DANIEL CHAPTER 5

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JLG

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#41
2) Egypt’s role in the Byzantine Empire

https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt/Egypts-role-in-the-Byzantine-Empire

Diocletian was the last reigning Roman emperor to visit Egypt, in 302 ce. Within about 10 years of his visit, the persecution of Christians ceased. The end of persecution had such far-reaching effects that from this point on it is necessary to think of the history of Egypt in a very different framework. No single point can be identified as the watershed between the Roman and Byzantine period, as the divide between a brighter era of peace, culture, and prosperity and a darker age, supposedly characterized by more-oppressive state machinery in the throes of decline and fall. The crucial changes occurred in the last decade of the 3rd century and the first three decades of the 4th. With the end of persecution of Christians came the restoration of the property of the church. In 313 a new system of calculating and collecting taxes was introduced, with 15-year tax cycles, called indictions, inaugurated retrospectively from the year 312. Many other important administrative changes had already taken place. In 296 the separation of the Egyptian coinage from that of the rest of the empire had come to an end when the Alexandrian mint stopped producing its tetradrachms, which had been the basis of the closed-currency system.
One other event that had an enormous effect on the political history of Egypt was the founding of Constantinople (now Istanbul) on May 11, 330. First, Constantinople was established as an imperial capital and an eastern counterpart to Rome itself, thus undermining Alexandria’s traditional position as the first city of the Greek-speaking East. Second, it diverted the resources of Egypt away from Rome and the West. Henceforth, part of the surplus of the Egyptian grain supply, which was put at 8 million
artabs (about 300 million litres) of wheat (one artab was roughly equivalent to one bushel) in an edict of the emperor Justinian of about 537 or 538, went to feed the growing population of Constantinople, and this created an important political and economic link. The cumulative effect of these changes was to knit Egypt more uniformly into the structure of the empire and to give it, once again, a central role in the political history of the Mediterranean world.

The key to understanding the importance of Egypt in that period lies in seeing how the Christian church came rapidly to dominate secular as well as religious institutions and to acquire a powerful interest and role in every political issue. The corollary of this was that the head of the Egyptian church, the patriarch of Alexandria, became the most influential figure within Egypt, as well as the person who could give the Egyptian clergy a powerful voice in the councils of the Eastern church. During the course of the 4th century, Egypt was divided for administrative purposes into a number of smaller units but the patriarchy was not, and its power thus far outweighed that of any local administrative official. Only the governors of groups of provinces (vicarii of dioceses) were equivalent, and the praetorian prefects and emperors were superior. When a patriarch of Alexandria was given civil authority as well, as happened in the case of Cyrus, the last patriarch under Byzantine rule, the combination was very powerful indeed.

The turbulent history of Egypt in the Byzantine period can largely be understood in terms of the struggles of the successive (or, after 570, coexisting) patriarchs of Alexandria to maintain their position both within their patriarchy and outside it in relation to Constantinople. What linked Egypt and the rest of the Eastern Empire was the way in which the imperial authorities, when strong (as, for instance, in the reign of Justinian), tried to control the Egyptian church from Constantinople, while at the same time assuring the capital’s food supply and, as often as not, waging wars to keep their empire intact. Conversely, when weak they failed to control the church. For the patriarchs of Alexandria, it
proved impossible to secure the approval of the imperial authorities in Constantinople and at the same time maintain the support of their power base in Egypt. The two made quite different demands, and the ultimate result was a social, political, and cultural gulf between Alexandria and the rest of Egypt and between Hellenism and native Egyptian culture, which found a powerful new means of expression in Coptic Christianity. The gulf was made more emphatic after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 established the official doctrine that Christ was to be seen as existing in two natures, inseparably united. The council’s decision in effect sent the Egyptian Coptic (now Coptic Orthodox) church off on its own path of monophysitism, which centred around a firm insistence on the singularity of the nature of Christ.
Despite the debilitating effect of internal quarrels between rival churchmen, and despite the threats posed by the hostile tribes of Blemmyes and Nubade in the south (until their conversion to Christianity in the mid-6th century), emperors of Byzantium still could be threatened by the strength of Egypt if it were properly harnessed. The last striking example is the case of the emperor Phocas, a tyrant who was brought down in 609 or 610. Nicetas, the general of the future emperor Heraclius, made for Alexandria from Cyrene, intending to use Egypt as his power base and cut off Constantinople’s grain supply. By the spring of 610 Nicetas’s struggle with Bonosus, the general of Phocas, was won, and the fall of the tyrant duly followed.
The difficulty of defending Egypt from a power base in Constantinople was forcefully illustrated during the last three decades of Byzantine rule. First, the old enemy, the Persians, advanced to the Nile delta and captured Alexandria. Their occupation was completed early in 619 and continued until 628, when Persia and Byzantium agreed to a peace treaty and the Persians withdrew. This had been a decade of violent hostility to the Egyptian Coptic Christians; among other oppressive measures, the Persians are said to have refused to allow the normal ordination of bishops and to have massacred hundreds of monks in their cave monasteries. The Persian withdrawal hardly heralded the return of peace to Egypt.


In Arabia events were taking place that would soon bring momentous changes for Egypt. These were triggered by the flight of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina and by his declaration in 632 ce of a holy war against Byzantium. A decade later, by September 29, 642, the Arab general ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ was able to march into Alexandria, and the Arab conquest of Egypt, which had begun with an invasion three years earlier, ended in peaceful capitulation. The invasion itself had been preceded by several years of vicious persecution of Coptic Christians by Cyrus, the Chalcedonian patriarch of Alexandria, and it was he who is said to have betrayed Egypt to the forces of Islam.
 

JLG

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3) The Islamic conquest was not bloodless. There was desultory fighting at first in the eastern delta, then Al-Fayyūm was lost in battle in 640, and a great battle took place at Heliopolis (now a suburb of Cairo) in July 640 in which 15,000 Arabs engaged 20,000 Egyptian defenders. The storming and capture of Trajan’s old fortress at Babylon (on the site of the present-day quarter called Old Cairo) on April 6, 641, was crucial. By September 14 Cyrus, who had been recalled from Egypt 10 months earlier by the emperor Heraclius, was back with authority to conclude a peace. Byzantium signed Egypt away on November 8, 641, with provision for an 11-month armistice to allow ratification of the treaty of surrender by the emperor and the caliph. In December 641 heavily laden ships were dispatched to carry Egypt’s wealth to its new masters. Nine months later the last remnants of Byzantine forces left Egypt in ships bound for Cyprus, Rhodes, and Constantinople, and ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ took Alexandria in the name of the caliph. The new domination by the theocratic Islamic caliphate was strikingly different from anything that had happened in Egypt since the arrival of Alexander the Great almost a thousand years earlier.

Byzantine government of Egypt

https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt/Egypts-role-in-the-Byzantine-Empire

The reforms of the early 4th century had established the basis for another 250 years of comparative prosperity in Egypt, at a cost of perhaps greater rigidity and more-oppressive state control. Egypt was subdivided for administrative purposes into a number of smaller provinces, and separate civil and military officials were established (the praeses and the dux, respectively). By the middle of the 6th century the emperor Justinian was eventually forced to recognize the failure of this policy and to combine civil and military power in the hands of the dux with a civil deputy (the praeses) as a counterweight to the power of the church authorities. All pretense of local autonomy had by then vanished. The presence of the soldiery was more noticeable, its power and influence more
pervasive in the routine of town and village life. Taxes were perhaps not heavier than they had been earlier, but they were collected ruthlessly, and strong measures were sanctioned against those who tried to escape from their fiscal or legal obligations. The wealthier landowners probably enjoyed increased prosperity, especially as a result of the opportunity to buy now state-owned land that had once been sold into private ownership in the early 4th century. The great landlords were powerful enough to offer their peasant tenants a significant degree of collective fiscal protection against the agents of the state, the rapacious tax collector, the officious bureaucrat, or the brutal soldier. But, if the life of the average peasant did not change much, nevertheless the rich probably became richer, and the poor became poorer and more numerous as the moderate landholders were increasingly squeezed out of the picture.


The advance of Christianity

The advance of Christianity had just as profound an effect on the social and cultural fabric of Byzantine Egypt as on the political power structure. It brought to the surface the identity of the native Egyptians in the Coptic church, which found a medium of expression in the development of the Coptic language—basically Egyptian written in Greek letters with the addition of a few characters. Coptic Christianity also developed its own distinctive art, much of it pervaded by the long-familiar motifs of Greek mythology. These motifs coexisted with representations of the Virgin and Child and with Christian parables and were expressed in decorative styles that owed a great deal to both Greek and Egyptian precedents. Although Christianity had made great inroads into the populace by 391 (the year in which the practice of the local polytheistic religions was officially made illegal), it is hardly possible to quantify it or to trace a neat and uniform progression. It engulfed its predecessors slowly and untidily. In the first half of the 5th century a polytheistic literary revival occurred, centred on the town of Panopolis, and there is evidence that fanatical monks in the area
attacked non-Christian temples and stole statues and magical texts. Outside the rarefied circles in which doctrinal disputes were discussed in philosophical terms, there was a great heterogeneous mass of commitment and belief. For example, both the gnostics, who believed in redemption through knowledge, and the Manichaeans, followers of the Persian prophet Mani, clearly thought of themselves as Christians. In the 4th century a Christian community, the library of which was discovered at Najʾ Ḥammādī in 1945, was reading both canonical and apocryphal gospels as well as mystical revelatory tracts. At the lower levels of society, magical practices remained ubiquitous and were simply transferred to a Christian context.


By the mid-5th century Egypt’s landscape was dominated by the great churches, such as the magnificent church of St. Menas (Abū Mīna), south of Alexandria, and by the monasteries. The latter were Egypt’s distinctive contribution to the development of Christianity and were particularly important as strongholds of native loyalty to the monophysite church. The origins of Antonian communities, named for the founding father of monasticism, St. Anthony of Egypt (c. 251–356), lay in the desire of individuals to congregate about the person of a celebrated ascetic in a desert location, building their own cells, adding a church and a refectory, and raising towers and walls to enclose the unit. Other monasteries, called Pachomian—for Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism—were planned from the start as walled complexes with communal facilities. The provision of water cisterns, kitchens, bakeries, oil presses, workshops, stables, and cemeteries and the ownership and cultivation of land in the vicinity made these communities self-sufficient to a high degree, offering their residents peace and protection against the oppression of the tax collector and the brutality of the soldier. But it does not follow that they were divorced from contact with nearby towns and villages. Indeed, many monastics were important local figures, and many monastery churches were probably open to the local public for worship.

The economic and social power of the Christian church in the Nile River valley and delta is the outstanding development of the 5th and 6th centuries. By the time of the Arab invasion, in the mid-7th century, the uncomplicated message of Islam might have seemed attractive and drawn attention to the political and religious rifts that successive and rival patriarchs of the Christian church had so violently created and exploited. But the advent of Arab rule did not suppress Christianity in Egypt. Some areas remained heavily Christian for several more centuries.
 

JLG

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https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt/Government-and-conditions-under-the-Ptolemies

Roman and Byzantine Egypt (30 bce– 642 ce)
1) Egypt as a province of Rome

I added Egypt to the empire of the Roman people.” With these words the emperor Augustus (as Octavian was known from 27 bce) summarized the subjection of Cleopatra’s kingdom in the great inscription that records his achievements. The province was to be governed by a viceroy, a prefect with the status of a Roman knight (eques) who was directly responsible to the emperor. The first viceroy was the Roman poet and soldier Gaius Cornelius Gallus, who boasted too vaingloriously of his military achievements in the province and paid for it first with his position and then with his life. Roman senators were not allowed to enter Egypt without the emperor’s permission, because this wealthiest of provinces could be held militarily by a very small force, and the threat implicit in an embargo on the export of grain supplies, vital to the provisioning of the city of Rome and its populace, was obvious. Internal security was guaranteed by the presence of three Roman legions (later reduced to two), each about 6,000 strong, and several cohorts of auxiliaries.


In the first decade of Roman rule the spirit of Augustan imperialism looked farther afield, attempting expansion to the east and to the south. An expedition to Arabia by the prefect Aelius Gallus about 26–25 bce was undermined by the treachery of the Nabataean Syllaeus, who led the Roman fleet astray in uncharted waters. Arabia was to remain an independent though friendly client of Rome until 106 ce, when the emperor Trajan (ruled 98–117 ce) annexed it, making it possible to reopen Ptolemy II’s canal from the Nile to the head of the Gulf of Suez. To the south the Meroitic people beyond the First Cataract had taken advantage of Gallus’s preoccupation with Arabia and mounted an attack on the Thebaid. The next Roman prefect, Petronius, led two expeditions into the Meroitic kingdom (c. 24–22 bce), captured several towns, forced the submission of the formidable queen, who was characterized by Roman writers as “the one-
eyed Queen Candace,” and left a Roman garrison at Primis (Qaṣr Ibrīm). But thoughts of maintaining a permanent presence in Lower Nubia were soon abandoned, and within a year or two the limits of Roman occupation had been set at Hiera Sykaminos, some 50 miles (80 km) south of the First Cataract. The mixed character of the region is indicated, however, by the continuing popularity of the goddess Isis among the people of Meroe and by the Roman emperor Augustus’s foundation of a temple at Kalabsha dedicated to the local god Mandulis.
 

JLG

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2)
Egypt achieved its greatest prosperity under the shadow of the Roman peace, which, in effect, depoliticized it. Roman emperors or members of their families visited Egypt—Tiberius’s nephew and adopted son, Germanicus; Vespasian and his elder son, Titus; Hadrian; Septimius Severus; Diocletian—to see the famous sights, receive the acclamations of the Alexandrian populace, attempt to ensure the loyalty of their volatile subjects, or initiate administrative reform. Occasionally its potential as a power base was realized. Vespasian, the most successful of the imperial aspirants in the “Year of the Four Emperors,” was first proclaimed emperor at Alexandria on July 1, 69 ce, in a maneuver contrived by the prefect of Egypt, Tiberius Julius Alexander. Others were less successful. Gaius Avidius Cassius, the son of a former prefect of Egypt, revolted against Marcus Aurelius in 175 ce, stimulated by false rumours of Marcus’s death, but his attempted usurpation lasted only three months.



For several months in 297/298 ce Egypt was under the dominion of a mysterious usurper named Lucius Domitius Domitianus. The emperor Diocletian was present at the final capitulation of Alexandria after an eight-month siege and swore to take revenge by slaughtering the populace until the river of blood reached his horse’s knees; the threat was mitigated when his mount stumbled as he rode into the city. In gratitude, the citizens of Alexandria erected a statue of the horse.


The only extended period during the turbulent 3rd century ce in which Egypt was lost to the central imperial authority was 270–272, when it fell into the hands of the ruling dynasty of the Syrian city of Palmyra. Fortunately for Rome, the military strength of Palmyra proved to be the major obstacle to the overrunning of the Eastern Empire by the powerful Sāsānian monarchy of Persia.


Internal threats to security were not uncommon but normally were dissipated without major damage to imperial control. These included rioting between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria in the reign of Caligula (Gaius Caesar Germanicus; ruled 37–41 ce), a serious Jewish revolt under Trajan (ruled 98–117 ce), a revolt in the Nile delta in 172 ce that was quelled by Avidius Cassius, and a revolt centred on the town of Coptos (Qifṭ) in 293/294 ce that was put down by Galerius, Diocletian’s imperial colleague.

Administration and economy under Rome

The Romans introduced important changes in the administrative system, aimed at achieving a high level of efficiency and maximizing revenue. The duties of the prefect of Egypt combined responsibility for military security through command of the legions and cohorts, for the organization of finance and taxation, and for the administration of justice. This involved a vast mass of detailed paperwork; one document from 211 ce notes that in a period of three days 1,804 petitions were handed into the prefect’s office. But the prefect was assisted by a hierarchy of subordinate equestrian officials with expertise in particular areas. There were three or four epistratēgoi in charge of regional subdivisions; special officers were in charge of the emperors’ private account, the administration of justice, religious institutions, and so on. Subordinate to them were the local officials in the nomes (stratēgoi and royal scribes) and finally the authorities in the towns and villages.


It was in these growing towns that the Romans made the most far-reaching changes in administration. They introduced colleges of magistrates and officials who were to be responsible for running the internal affairs of their own communities on a theoretically autonomous basis and, at the same time, were to guarantee the collection and payment of tax quotas to the central government. This was backed up by the development of a range of “liturgies,” compulsory public services that were imposed on individuals according to rank and property to ensure the financing and upkeep of local facilities. These institutions were the Egyptian counterpart of the councils and magistrates that oversaw the Greek cities in the eastern Roman provinces. They had been ubiquitous in other Hellenistic kingdoms, but in Ptolemaic Egypt they had existed only in the so-called Greek cities (Alexandria, Ptolemais in Upper Egypt, Naukratis, and later Antinoöpolis, founded by Hadrian in 130 ce).


Alexandria lost the right to have a council, probably in the Ptolemaic period. When it recovered its right in 200 ce, the privilege was diluted by being extended to the nome capitals (mētropoleis) as well. This extension of privilege represented an attempt to shift more of the burden and expense of administration onto the local propertied classes, but it was eventually to prove too heavy. The consequences were the impoverishment of many of the councillors and their families and serious problems in administration that led to an increasing degree of central government interference and, eventually, more direct control.


The economic resources that this administration existed to exploit had not changed since the Ptolemaic period, but the development of a much more complex and sophisticated taxation system was a hallmark of Roman rule. Taxes in both cash and kind were assessed on land, and a bewildering variety of small taxes in cash, as well as customs dues and the like, was collected by appointed officials. A massive amount of Egypt’s grain was shipped downriver both to feed the population of Alexandria and for export to Rome. Despite frequent
complaints of oppression and extortion from the taxpayers, it is not obvious that official tax rates were all that high. In fact the Roman government had actively encouraged the privatization of land and the increase of private enterprise in manufacture, commerce, and trade, and low tax rates favoured private owners and entrepreneurs. The poorer people gained their livelihood as tenants of state-owned land or of property belonging to the emperor or to wealthy private landlords, and they were relatively much more heavily burdened by rentals, which tended to remain at a fairly high level.



Overall, the degree of monetarization and complexity in the economy, even at the village level, was intense. Goods were moved around and exchanged through the medium of coin on a large scale and, in the towns and the larger villages, a high level of industrial and commercial activity developed in close conjunction with the exploitation of the predominant agricultural base. The volume of trade, both internal and external, reached its peak in the 1st and 2nd centuries ce. However, by the end of the 3rd century ce, major problems were evident. A series of debasements of the imperial currency had undermined confidence in the coinage, and even the government itself was contributing to this by demanding increasing amounts of irregular tax payments in kind, which it channeled directly to the main consumers—army personnel. Local administration by the councils was careless, recalcitrant, and inefficient. The evident need for firm and purposeful reform had to be squarely faced in the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine.
 

JLG

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3)

Society, religion, and culture

One of the more noticeable effects of Roman rule was the clearer tendency toward classification and social control of the populace. Thus, despite many years of intermarriage between Greeks and Egyptians, lists drawn up in 4/5 ce established the right of certain families to class themselves as Greek by descent and to claim privileges attaching to their status as members of an urban aristocracy, known as the gymnasial class. Members of this group were entitled to lower rates of poll tax, subsidized or free distributions of food, and maintenance at the public expense when they grew old. If they or their descendants were upwardly mobile, they might gain Alexandrian citizenship, Roman citizenship, or even equestrian status, with correspondingly greater prestige and privileges. The preservation of such distinctions was implicit in the spread of Roman law and was reinforced by elaborate codes of social and fiscal regulations such as the Rule-Book of the Emperors’ Special Account. The Rule-Book prescribed conditions under which people of different status might marry,
for instance, or bequeath property, and it fixed fines, confiscations, and other penalties for transgression. When an edict of the emperor Caracalla conferred Roman citizenship on practically all of the subjects of the empire in 212 ce, the distinction between citizens and noncitizens became meaningless; however, it was gradually replaced by an equally important distinction between
honestiores and humiliores (meaning, roughly, “upper classes” and “lower classes,” respectively), groups that, among other distinctions, were subjected to different penalties in law.
Naturally, it was the Greek-speaking elite that continued to dictate the visibly dominant cultural pattern, though Egyptian culture was not moribund or insignificant. One proof of its continued survival can be seen in its reemergent importance in the context of Coptic Christianity in the Byzantine period. An important reminder of the mixing of the traditions comes from a family of Panopolis in the 4th century, whose members included both teachers of Greek oratory and priests in Egyptian cult tradition. The towns and villages of the Nile valley have preserved thousands of papyri that show what the literate Greeks were reading (e.g., the poems of Homer and the lyric poets, works of the Classical Greek tragedians, and comedies of Menander). The pervasiveness of the Greek literary tradition is strikingly demonstrated by evidence left by an obscure and anonymous clerk at Al-Fayyūm village of Karanis in the 2nd century ce. In copying out a long list of taxpayers, the clerk translated an Egyptian name in the list by an extremely rare Greek word that he could only have known from having read the Alexandrian Hellenistic poet Callimachus; he must have understood the etymology of the Egyptian name as well.


Alexandria continued to develop as a spectacularly beautiful city and to foster Greek culture and intellectual pursuits, though the great days of Ptolemaic court patronage of literary figures had passed. But the flourishing interest in philosophy, particularly Platonic philosophy, had important effects. The great Jewish philosopher and theologian of the 1st century, Philo of Alexandria (Philo Judaeus), brought a training in Greek philosophy to bear on his commentaries on the Bible. This anticipated by a hundred years the period after the virtual annihilation of the great Jewish community of Alexandria in the revolt of 115–117 ce, when the city was the intellectual crucible in which Christianity developed a theology that took it away from the influence of the Jewish exegetical tradition and toward that of Greek philosophical ideas. There the foundations were laid for teaching the heads of the Christian catechetical school, such as Clement of Alexandria. And in the 3rd century there was the vital textual and theological work of Origen, the greatest of the Christian Neoplatonists, without which there would hardly have been a coherent New Testament tradition at all.
 

JLG

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4)

Outside the Greek ambience of Alexandria, traditional Egyptian religious institutions continued to flourish in the towns and villages, but the temples were reduced to financial dependence on a state subvention (syntaxis), and they became subject to stringent control by secular bureaucrats. Nevertheless, like the Ptolemies before them, Roman emperors appear in the traditional form as Egyptian kings on temple reliefs until the mid-3rd century, and five professional hieroglyph cutters were still employed at the town of Oxyrhynchus in the 2nd century. The animal cults continued to flourish, despite Augustus’s famous sneer that he was accustomed to worship gods, not cattle. As late as the reign of Diocletian (285–305), religious stelae preserved the fiction that in the cults of sacred bulls (best known at Memphis and at Hermonthis [Armant]) the successor of a dead bull was “installed” by the monarch. Differences between cults of the Greek type and the native Egyptian cults were still highly marked, in the temple architecture and in the status of the priests. Priests of Egyptian cults formed, in effect, a caste distinguished by their special clothing, whereas priestly offices in Greek cults were much more like magistracies and tended to be held by local magnates. Cults of Roman emperors, living and dead, became universal after 30 bce, but their impact is most clearly to be seen in the foundations of Caesarea (Temples of Caesar) and in religious institutions of Greek type, where divine emperors were associated with the resident deities.


One development that did have an important effect on this religious amalgam, though it was not decisive until the 4th century, was the arrival of Christianity. The tradition of the foundation of the church of Alexandria by St. Mark cannot be substantiated, but a fragment of a text of the Gospel According to John provides concrete evidence of Christianity in the Nile valley in the second quarter of the 2nd century ce. Inasmuch as Christianity remained illegal and subject to persecution until the early 4th century, Christians were reluctant to advertise themselves as such, and it is therefore difficult to know how numerous they were, especially because later pro-Christian sources may often be suspected of exaggerating the zeal and the numbers of the early Christian martyrs. But several papyri survive of the libelli—certificates in which people swore that they had performed sacrifices to Greek, Egyptian, or Roman divinities in order to prove that they were not Christians—submitted in the first official state-sponsored persecution of Christians, under the emperor Decius (ruled 249–251). By the 290s, a decade or so before the great persecution under Diocletian, a list of buildings in the sizeable town of Oxyrhynchus, some 125 miles (200 km) south of the apex of the delta, included two Christian churches, probably of the house-chapel type.
 

JLG

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31) God and Job / Job and God

Job 42
Then Job said in reply to God:

Now I know that you are able to do all things
And that nothing you have in mind to do is
impossible for you.


- Job has changed of attitude!

- He has listened carefully to God!

Therefore I spoke, but without understanding
About things too wonderful for me, which I do
not know.


- Now he can understand he didn’t have all the elements to judge correctly the situation!

- He is not stubborn!

- he also shows that his relationship is always essential for him!

My ears have heard about you,
But now I do see you with my eyes.
That is why I take back what I said,
And I repent in dust and ashes.”


- Now he understands!

- Now he can speak with God!

- And he humbles himself!
 

JLG

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5) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 1
At that Job got up and ripped apart his garment and cut the hair off his head; then he fell to the ground and bowed down and said: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, And naked I will return. God has given, and God has taken away. Let the name of God continue to be praised.” In all of this, Job did not sin or accuse God of doing anything wrong.


- Think about Job’s reaction!

- Job is equal to himself!

- How would you have reacted!

- And what’s more striking is the fact he kept behaving thsame way all the time!

- How right was God!

- And how wrong was the devil!

- Job will remain as the best example of faithfulness to God in the Bible!

- He will always be a source of inspiration for the human beings who want to stay faithful!

- Of course, he is not a source of inspiration for the majority of human beings!

- That’s why we are where we are without anymore values!

- But don’t expect your children to do better!

- Thus they can only do worse!
 

JLG

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10) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 2
Three companions of Job heard about all the calamities that had come upon him, and each came from his own place—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. So they agreed to meet together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. They began to weep loudly and to rip their garments apart, and they threw dust into the air and onto their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.


- What a powerful weapon against Job!

- They are supposed to sympathize with Job and comfort him!

- They weep loudly with him!

- They rip their garments apart!

- They stay with him for seven days and seven nights without speaking!

- But then they keep striking him with their hard words!

- They keep condemning him!

- They will let him no rest!

- They will keep striking him again and again!

- But they don’t know Job just like the devil!

- And the fight is meaningless!

- Because Job’s relationship to God is too strong and indestructible!
 

JLG

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17) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 7
Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in my bitter distress!


- If Job can’t be active, at least he can speak!

- And the three individuals are come to oppose him!

- And he will fight back!

- Because he is not someone who can stay calm!

- He needs to defend himself and his honor!

- And he will keep calling for God!

- Because he is waiting to defend himself in front of God!

- And this hope gives him strength to keep fighting!
 

JLG

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#51
25) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 9
I could only plead for mercy from my judge.


- Think about this humility!

- And he is special to God!

- And he is suffering!

- And he is crying!

- And he is left alone because of the devil!

- And God was always with him!

- And he has always served him!
 

JLG

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#52
32) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 10

- I will say to God: ‘Do not pronounce me guilty. Tell me why you are contending with me. Does it benefit you to oppress, To despise the work of your hands While you favor the advice of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh, Or do you see as mortal man does? Are your days like the days of mortals, Or are your years like those of a man, That you should search out my error And keep looking for my sin? You know that I am not guilty; And no one can save me from your hand. Your own hands have shaped me and made me, But now you would completely destroy me.

- Job thought God was against him!

- He had no idea of the devil!

- It seems that today it is the same!

- But how is it possible!

- Job didn’t have the bible, we have it!

- And the Bible says that the devil is the leader of this world!

- And many people keep complaining about God!

- Do you remember the Israelites in the desert?

- They always used to complain against God!

- And they kept paying a high price!

- But they never understood!

- Today it is the same!

- And every time we get into more troubles!

- But people don’t change!

- If they don’t prepare know for what is coming, there will be no room for them!

- That’s pure logical!

- But it’s not logical for the majority!

- They just think let’s wait and see!

- But then it will be too late to complain!
 

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#53
39) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 12

- Does not the ear test out words As the tongue tastes food? Is not wisdom found among the aged, And does not understanding come with a long life? With him there are wisdom and mightiness; He has counsel and understanding.

- We have ears: do we still hear?

- We have eyes: do we still see?

- We have a nose: do we still smell?

- We have hands: do we still touch?

- We have a palate: do we still taste?

- We have a mind: do we still learn?

- God has wisdom and mightiness and counsel and understanding: do we listen to him?

- Job kept doing it all his life and he was blessed!
 

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#54
1)

- What is the Bible about?

- My answer is God's name and God's leadership or God's kingdom!

- That's what we get in the model prayer in Matthew 6:9,10!

- How is it possible to give such an answer?

- For that it is necessary to know the meaning of God's name and that's the God of the promise or of promises!

- When God makes a covenant he keeps it!

- When God makes a promise he keeps it!

- That's the difference with man!

- We can have a look at Exodus 6:3-8!

- It makes God a giant and man a Lilliputian!

- On the one hand, we have the creator of everything, and on the other hand, we have the destructor of everything!

- Hopefully God's kingdom will put an end to this lamentable human leadership!

- Moreover, when we have the possibility to know the importance of God's name, we may realize that the worst crime of human religion is to have turned God's name into insignificant names meaning nothing!

- Do you remember God's answer to Moses in Exodus 3:13-16?

- We can imagine the reaction of the Hebrews if Moses would have told them he was sent by the Lord: they would have laughed at him!

- And when I look at all the translations in Biblehub, the big majority says the Lord!

- In fact, it is a bad joke!

- But for God it is an outrage!

- But when knowledge is completely corrupted , one can only stay speechless!

- When you read these three passages of the Bible, when you get the Lord, it makes them total nonsense!

- And in fact, it makes the Bible a total nonsense!

- What a shame!

- Poor humanity!

- Even I am who I am is such a bad translation without meaning anything!
 

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#55
2) Matthew 6:9

So then,
οὖν (oun)
Conjunction
Strong's 3767: Therefore, then. Apparently a primary word; certainly, or accordingly.

this is how
Οὕτως (Houtōs)
Adverb
Strong's 3779: Thus, so, in this manner. Or (referring to what precedes or follows).

you
ὑμεῖς (hymeis)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Nominative 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

should pray:
προσεύχεσθε (proseuchesthe)
Verb - Present Imperative Middle or Passive - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 4336: To pray, pray for, offer prayer. From pros and euchomai; to pray to God, i.e. Supplicate, worship.

‘Our
ἡμῶν (hēmōn)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive 1st Person Plural
Strong's 1473: I, the first-person pronoun. A primary pronoun of the first person I.

Father Πάτερ (Pater)
Noun - Vocative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3962: Father, (Heavenly) Father, ancestor, elder, senior. Apparently a primary word; a 'father'.

in
ἐν (en)
Preposition
Strong's 1722: In, on, among. A primary preposition denoting position, and instrumentality, i.e. A relation of rest; 'in, ' at, on, by, etc.

heaven,
οὐρανοῖς (ouranois)
Noun - Dative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3772: Perhaps from the same as oros; the sky; by extension, heaven; by implication, happiness, power, eternity; specially, the Gospel.

hallowed be
Ἁγιασθήτω (Hagiasthētō)
Verb - Aorist Imperative Passive - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 37: From hagios; to make holy, i.e. purify or consecrate; to venerate.

Your σου (sou)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive 2nd Person Singular
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

name,
ὄνομά (onoma)
Noun - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 3686: Name, character, fame, reputation. From a presumed derivative of the base of ginosko; a 'name'.
 

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#56
3) Matthew 6:10:

Your
σου (sou)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive 2nd Person Singular
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

kingdom
βασιλεία (basileia)
Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong's 932: From basileus; properly, royalty, i.e. rule, or a realm.

come,
Ἐλθέτω (Elthetō)
Verb - Aorist Imperative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 2064: To come, go.

Your
σου (sou)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive 2nd Person Singular
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

will
θέλημά (thelēma)
Noun - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 2307: An act of will, will; plur: wishes, desires. From the prolonged form of ethelo; a determination, i.e. choice or inclination.

be done,
Γενηθήτω (Genēthētō)
Verb - Aorist Imperative Passive - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1096: A prolongation and middle voice form of a primary verb; to cause to be, i.e. to become, used with great latitude.

on
ἐπὶ (epi)
Preposition
Strong's 1909: On, to, against, on the basis of, at.

earth
γῆς (gēs)
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 1093: Contracted from a primary word; soil; by extension a region, or the solid part or the whole of the terrene globe.

as [it is]
Ὡς (Hōs)
Adverb
Strong's 5613: Probably adverb of comparative from hos; which how, i.e. In that manner.

in
ἐν (en)
Preposition
Strong's 1722: In, on, among. A primary preposition denoting position, and instrumentality, i.e. A relation of rest; 'in, ' at, on, by, etc.

heaven.
οὐρανῷ (ouranō)
Noun - Dative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3772: Perhaps from the same as oros; the sky; by extension, heaven; by implication, happiness, power, eternity; specially, the Gospel.
 

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#57
4) Exodus 6:3:

I appeared
וָאֵרָ֗א (wā·’ê·rā)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Nifal - Consecutive imperfect - first person common singular
Strong's 7200: To see

to
אֶל־ (’el-)
Preposition
Strong's 413: Near, with, among, to

Abraham, אַבְרָהָ֛ם
(’aḇ·rā·hām)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 85: Abraham -- 'exalted father', the father of the Jewish nation

to אֶל־
(’el-)
Preposition
Strong's 413: Near, with, among, to

Isaac,
יִצְחָ֥ק (yiṣ·ḥāq)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3327: Isaac -- 'he laughs', son of Abraham and Sarah

and to וְאֶֽל־
(wə·’el-)
Conjunctive waw | Preposition
Strong's 413: Near, with, among, to

Jacob יַעֲקֹ֖ב
(ya·‘ă·qōḇ)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3290: Jacob -- a son of Isaac, also his descendants

as God
בְּאֵ֣ל (bə·’êl)
Preposition-b | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 410: Strength -- as adjective, mighty, the Almighty

Almighty,
שַׁדָּ֑י (šad·dāy)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 7706: The Almighty

but I did not
לֹ֥א (lō)
Adverb - Negative particle
Strong's 3808: Not, no

reveal Myself
נוֹדַ֖עְתִּי (nō·w·ḏa‘·tî)
Verb - Nifal - Perfect - first person common singular
Strong's 3045: To know

to them
לָהֶֽם׃ (lā·hem)
Preposition | third person masculine plural
Strong's Hebrew

by My name,
וּשְׁמִ֣י (ū·šə·mî)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine singular construct | first person common singular
Strong's 8034: A name

‘the LORD.’
יְהוָ֔ה (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel
 

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#58
5) Exodus 6:4:

I also
וְגַ֨ם (wə·ḡam)
Conjunctive waw | Conjunction
Strong's 1571: Assemblage, also, even, yea, though, both, and

established
הֲקִמֹ֤תִי (hă·qi·mō·ṯî)
Verb - Hifil - Perfect - first person common singular
Strong's 6965: To arise, stand up, stand

My covenant
בְּרִיתִי֙ (bə·rî·ṯî)
Noun - feminine singular construct | first person common singular
Strong's 1285: A covenant

with
אִתָּ֔ם (’it·tām)
Preposition | third person masculine plural
Strong's 854: Nearness, near, with, by, at, among

them to give
לָתֵ֥ת (lā·ṯêṯ)
Preposition-l | Verb - Qal - Infinitive construct
Strong's 5414: To give, put, set

them the land
אֶ֣רֶץ (’e·reṣ)
Noun - feminine singular construct
Strong's 776: Earth, land

of Canaan,
כְּנָ֑עַן (kə·nā·‘an)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3667: Canaan -- a son of Ham, also his descendants and their land West of the Jordan

the land where
אֶ֥רֶץ (’e·reṣ)
Noun - feminine singular construct
Strong's 776: Earth, land

they lived as foreigners.
גָּ֥רוּ (gā·rū)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person common plural
Strong's 1481: To turn aside from the road, sojourn, to shrink, fear, to gather for, hostility
 

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#59
6) Exodus 6:5:

Furthermore,
וְגַ֣ם ׀ (wə·ḡam)
Conjunctive waw | Conjunction
Strong's 1571: Assemblage, also, even, yea, though, both, and

I
אֲנִ֣י (’ă·nî)
Pronoun - first person common singular
Strong's 589: I

have heard
שָׁמַ֗עְתִּי (šā·ma‘·tî)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - first person common singular
Strong's 8085: To hear intelligently

the groaning
נַאֲקַת֙ (na·’ă·qaṯ)
Noun - feminine singular construct
Strong's 5009: A groan, groaning

of the Israelites,
בְּנֵ֣י (bə·nê)
Noun - masculine plural construct
Strong's 1121: A son

whom
אֲשֶׁ֥ר (’ă·šer)
Pronoun - relative
Strong's 834: Who, which, what, that, when, where, how, because, in order that

the Egyptians
מִצְרַ֖יִם (miṣ·ra·yim)
Noun - proper - feminine singular
Strong's 4714: Egypt -- a son of Ham, also his descendants and their country in Northwest Africa

are enslaving,
מַעֲבִדִ֣ים (ma·‘ă·ḇi·ḏîm)
Verb - Hifil - Participle - masculine plural
Strong's 5647: To work, to serve, till, enslave

and I have remembered
וָאֶזְכֹּ֖ר (wā·’ez·kōr)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - first person common singular
Strong's 2142: To mark, to remember, to mention, to be male

My covenant.
בְּרִיתִֽי׃ (bə·rî·ṯî)
Noun - feminine singular construct | first person common singular
Strong's 1285: A covenant
 

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#60
7) Exodus 6:6:

Therefore
לָכֵ֞ן (lā·ḵên)
Adverb
Strong's 3651: So -- thus

tell
אֱמֹ֥ר (’ĕ·mōr)
Verb - Qal - Imperative - masculine singular
Strong's 559: To utter, say

the Israelites:
לִבְנֵֽי־ (liḇ·nê-)
Preposition-l | Noun - masculine plural construct
Strong's 1121: A son

‘I
אֲנִ֣י (’ă·nî)
Pronoun - first person common singular
Strong's 589: I

am the LORD,
יְהוָה֒ (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel

and I will bring
וְהוֹצֵאתִ֣י (wə·hō·w·ṣê·ṯî)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Conjunctive perfect - first person common singular
Strong's 3318: To go, bring, out, direct and proxim

you
אֶתְכֶ֗ם (’eṯ·ḵem)
Direct object marker | second person masculine plural
Strong's 853: Untranslatable mark of the accusative case

out from under
מִתַּ֙חַת֙ (mit·ta·ḥaṯ)
Preposition-m
Strong's 8478: The bottom, below, in lieu of

the yoke
סִבְלֹ֣ת (siḇ·lōṯ)
Noun - feminine plural construct
Strong's 5450: Porterage

of the Egyptians
מִצְרַ֔יִם (miṣ·ra·yim)
Noun - proper - feminine singular
Strong's 4714: Egypt -- a son of Ham, also his descendants and their country in Northwest Africa

and deliver
וְהִצַּלְתִּ֥י (wə·hiṣ·ṣal·tî)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Conjunctive perfect - first person common singular
Strong's 5337: To strip, plunder, deliver oneself, be delivered, snatch away, deliver

you
אֶתְכֶ֖ם (’eṯ·ḵem)
Direct object marker | second person masculine plural
Strong's 853: Untranslatable mark of the accusative case

from their bondage.
מֵעֲבֹדָתָ֑ם (mê·‘ă·ḇō·ḏā·ṯām)
Preposition-m | Noun - feminine singular construct | third person masculine plural
Strong's 5656: Work of any kind

I will redeem
וְגָאַלְתִּ֤י (wə·ḡā·’al·tî)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Conjunctive perfect - first person common singular
Strong's 1350: To redeem, act as kinsman

you
אֶתְכֶם֙ (’eṯ·ḵem)
Direct object marker | second person masculine plural
Strong's 853: Untranslatable mark of the accusative case

with an outstretched
נְטוּיָ֔ה (nə·ṭū·yāh)
Verb - Qal - QalPassParticiple - feminine singular
Strong's 5186: To stretch out, spread out, extend, incline, bend

arm
בִּזְר֣וֹעַ (biz·rō·w·a‘)
Preposition-b | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 2220: The arm, the foreleg, force

and with mighty
גְּדֹלִֽים׃ (gə·ḏō·lîm)
Adjective - masculine plural
Strong's 1419: Great, older, insolent

acts of judgment.
וּבִשְׁפָטִ֖ים (ū·ḇiš·p̄ā·ṭîm)
Conjunctive waw, Preposition-b | Noun - masculine plural
Strong's 8201: A sentence, infliction