Latest / Reformed Thinking / פֶּ֫לֶג (Peleg): Planted by Streams of Blessing

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פֶּ֫לֶג (Peleg): Planted by Streams of Blessing · Reformed Thinking

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Reformed thinking. Yeah, that is the banner we are
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flying under today. Welcome back.
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We are so glad you were here with us.
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As always, we are coming to you as two friends, two students of
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Scripture who hold to the historic Christian faith.
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Specifically, we are standing firm on the Westminster
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Confession of Faith. That is right.
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We believe in a sovereign God, a God who orders all things
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according to the counsel of his will.
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And usually, you know when we sit down to talk theology, we
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are looking at the heavy hitters, things like
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justification, sanctification, eschatology.
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Right, the big concepts that take up whole chapters in the
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systematic theology books. Yeah, but today we are doing
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something different. We're looking at a very small
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word. A tiny word is a three letter
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root in Hebrew. And I had to be honest with you,
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when I first looked at this stack of notes for today, the
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lexicons, the concordances, the journal articles, I thought, are
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we really going to get an entire deep dive out?
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Of this I had the same thought at first.
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But the more I read, the more I realized this word is
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everywhere. It really is.
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It connects geography, agriculture, genealogy,
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sociology, and even the emotional life of the believer.
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It touches on all of it. So let us introduce the subject.
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What is the word for the day? The word is peleg in Hebrew.
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The root is PLG PE lamed Gimel. Peleg.
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And for anyone who has read through Genesis, that name
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probably rings a bell. Peleg the son of Eber.
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Right. He appears in the genealogy of
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Shem. But the word Peleg isn't just a
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name, it is a noun that appears all over the Old Testament, from
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the Psalms to the prophets. And, well, it presents us with a
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really interesting tension right from the start.
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It does because if you look at the basic definition in
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something like Brown Driver Briggs, which for our listeners
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is the standard Hebrew lexicon we use, the primary meaning
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implies division to split something.
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Correct. A division or a cleft?
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But then you flip a few pages, look at how it is used in Psalm
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One or Psalm 65, and it is translated as a stream or a
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river. So here's the mission for this
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session. How do we get from division to
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stream? How can one word mean to split
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apart and also mean a flowing body of water?
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It seems completely contradictory at first glance.
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I mean, a split sounds like a separation, a breaking apart.
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A stream sounds like a connection, a continuous flow.
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But in the Semitic mind, and specifically in the Hebrew
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language, these two concepts are practically identical.
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And understanding why they are identical is going to completely
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change how you read passages like Psalm 1.
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Spot on. It is like a detective story.
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We have the clues in front of us, we have the cognate
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languages, the ancient usage, the context, and we have to
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piece it together. So let us unpack this.
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Let us start at the very bottom with the root itself, PLG.
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Let us do it. So when we do lexical research,
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we don't just look at Hebrew in a vacuum.
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We look at the neighbors. We look at the cousin languages
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to see what the root meant in the ancient near.
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East, right, the cognates. Exactly.
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If you look at Akkadian, which is the language of ancient
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Babylon and Assyria, the word is palgu, and strictly speaking,
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palgu means a ditch or a canal. A ditch.
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That is not a very poetic word. No, it isn't meant to be poetic
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at all. It is meant to be highly
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functional. Think about where Abraham came
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from. Herb.
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The Chaldis. Mesopotamia.
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Land between the rivers. Yes, the Tigris and the
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Euphrates. Now we really need to get into
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the mind of an ancient farmer in that specific region.
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If you live in Israel, you wait for the rain.
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Deuteronomy tells us Israel is a land of hills and valleys that
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drinks water from the rain of heaven.
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But if you live in Babylon. If you live in Babylon, it
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hardly ever rains. So you're totally dependent on
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the rivers. You are dependent on the rivers,
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but here is the major problem. The Tigris and Euphrates are
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wild. They flood violently in the
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spring, they wipe out everything in their path, destroying crops,
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and then they drop terribly low in the summer when you actually
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need the water the most. You cannot just set up your farm
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right on the banks of a wild river like that, It is way too
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dangerous. Right, So what do you do?
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You dig? You take a shovel and you cut a
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gash in the dry earth. You make a split.
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You divert water from the big chaotic river into a small,
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controlled dish that leads directly to your field.
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That ditch is the Palgu. OK, that's just to make sense.
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The word doesn't actually describe the water itself, it
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describes the cut in the ground. Precisely.
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The cut is the primary focus. Now look at the Arabic cognate.
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The word fauld means a gap or a crack in the ground, or the verb
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form folagia which means to split or to divide.
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So in Arabic it is a crack, in Acadian it is a ditch.
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And if we look at Ethiopic, the word Folag means a river or a
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stream. In Tigrinya it means a riverbed
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or a gorge. So we have a crack, a ditch, A
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riverbed, and a stream. I am starting to see the picture
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here. It really isn't primarily about
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the fluid, is it? No, and that is the key insight
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we need to grasp today. The root meaning isn't water.
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The root meaning is the cleft. It is the literal cut in the
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earth. The pellet is the channel.
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It is the division of the land that allows the water to flow.
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That makes so much sense when you think about the geography.
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If you stand in a dry climate and the Bible was written in a
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very dry climate and you see water flowing, it is almost
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always because there is a cut in the earth, a Wadi, a gorge or a
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ditch. That is it.
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And this leads us to the most crucial distinction we need to
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make, especially when we look at the biblical text itself.
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There are several different words for river.
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In Hebrew you have Nahar, which is like a big perennial river.
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Think of the Nile or the Euphrates.
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That is a massive natural force. The wild River, the one you
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can't control. Right then you have Natal, which
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is often a seasonal torrent. That is the Wadi that floods
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suddenly when it rains in the mountains and then dries up
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completely in the summer. But Peleg is different.
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Peleg is distinct. The lexicon Hebrew and Aramaic
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Lexicon of the Old Testament defines Peleg specifically as an
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artificial water channel or canal artificial.
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Yeah, that implies intent. That implies a design.
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It implies a digger. A peleg doesn't just happen
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randomly. A nahar, a big river, just
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happens. It follows the path of least
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resistance. Gravity does all the work over
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thousands of years. But a peleg is engineered.
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It is a channel cut specifically to direct water from a source to
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a very specific destination. OK, this is where it gets
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incredibly fascinating for me, because when we apply that
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enginee channel definition to Scripture, the theology starts
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to take on a very specific, beautiful shape.
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Let us look at Psalm 10 to the. Classic text, yes.
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Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the
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ungodly, and then down in verse 3, and he shall be like a tree
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planted by the rivers of water. That phrase right there, rivers
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of water, is Paul's mean. Yes it is.
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And if we translate that according to the root meaning we
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just discussed, it is he shall be like a tree transplanted by
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the irrigation canals of water. That changes the image entirely.
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I think a lot of us when we read Psalm 1, we imagine a tree
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growing wild in a forest next to a bubbling natural brook.
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It is a very natural, almost romantic image of the
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wilderness. Right nature just doing its
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thing. A happy accident with geography.
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The sea just happened to fall near the water.
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But the text uses the word should tool for planted, which
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implies being transplanted or deliberately set in a specific
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place, and it uses pelag for the water.
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This isn't a wild tree at all. This is an orchard.
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It is an orchard, and that is purely Reformed theology
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captured in a single agricultural image.
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The godly man isn't godly because he happened to grow near
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water by chance. He is godly because the Divine
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Gardener took him, transplanted him, and dug A peleg, an
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intentional channel to bring the life, giving water directly to
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his roots. It speaks so clearly to
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Providence. It speaks to sovereign grace.
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A canal is a controlled grace. It is not a wild flood that
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washes the young tree away. It is not a drought that starves
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it. It is a specific divided portion
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of water directed for the sole purpose of fruitfulness.
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It makes me think about the intentionality of God in our
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everyday lives. If I'm in a dry season or if I'm
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in a fruitful season, it is not random.
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The channel has been cut specifically for me.
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That is where the immense comfort lies.
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If you are a wild tree by a wild river, you are completely at the
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mercy of the elements. If the river floods, you drown.
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If the river dries up, you die. But if you are by a peleg, you
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are at the mercy of the irrigator, and the irrigator is
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good. I'm looking at the notes here on
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Isaiah 30 verse 25. It says, And there shall be upon
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every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and
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streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter.
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The word there again is Peleg. Yes, and think about the
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physical context of that promise.
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High mountains don't naturally have rivers running across their
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peaks. Water flows down, not up.
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So for there to be streams on the high mountains.
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It implies a supernatural engineering God is cutting
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channels where channels shouldn't logically exist.
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He is irrigating the barren heights.
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It is a picture of the restoration of the earth, where
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God routing his supply to places that would naturally be totally
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dry. There is another verse that uses
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this which I think is just visually stunning.
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Psalm 65 verse 9 in the English Bible.
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Verse 10 In the Hebrew text, Thou visitest the earth and
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waterist it. Thou greatly enriches it with
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the river of God, which is full of water.
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Pelig Elohim, the pelig of God the.
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Channel of God. It is so fascinating that the
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psalmist calls it a pelig. He could have easily called it
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the Nahar of God, the mighty, overwhelming Amazon of God, but
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he calls it the pelig. Why do you think that is?
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Because it is controlled. Yes, because the rain isn't
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chaotic. We tend to think of weather as
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chaotic and unpredictable, but from God's perspective, the rain
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follows A precise channel. He has cut a path for the rain,
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just as a farmer cuts a path for the irrigation in his field.
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The river of God is full of water.
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It is never dry. The channel is always
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maintained. That is such a comfort to the
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believer. It means that the grace coming
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into our lives isn't accidental, It is channelled.
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It is, and that concept of flow, or fluid in a channel extends
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well beyond just water. The Hebrew writers use pelig
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metaphorically for other fluids, and the imagery there is just a
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striking. Right, I saw this in the notes
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on the book of Job, Job chapter 29, verse six.
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Job is looking back on the good old days before all his
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suffering began. He says when I washed my steps
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with butter and the rock poured me out.
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Rivers of oil. Paul Giemann, Streams of oil.
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This is hyperbole obviously, but the image is based on an olive
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press. Usually oil just drips.
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You press the olives and it slowly drips out.
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It is very precious. It is a slow process, but Job
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says his past prosperity was so great it was as if the rock
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itself was a pelig, a canal gushing with olive oil.
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That is a staggering amount of oil.
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It is an overwhelming amount, and that is what the pelig
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represents in that context. Abundance, but abundance flowing
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in a specific direction. It is not oil just spilling all
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over the floor and being wasted. It is a channel of oil directed
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right at him. And then on the flip side of
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that material abundance, you have the abundance of sorrow.
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Lamentations chapter 3, verse 48.
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Jeremiah says Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for
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the destruction of the daughter of my people, Paul Jemaine.
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The exact same phrase of Psalm 1.
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It is a stunning parallel to consider.
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In Psalm One, the Paul Jemaine brings life and vitality to the
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true. In Lamentations, the Paul
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Jemaine runs down the prophet's face in absolute grief.
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Is literally seeing canals of water run down my eyes.
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Think about the root meaning again.
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Division or cleft. Grief splits the face.
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Excessive sorrow cuts a channel down the cheek.
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It is not just a single lonely tear.
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It is a continuous, directed flow of sorrow.
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That is an intense visual. It is, and Psalm 119, verse 136
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says the exact same thing. Rivers of waters run down mine
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eyes because they keep not thy law.
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It shows us that in the Hebrew mind, any copious flow, whether
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it is oil or tears or water, needs a pelag.
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It needs a channel, it needs a division in the earth or in the
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face to carry it. It prevents the image from being
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messy, even an immense grief. There is a path.
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The tears have a track to run on.
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Spot on. It is not a splash, it is a
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stream. So we have thoroughly
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established the physical image. Peleg is a split, a cut, a
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channel, usually artificial, that directs a flow.
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Now I want to pivot to the person because this word is also
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a proper noun in Scripture. It is.
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And this is where we get into Genesis 10 and the famous table
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of nations. Genesis 10, verse 25.
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And unto Eber were born 2 thins. The name of the one was Peleg,
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for in his days was the earth divided.
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Nifliga Haaretz. There's a verb form right there,
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Niflita. It is the passive form of peleg.
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The Earth was divided. So Peleg is the man of the
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division, he is Mr. Split. Mr. Split, I like that.
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Now the question that has occupied commentators and
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historians for centuries is this.
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What was the division? Because the text gives us a very
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specific chronological marker. The text clearly says in his
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days the earth was divided. Now I have heard some pretty
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wild theories about this over the years.
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I recall hearing someone suggest this was actually about plate
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tectonics. Yes, the continental drift
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theory. Right, the idea that this verse
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pinpoints the exact moment when the continents physically ripped
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apart PNG is splitting up into the land masses we know today.
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It is a very dramatic idea, and honestly if you only look at the
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root word split or cleft, you can kind of see why someone
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might go there. A massive earthquake?
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A global geological severing. But does that hold up to the
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lexical data in the context? Most conservative scholars and
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linguists would say no, it absolutely doesn't, and the
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primary reason is context. Genesis 10 is not a Geological
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Survey of the planet. It is an ethnography.
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It is a detailed list of families, nations, and lands.
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It is fundamentally about people.
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So inserting a massive geological event into a list of
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uncles and cousins seems totally out of place.
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It breaks the literary genre completely.
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Plus, the timeline would be very difficult to reconcile with
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other historical Oracle data, so if it is not a physical
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splitting of the rocks, it must be a splitting of the people.
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Which naturally brings us to the Tower of Babel.
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Theory A. And this is the one that fits
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the theology and narrative flow of Genesis best.
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Genesis 10 gives us the genealogy.
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It tells us The Who. Then Genesis 11 gives us the
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event. It tells us the how.
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They are not strictly chronological chapters.
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They overlap. So the division of the Earth is
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the linguistic and political splitting of humanity at Babel.
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Right. Ibran names his son Peleg as a
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historical marker of the times, just like someone might name a
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child Liberty after a major revolution, or how Lemek named
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Noah, which means rest in hope of relief from the curse.
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Peleg is a living, breathing monument to the judgement at
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Babel. This is the sun born when God
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split the world. Yes, and think about the image
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of the Peleg again, The canal at Babel.
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Humanity wanted to be 1 massive stagnant pool.
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They said let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered.
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They wanted to be a reservoir. And God said no.
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God said no. He came down and cut channels.
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He divided their languages. He trenched the earth with
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boundaries. He forced them to flow in
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different directions. Acts 17 touches on this when it
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says he determined the bounds of their habitation.
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It is controlled separation once again.
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It wasn't just a random explosion of people, it was an
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irrigation of the Earth. He spread humanity out so they
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could fulfill his original command to fill the earth.
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Now there's another theory mentioned in the research notes,
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Theory C, that Pelig might actually refer to a place name.
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This is an interesting angle too.
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We have ancient records of a town called Falga, located on
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the Euphrates River, right near where the Chamber River flows
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into it. Falga.
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That sounds remarkably similar to Pelig.
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It does, and there's also a region down in Arabia called
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Elfalge. So some scholars think the name
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Pelig simply denotes the geographical region where that
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specific branch of the family settled down.
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They suggest it means he of the district or he of the canal
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region. Because that whole area of
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Mesopotamia was famous for its irrigation canals.
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It was literally the land of canals.
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If you live there, your very life depended on the palgu, the
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ditch. So naming your son Peleg might
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be akin to naming him River or Banks Oregon Brook today.
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It is a possible explanation, but the text explicitly adds the
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commentary for in his days the Earth was divided.
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That explicit theological commentary seems to push us back
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to a specific event, not just a geography.
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I agree completely. The Bible explains the name for
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us and looking at it through a reformed lens of history, we see
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God as the sovereign Lord of time.
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He marks epochs. The life of Peleg marked a
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fundamental shift in how humanity existed, moving from
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one monolingual mass to a divided, diverse world.
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Notice the lineage here. Peleg is the son of Eber, and
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Eber is the father of the Hebrews.
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Right. This is the line of Shem.
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This is the messianic line. So out of the grand division of
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the nations of Babel, God is channeling one specific stream,
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the stream of Eber, Peleg, Rue, Saroog, Nahor, Terra, and
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finally Abraham. That is a beautiful thought.
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The division wasn't just a scattering of the wicked, it was
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a narrowing. For the righteous God was
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cutting a pel egg, a very specific channel of redemptive
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history, isolating the line of the Messiah from the general
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chaos of the surrounding nations.
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It brings us right back to that idea of the artificial channel.
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Grace is particular flows exactly where the gardener
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directs it. And that leads us perfectly to
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another fascinating aspect of this word.
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Looked at the physical water and we have looked at the historical
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person. Now I want to look at the social
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application because the word pelig or its feminine forms pale
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and mythologot is used to describe how groups of people
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are organized sections. Divisions of people, yes.
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And this brings us to one of the most debated and controversial
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passages involving this word in the whole Old Testament Judges
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Chapter 5 Song of Deborah. The song of.
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Deborah. It is written in a very archaic
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Hebrew. It is highly poetic, and it is
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notoriously difficult to translate.
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In verses 15 and 16, Deborah is singing a victory song, but
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she's also calling out the tribes who came to fight and
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roasting the tribes who stayed home.
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And Reuben is. The one getting heavily roasted
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here, Reuben takes the brunt. Of it, the text says, depending
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on your English translation, for the divisions of Reuben there
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were great thoughts of heart, or in other versions by the streams
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of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.
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So which one is? It is it divisions or is it
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streams the underlying? Hebrew phrase is either biplagit
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or liplagit. It comes directly from PLG, the
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lexical. Sources seem totally split on
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this. BDB acknowledges both
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possibilities as valid. Here is the tension.
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In the passage, if you translate it as streams, the picture is
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this. The tribe of Reuben lived over
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on the other side of the Jordan River.
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They had incredible pasture land, lots of water, lots of
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grass, lots of sheep. So they were just sitting.
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Around by their nice irrigation canals, their Pelagium.
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Right they are. Lounging by the quiet waters
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listening to the bleeding of the flocks.
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Verse 16 explicitly mentions them listening to the bleeding
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of the flocks and they are sitting there thinking, should
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we go fight with Deborah? It sounds pretty dangerous.
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We are quite comfortable right here by the water.
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So translating. It, as streams of Ruben, implies
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laziness, comfort and refusal to engage in the hard work of the
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Kingdom. Exactly.
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But if you translate it as divisions of Ruben, it implies a
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political situation. The Klan was split PLG.
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They were divided into factions. One group wanted to go fight,
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another group wanted to stay home.
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They had great searchings of heart, meaning lots of committee
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meetings, lots of intense debate.
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But absolutely. No action.
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No action at all. They.
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Were completely paralyzed by their internal divisions.
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Which interpretation? Do you think fits the context
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better, the geographical streams or the political divisions?
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I think the sheer. Brilliance of Hebrew poetry is
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that it is probably meant to evoke both.
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The geography actually dictated the sociology.
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Because they were physically separated from the rest of
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Israel by the Jordan River, which is a channel, and because
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they were so comfortable by their agricultural streams, they
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naturally became socially divided and indecisive.
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That is a very serious. Warning for us, the Peleg the
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channel can be a source of incredible life like we saw in
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Psalm One. But if you get too comfortable
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sitting by, or if you let internal divisions paralyze you,
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you completely miss the call of God like we see here in Judges
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5. It is a Stark.
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Contrast. It is the difference between
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being a tree planted by the water that actually produces
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fruit, and a man just sitting by the water merely thinking about
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fruit while the battle rages somewhere else.
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That is such a good. Summary Great searchings of
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heart, but zero boots on the ground.
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Now there is a redeeming. Use of this social division
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concept later in the biblical text if we Fast forward to the
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books of Chronicles, the. Extensive lists of names that
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usually make people's eyes glaze over during their daily Bible
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reading. The Glorious.
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Inspired lists of names in two chronicles chapter 35, verse 5
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and again in verse 12 we find the word pelaget or miflaget,
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and in this context it refers to the priests and the levites, the
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divisions of. The priesthood, yes.
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Josiah says prepare yourselves by the houses of your father's
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after your courses. According to the writing of
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Solomon, the priests were organized into divisions.
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So here. Division doesn't mean schism or
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sinful separation. It doesn't mean they were
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fighting and debating like the tribe of Reuben.
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Yeah, no, here. PLG means order, it means
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structure. Just as an irrigation canal
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directs water, so it doesn't just form a stagnant swamp.
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The priestly divisions directed the service of God, so it wasn't
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just a chaotic mob in the temple.
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That is a key. Insight for reformed
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ecclesiology we deeply believe in decent and orderly worship
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God is a. God of order, He divides the
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vast number of Levites into shifts or courses so that the
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worship of the temple can be a continuous, unbroken flow.
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Oh, I see the. Connection you were making.
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The agricultural peleg makes the water flow continuously.
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The pelogga, the priestly divisions make the worship flow
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continuously. Precisely.
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Think. About the logistics.
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If every single priest showed up to work at the exact same time,
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it would be absolute chaos. People would be tripping over
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each other. But if no one showed up, the
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fire on the altar would go out. But by dividing them into
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manageable courses, the fire never goes out.
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The flow of worship is maintained perfectly by the wise
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division of the laborers. That is fantastic.
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So let us try to synthesize all this data.
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We have covered a significant amount of ground today.
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We really have. From ditches to priests, we have
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the root. PLG We saw the physical cleft in
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the desert from the Acadian and Arabic cognates.
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We saw the artificial irrigation canal that brings life in Psalm
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One. We saw the historical epic of
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Peleg where nations were linguistically divided in
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Genesis 10. We saw the social paralysis of
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Reuben sitting by the streams and judges.
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And we just saw the orderly service of the temple and
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Chronicles. It is a massive.
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Spectrum of meaning for just three Hebrew letters, but if you
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look closely at all of them, there is a single common thread
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running through every single usage controlled.
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Separation. Controlled separation.
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Or you could call it channeled flow.
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Whether we are talking about water or human history, or the
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nations of the earth or temple priests, it is always about
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taking a mass of something and directing it into specific paths
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for a specific purpose. That synthesis.
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Brings us right to Proverbs 21 verse 1.
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I feel like this verse is the absolute capstone of our
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discussion today. It really is the.
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Verse says, The King's heart is in the and of the Lord as the
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rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever he
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will. And rivers of water.
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There is Belgium aim the exact same.
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Phrase the irrigation canals. Think about that imagery.
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For a second, the king, the most powerful man on earth in the
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ancient mind, in his own mind, he is a raging, unstoppable
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river. He does what he wants.
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He floods wherever he wants to flood.
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He thinks he is. A wild nahar, but the text says
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no to God. The King's heart is just fluid
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in a ditch, and God is the one holding the shovel.
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That is incredibly. Humbling.
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It is the ultimate. Statement of divine sovereignty.
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God is the divine irrigator. He cuts a channel over here and
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the King's heart flows this way. He blocks a channel over there
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and the heart flows that way. The king might not even know he
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is being directed. He thinks he is deciding foreign
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policy or domestic law. But the entire landscape of
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human history is being trenched and managed by God's Providence
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for a Reformed listener. That is the bedrock of our
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comfort. We look at the world today, we
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look at global politics, we look at the shifting divisions of the
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nations, and it often looks like absolute chaos.
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It looks like a terrifying flood.
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But we know it is not. A flood.
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It is a pel egg. It is a highly designed system.
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The water is going exactly where the gardener intends it to go,
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to water his field. And that applies even.
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In our personal lives, we talked about the streams of tears and
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lamentations. Even our personal sorrow isn't
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spelling out randomly onto the ground.
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No it isn't. Psalm 56 says put thou my tears
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into thy bottle. But the pelig image suggests God
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also provides a specific channel for them.
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Even our deepest grief has a course.
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It has a boundary set by God. It is part of the spiritual
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irrigation of our souls. You know, it reminds me of.
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That Arabic cognate you mentioned way at the beginning,
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Falaga, to have a successor or to be an heir?
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Yes, the familial. Line and the connection.
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To the genealogy of Peleg leading down to Abraham.
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All these channels we have discussed today, the channel of
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history, the channel of prophecy, the channel of the
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priesthood, they are all flowing toward one singular termination
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point. They all flow to Christ.
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He is the ultimate branch, He is the living water, and he is the
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one who was cut off or divided for his people and from his.
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Pierced side flowed water and blood, the ultimate stream of
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redemption, the ultimate. Stream and think about the river
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of life described in Revelation 22.
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It flows clear as crystal from the throne of God and of the
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Lamb. It is the final Peleg Elohim, a
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perfectly ordered life giving flow that heals the nations.
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The very same nations that were divided back in Pilig's day.
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That is a beautiful. Full circle from the division
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and scattering of Genesis 10 to the healing and gathering of the
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nations in Revelation 22 and right in the middle.
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Of all that history we have the Church planted like trees by the
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pulch mame, drawing water, bearing fruit in due season.
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This has been such. An enlightening study.
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It really shows that you can't just skim the surface of these
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biblical words. You have to dig the ditch.
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You have to do the lexical work to uncover the beauty.
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The treasures are way. Down deep before we go, I want
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to leave our. Listeners with a final thought
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to chew on, We look at 2 main images of people relating to
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these streams today. In Psalm one, the man is planted
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by the streams. He is rooted, He is drawing
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sustenance, He is productive, right?
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And in judges. Five the men of Reuben merely
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sat by the streams they were comfortable, they were
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undecided, they were paralyzed by analysis one used the.
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Stream for life. The other used the stream for
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leisure. So the question for you today is
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this. Which one are you?
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Are you planted in the Word, drawing up that water to produce
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actual fruit for God's Kingdom? Or are you just sitting by the
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bank, enjoying the view, listening to the bleeding of the
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flocks, maybe just listening to deep dives like this one, but
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never actually getting up to join the battle that is the
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real? Question.
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The channel is there, The water of the word is flowing.
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What are you going to do with it?
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Something to think about. As you go about your week,
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thanks for diving in with us on Reformed Thinking.
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See you next time.