05/14/2020 - Just a Thought

Today, Israelis celebrate 72 years of nationhood - Thank God!

"I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, And no longer shall they be pulled up From the land I have given them, Says the Lord your God" Amos 9: 14 -15.

O God we thank You for fulfilling Your promise to Your people Israel. Today they celebrate 72 years of Nationhood. They have suffered enough at the hands of those who hate them and we ask O God that You would continue to be a guard to them and rebuke any and all forces that may desire to destroy them. We pray O God that Your promise that "....all Israel will be saved" In Romans 11, will very soon come to pass. Let the holy city of Jerusalem be characterized by Your peace. All this we pray in the all-powerful name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Recently, while looking through some passages in the first book of the bible, I came upon the first few verses of chapter 4. Our first parents had by this time succumbed to the temptation of Satan, disobeyed the single command of God, and are expelled from the garden of Eden. Soon thereafter, Moses writes,

"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep but Cain was a tiller of the ground" - Genesis 4: 1 - 2.

The English bibles name the first two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. In the Hebrew however, their actual names were Qayin and Hevel. Have you noticed that the bible gives an explanation for the first-born's name? "I have acquired....." is the Hebrew word qanah, from which we get Qayin and Cain, but nothing is said about the name Hevel or Abel. What's interesting though is that Hevel in the Hebrew means "vapor" - something that's quickly vanishing. The idea behind Hevel is " here today, gone tomorrow." How appropriate for Eve to give the name Hevel (Abel) to her second son whose violent death is recorded just 6 verses after his birth.

Why did Eve name her son Abel? Did she somehow know that his life would be cut short?

mmm.......Just a Thought?