Quote:
Originally Posted by forest beekeeper
'in vain' means without power, or producing no effect.
To say the God says "blah", where God does not, is vain.
To declare any doctrine as being from God, when it is instead truthfully from man's logic, is vain.
To say that God wants people to do some thing, when in truth the statement of entirely a lie, is vain.
Likewise to make-up some new thing as being a sin, and to teach that as being a sin, is also without God's power and love behind it. Would also be vanity.
Preaching without God empowering your words, is vain.
Any usage of 'The Lord' without empowerment is vain.
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A mini-Theology from an older English abstract translation of a Hebrew phrase?
"Vanity of vanities - all is vanity" - that famous line from Ecclesiastes still has a ring to it, even if the word is difficult to translate and "vanity" is a compromise with the Hebrew.
Merest breath, said Qohelet, merest breath.
All is mere breath.
(Ecclesiastes [Qohelet] 1:2, TWB)
The root word is
hevel and means "breath, vapor". It occurs in the verse as
havel havalim - which is a way of making the concept more powerful (which, paradoxically makes the "vapor" or "breath" even more "breathless" or "vaporless"): not just "breath", but "merest breath" in this particular translation.
As would be expected (if one has been paying attention), the same root,
hevel, does not occur in either the Decalogue or in the Holiness Code's prohibition against swearing falsely. Qohelet further opines on
hevel:
The just man and the wicked God will judge, for there is a time for every matter, and every deed he assesses.
I said in my heart in regard to the sons of man, God has sifted them out to show them they are but beasts.
For the fate of the sons of man and the fate of the beast is a single fate.
As one dies so dies the other, and all have a single spirit, and man's advantage over the beast is naught, for everything is mere breath.
Everything goes to a single place.
Everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust.
Who knows whether man's spirit goes upward and the beast's spirit goes down to the earth?
(Ecclesiastes 3:17-21, TWB)
Merest breath. Vanity of vanities. Vapor of vapors. One fate awaits us all.
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