You've Heard It, But Does It Really Mean That?
Updated: Jan 12
For Upset Christians Who Considered Tapping Out/ When Reading The Bible Is Not Enuf
What do these two passages have in common?
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
"By seizure of legal process, if I withhold or restrict the rain from falling to the earth. By seizure of legal process, if I give orders to the locusts to greedily or ravenously eat up the vegetation, which would have an injurious, or destructive effect on the whole earth; including the territories, and even the inhabitants of the land. By seizure of legal process, if I let loose a contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating among my compatriots who hold citizenship in my Kingdom. On the condition that my sons and daughters, my Kingdom citizens, who are commissioned on the grounds of my reputation, would bring themselves back under the laws of the Kingdom and swear allegiance back to the Kingdom, and pray, and request my formal judicial decision. And turn back to the Kingdom way, and away from their habits that communicate false statements about Me and My reputation, and produces deterioration or death in their lives. Soon after that, I will hear the judicial case in my Kingdom, and release them from the legal penalties of their offense or absolve them from the consequences of their crime, and make their territory free from injury or disease."
To the naked eye, they have nothing to do with one another; however, they are both 2 Chronicles 7:13-14.
Don't worry A + B still = C
The first quoted passage is how it appears in the Bible (NIV). In contrast, the second quoted passage is the exegeted text. The exegesis is rough, but I'm sure you get the point.
Exegesis Explained
By exegesis, I mean the process of examining the text of a biblical passage to understand its meaning in its original context. By studying the language, structure, and historical context of a passage, a person is able to gain a better understanding of what the author was trying to communicate. This helps to ensure that we are not simply imposing our own interpretations on the text, but rather, we are interpreting it accurately.
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