This afternoon, my good wife asked me a simple question. “Where does it say God is a father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow?” As I was sitting at the computer, tethered to that fount of all knowledge, the InterWeb, I looked it up. “A father to the fatherless” comes from Psalm 68:5, but the phrase that follows is either a judge or defender of the widow depending on your translation. Looking up the Hebrew word in question, I see that judge, advocate, and defender are the ideas at hand, close to but not actually a husband. A couple verses in Deuteronomy speak of God the Father’s intent to protect widows and bring justice to those who would harm them. Where is the phrase “husband to the widow?” It doesn’t appear to be in the Bible, unless it came from an old translation which is no longer in use.
More irritating than not finding a quotation you felt strongly about is finding a couple articles which claim to have read the verse. A couple writers said, “I came across a verse that said that God is a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless.” No reference, of course, but how can people write so carelessly that they don’t double check or reference their biblical quotations?
Or did I just not find the right verse? Any idea where this phrase “husband to the window” came from?
May I add one of my pet peeves? In the ten commandments God said, quite clearly, “Lo Tirtzach”, meaning “don’t murder”. It’s clear, unequivocal Hebrew. To make it clearer, He told us in other places in the Torah that certain types of killing are OK, and required others.
A certain clergyman working for King James decided, for some weird reason, to translate it as “Thou shalt not kill”. And people have been making weird inferences from that since then.
Yes, much misunderstanding has followed from that unfortunate choice. Yet I wonder if it was one of the the King James guys, or perhaps Wycliffe or the Geneva scholars who actually first made the choice. I also wonder if “kill” might have had a more specific meaning (or at least nuance) back then.
I didn’t know that. It reminds me of some material I read in college in which the author poorly tried to make a biblical case against capital punishment. His logic on what select passages meant was pretty sorry.
Regarding old translations no longer in use, I tried to use those, even an online 1611 KJV, but all of the old ones said “judge to the widow.”
Wishful thinking at work, I fear.
Yeah, well, at least we all know that “God helps those who help themselves.” [my least favorite not-in-the-Bible verse]
Have you tried looking in the book of Hezekiah? If it’s not there, you can always find what you need in First Theologians or Second Opinions.
🙂
Heheh.