Skip to main content

Curses in the Bible

Many people will be surprised to discover that the Bible contains curses, and that some of these are by God! Why would God do such a thing? 
  1. In most cases a curse is the removal of a blessing. God blesses us and says, 'But there are conditions to you keeping this blessing! If you disobey me in these things, and break those conditions, then I will remove the blessing (i.e. you will be cursed).' For example, in Gen 4 God warns Cain not to sin, but he goes ahead and sins anyway, by killing his own brother Abel. After that Cain is cursed 'away from the ground' i.e. he won't be able to farm the soil as an agriculturalist any more. That soil has soaked up Abel's blood. He doesn't deserve to live the life of a farmer. He is condemned to a life of travelling about in the land of 'wandering'. "10 The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.’" Gen 4, NIV 
  2. Many of them, in the Old Testament at least, are connected with the land. God's people had the blessing of inhabiting God's land (as Chris Wright would say), and this blessing was one they needed to keep by obedience, following the teaching in the Torah, and keeping close to Yahweh their God. You can read about this in the last chunk of Deuteronomy. "19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Deu 31, NIV 
  3. Notice that the Bible tends to use the passive voice when talking about curses given out by God. What does that mean? What does it imply? Usually people use the passive voice for things that are difficult to talk about, or where the agent (the person doing the action), needs to be kept out of the picture. We don't like talking about God cursing people, so we say, 'They have been cursed.' Sometimes it's used where the agent is unclear, like when Jesus heals people. The person 'was healed' - by God? By Jesus? Well, Jesus is God in human form, so by both. Why specify? It's better just to say, 'S/he was healed.' 
So, curses in the Bible are strange things. We need to see them as a removal of blessing, rather than something inherently negative that God is doing.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 Reasons to Make Scripture Impact a Priority

This is a response to some recent posts about the importance of Bible translation in fulfilling the Great Commission. Yes, there is much truth in that, but more is needed. It really helps to have Scripture impact (or 'engagement') the top priority, the 'car' as it were, with translation the engine that sits beneath the bonnet. Not all drivers need to know all the details of the engine, but they need to be able to control the vehicle. The most important thing is to be able to get from A to B (see point 2), rather than knowing how the engine works. These are the ten reasons to make Scripture impact a priority: To help people flourish in their communities. There are all kinds of needs that need to be met for people to flourish. One is clean water. Another is good sanitation. Peace (lack of war), and freedom of religion. Access to education etc. etc. For a community to truly flourish they also need access to the Scriptures in a language (or languages) that they understand a...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Flow Chart for Bible Translation (a Relevance Theory Approach)

One of the current theories behind modern translation work is Relevance Theory. [1] Here is a flow chart that explains the process often used to produce a draft when using such an approach: *Make sure your translation committee makes the decision as to what kind of translation they want. A domesticated translation is one that submits to dominant values in the target language [2] whereas a foreignized translation is one that is happy to import foreign terms and ideas from Hebrew, Greek, or the language of wider communication such as the Greek term baptizo . The chart looks something like this: Text                                   Communicated Ideas                  Context A sower went out to sow  A farmer went out to sow grain   People scattered/threw seed etc. The text has very little information, but behind i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Asking the Right Questions in Bible Translation and Scripture Engagement Planning

If you want to get useful answers you have to ask the right questions. Do you agree? Yes, of course you do. In the Bible translation world we often ask a very narrow question when planning for the next stage of work: 'What would you like to see translated next?' Now, if you simply want to translate, and that's it, that question is fine, but what if you want to see some kind of result from your translation work? What if, for instance, you want to see transformation occur? Then a more powerful question to ask the community and positive stakeholders in the project would be: 'What kingdom goals would you like to see reached?' These kingdom goals should meet felt needs of the community - they should solve problems that are apparent to most or all in the community. See below on how those can be met. If that's too abstract, then try, 'What kinds of things, in your extended family, do you tend to worry about?' This will help establish some felt needs, from which...
7 comments
Read more