Using Young's Literal Translation Bible Readings 365 for serious Bible students

I wonder how our land would be if we obeyed the command which God gave to give a year of Sabbath rest to it every seventh year when it would be neither sown nor harvested: "a year of rest it is to the land". Surely we wouldn't need to pump in so much artificial feeding for the earth to continue producing for us. And surely if we lived off the produce we already had for two years there would not be...

Our uncleanness comes from within. When Jesus speaks to the Pharisees in response to them asking why He did not wash before eating as is the tradition of the Pharisees, he says that it is not the outside which needs cleaning but the inside, the evil within us comes from our hearts which need cleansing. There are examples of physical situations which are founded in the culture of the time which hav...

In Mark Chapter 1 we read: "and there doth come to him a leper, calling on him, and kneeling to him and saying to him - 'If thou mayest will, thou art able to cleanse me.' And Jesus having been moved with compassion, having stretched forth the hand, touched him and saith to him, 'I will; be thou cleansed' " v 40-41 " And having sternly charged him, immediately he put him forth, and saith to him, '...

Our God is a God who separates, who says: Be holy as I am holy. HIs way is that we must always choose between right and wrong. This is freewill. If we are ignorant of God's commands or we do something without knowing it is wrong in God's eyes, when we know it, we have a way to forgiveness by being sorry, asking God's forgiveness and, because of Jesus, the ransom of his life paid for us, we are for...

Mark 1: 23-45 I am filled with wonder at Jesus. His authority is astonishing as the crowd are also amazed seeing him command the evil spirit, that had just shouted out uncontrollably and loudly that Jesus has come to destroy them, to be silent and to come forth out of the man. But I am even more moved by the leper coming in such abject hopelessness, rejected by society, an 'untouchable', asking Je...

The colours of the holy garments of Aaron as priest to God, blue and purple and scarlet, remind me of the veins and arteries in the body and the twined linen of skin and the gold of God the creator who is entwined in our making. We are precious to God in all our being and inseparable from his life and love though we are free to reject Him and ignore HIm and even to hate Him because he is a just Go...

When reading the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit brings to our attention words or verses that we might pause and consider them more deeply. It struck me in reading how many times in these two chapters of Exodus the words, "as Jehovah commanded Moses" so it was done, firstly by Bezeleel and those making the garments of beauty and honour for Aaron and his sons and then by the sons of Israel for all the...

The Tabernacle represents the human being in all its detail. The ark, made of shittim (acacia) wood, overlaid within and without with gold, represents the human heart, where the law of God will be written in our hearts. This is the most holy place, the holiest of holies, where God meets with us by His Holy Spirit. The mercy-seat is placed on top of the ark, for though our heart condemn us, God is...

The details for making the tabernacle are so clear and precise, instructions that will not be deviated from. This is the perfect design of the human body also, with its amazing structure of bones and veins and arteries and flesh and skin. How can we not wonder at the brilliance of the human body and not worship the creator, our God, who has made heaven and earth and all things in them? Surely I am...

What a contrast between the woman who anointed Jesus with the very precious ointment, and Judas Iscariot who goes to the chief priests and asks what they will give him to deliver Jesus up to them, and accepts 30 silverlings. She will be remembered "wherever this good news may be proclaimed in the whole world, what this one did shall also be spoken of - for a memorial of her." Of Judas he says"Son...

God is a God of justice and of mercy. While his righteous anger against the people he had brought out of Egypt who, in the absence of Moses had pressed Aaron to make them gods to go before them, demanded that He consume them and make Moses become a great nation, yet Moses pleads with God to relent from harming His people. He reasons with God as an advocate for the people, that the Egyptians would...

All chapter 29 of Exodus points to Jesus and what he has done for us before God. In order to hallow us, for being priests to God, there had to be a sacrifice of a bull from the herd and two perfect rams. Jesus, in order to hallow us for being priests to God, gave himself, a man in his prime and perfect being, We lay our hands on the head of Jesus as Aaron and his sons did on the head of the bull a...

The word "shittim" translated correctly by Young is a type of Acacia tree, the wood of which is known for its durability. The ark in the Holiest of Holies was made of this wood and in it was placed the ten commandments, the law of God. The ark represents our hearts and God says there will be a time when He will write His law in our hearts. In chapter 27, God gives His instructions for the altar, w...

God wants to live amongst His people. He commanded Moses to make the tabernacle so that He could tabernacle in the midst of the community of the Hebrews, the children of Israel. God's desire, repeated throughout Scripture, is that "they will be my people and I will be their God" The tabernacle may be seen as a symbol of the human being, the outer court is the body, the inner court, the holy place,...

The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. Jesus in Matthew 23 confronts the Scribes and Pharisees and tells them directly their wrong doing. In Exodus 23, God tells the people how they must live in society with justice and righteousness and gives many examples of what the people must not do. Psalm 19 declares the honour of God, and that nothing is hid from His heat, His ri...

When Jesus was asked why "Moses commanded to give a roll of divorce and to put her away", Jesus said, "Moses for your stiffness of heart did suffer you to put away your wives but from the beginning it hath not been so. " For just such a reason, these commands are given by Moses for situations which would not have arisen but for the hardness of our hearts.

Jesus says to the Sadducees, "Ye go astray, not knowing the writings, nor the power of God" This is a judgment which could fall on all of us. We need to know the writings, the Scriptures, with long and faithful study, and meditate on them and seek to understand with the help of the Holy Spirit, and we also need to seek to know the power of God. Then we will not go astray, we will not get things wr...

"For many are called but few are choice" Few prove worthy. Few are quality. Few are choice people, committed in obedience to the service of Christ. The last four words are generally translated 'but few are chosen.' This is another example of where the object and the subject are reversed: the object is the one making the choice. God gives out the invitation and the invited make their choice, just a...

What an exultation is this Song of Moses which the children of Israel and Moses sing and speak. They tell of the wonder that God has done in rescuing them from the Pharoah, and of His judgment of Pharoah and all his force whom God covered in the depths of the sea as He commanded the waters to. We should sing this too when we understand the wonder of our salvation: "My strength and song is JAH, And...

Many times we hear God say to Moses that He has strengthened Pharoah's heart so that He might do mighty wonders and show that He is God. In English we typically understand things literally. We take each significant word and assign it equal value rather than understanding the whole. Thus English lawyers can be found nit-picking over individual words to prove or disprove a point but in European law...

The Passover in Exodus and Jesus telling his disciples that "the Son of Man shall be delivered to the chief priests and scribes and they shall condemn him to death and shall deliver him to the nations to mock and to scourge and to crucify and the third day he will rise again" reflect on one another. How good it is to read the Old Testament and after it follow with reading the New Testament! In doi...

When things are going well for us, when we prosper, when our health is good, when where we live is blessed with a benign climate, when there is order in nature and damaging insects or disease do not destroy our crops and food, we are not driven into the arms of God to fear Him and honour HIm. Even here when a disaster ceases at the intercession of Moses, Moses knows that the Pharoah and His servan...

At first Pharoah's heart is ignorant, " Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken to His voice, to send Israel away? I have not known Jehovah and Israel also I do not send away" (Exodus 5:2) As he hears Moses tell that "the God of the Hebrews hath met with us", a revolutionary thought for a kingdom which worshipped remote gods which neither speak nor hear, the Pharoah's only understanding is that Mose...

If we do not forgive others, the result in us is that we are delivered to the inquisitors till we have paid to God all that was owing to him, We open the way for the accuser of the brethren, Satan, to have the right to release his inquisitors to question us continually about our wrong-doing. We do not have peace with God but a perpetual torment of accusation and guilt. We are to forgive each one h...

God's name is "I am". He always is. He is ever present. He is the living God who speaks and hears and acts and feels and chooses and responds and initiates - just as we do , for we are made in His image. But, unlike us, He is the creator of the heavens and the earth and everything in them. He is the great I AM. We live and die, but God is above and beyond and around all things. He is worthy of glo...