Page 41 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
20 20 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exod. 20:8–10, 11). And further on:
“Six days may work be done; but on the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the
Lord … for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day
he rested, and was refreshed.” (Exod. 31:15, 17). No “creating” is alluded to, only
“doing.” And the deeds to be done were also created by God, as detailed in the
above quote from Gen. 2:3.
The distinction between the worlds of creating, forming, and doing is central to

Jewish philosophy and theology. According to the Malbim (1809–79), one of the
greatest biblical commentators, “creating” refers to bringing forth into existence
out of nonexistence, “forming” refers to bringing forth that which is potentially
in the created, still hidden (“bringing out the incidences that are glued to the cre-
ated”), and “doing” is the completion of the forming and the removing of that
which is not inherently in the nature of the created (the act of tikun , or repair).
Refer to the Malbim interpretation of Isaiah 45:7.
The distinction between creating, forming, and doing permeates the Bible. An
example: “Every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my
glory; I have formed him; yea, I have made him” (Isa. 43:7). This same verse may
be differently read as (author’s translation from the literal text): “All that is called
by my name and for my glory, I have created it (him), I have formed it (him), yea
I have made it (him)” (“it” and “him” are indistinguishable in Hebrew unless by
context).
This triple partition into creating, forming, and doing (or making) is also one
of the cornerstones of Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah ).
The precise meaning of the Hebrew verse “which God had created to do,”
which appears in the title of this subsection and regrettably seems to be over-
looked in common English translations, is another testimony to the precision of
biblical text.

1.3.3 “Thou shalt not … put a stumbling block before the blind”
(Lev. 19:14)

It is common human experience that the blind at times need assistance. In
particular, no one would argue the truism of the assertion that if a blind person
encounters a stumbling block one should remove it, all the more so not place one
there.
Alas, this in not what the Bible is saying. The Bible does not at all relate to
these trivial scenarios; they are too obvious. The Bible takes such scenarios, and
the expected human response to such, as self-evident to the point of being trivial.
The Scripture sees no need to address such cases, where the expected human