43-48). Jesus lived this word by his wholehearted, forgiving love, countering plots to kill him by continuing his works of healing and forgiveness (Mt. 12:14-21; 9-13)

5. The Father's judicial declaration that Jesus is Son and Servant (Mt. 17:5 and Is. 42:1) introduces the whole passion account, in which Jesus is manifested as Son of God, tested in his sufferings, proved to be wholehearted in his love of God and obedience to his word. Read Mt . 27:35-54 in connection with Psalm 22 and Wisdom 2:11-20:-.

Psalm 1, the preface to all the psalms, is a portrait of the just man who delights in God's word (Ps. 1:2). As preface to all the psalms, it hints that every psalm presents aspects of the just man, and therefore of Jesus, THE JUST ONE. We should see Jesus in the Psalms. This is true in a special way of Psalm 22, which powerfully influences Matthew's portrait of the Crucified Jesus as just man par excellence and Son of God. "Clearly, this was the Son of God!" (Mt 27:54)

The text of Psalm 1 reads as follows in a translation based on the Buber/Rosenzweig version:2
1 a Happy is the person
b who walks not in the counsel of evildoers,
c nor treads the path of sinners,
d nor sits together with scoffers,
2 a but instead delights in YHWH’s instruction,
b and ponders that instruction day and night.
3 a Such a person is like a tree, planted beside streams of water,
b which yields its fruit in season,
c and its leaves do not wither;
d all that such a person does prospers.
4 a Not so the evildoers;
b rather they are like chaff that the wind blows away.
5 a Therefore evildoers will not stand in the judgment,
b nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 a For YHWH knows the way of the righteous,
b but the way of evildoers will perish.

from Uwe F. W. Bauer MS-Word document (where he accuses Luther of Anti-Jewish interpretation??)