The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, graduated its first class on this day, June 10, 1854. The Academy was established under the direction of George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy under President James Polk. Bancroft was also known as the "father of American history," having written the first comprehensive history of the US. George Bancroft wrote: "That the Divine Being should… be known, not as a distant Providence… but as God present in the flesh… amid the deep sorrows… protracted during centuries… carried peace into the bosom of humanity."

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe
can exist without a clockmaker.
--- Voltaire


... from here, there and everywhere

5 A false witness will not go unpunished;
whoever breathes out lies will not escape.

6 Many ask favors of a generous person—
to a giver of gifts, everyone is a friend.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

The next best thing to do

     Seek if you have not Found. "Seek, and ye shall find." --- Luke 11:9.

     "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss." If you ask for things from life instead of from God, you ask amiss, that is, you ask from a desire for self-realization. The more you realize yourself the less will you seek God. "Seek, and ye shall find." Get to work, narrow your interests to this one. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you only given a languid cry to Him after a twinge of moral neuralgia? Seek, concentrate, and you will find.

     "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Are you thirsty, or smugly indifferent—so satisfied with your experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience, the metallic note will come in at once, the censorious note. You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.

     "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." "Draw nigh to God." Knock—the door is closed, and you suffer from palpitation as you knock. "Cleanse your hands"—knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty. "Purify your heart"—this is more personal still, you are desperately in earnest now—you will do anything. "Be afflicted"—have you ever been afflicted before God at the state of your inner life? There is no strand of self-pity left, but a heartbreaking affliction of amazement to find you are the kind of person that you are. "Humble yourself"—it is a humbling business to knock at God's door—you have to knock with the crucified thief. "To him that knocketh, it shall be opened."

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

I am Prytherch. Forgive me. I don't know
What you are talking about; your thoughts flow
Too swiftly for me; I cannot dawdle
Along their banks and fish in their quick stream
With crude fingers. I am alone, exposed
In my own fields with no place to run
From your sharp eyes. I, who a moment back
Paddled in the bright grass, the old farm
Warm as a sack about me, feel the cold
Winds of the world blowing. The patched gate
You left open will never be shut again.

R.S. Thomas Selected Poems, 1946-68

          A fundamentalist assumes that biblical text has one meaning for all times and all situations. But the Rabbis who wrote Midrash were not fundamentalists. They acknowledged that the Bible, as sacred text, is a living document. It can have different meanings in different contexts. One Rabbi can give an interpretation, his Midrash on a verse, and another Rabbi, in the exact same time and place can say, in effect, "Here's another possible meaning of this sacred Scripture." And later generations would look not only at the biblical text but also at these interpretations; these later teachers would write their own midrashim, understanding the Bible in the light of their times, their backgrounds, their needs.

     Often, the Rabbis who wrote these interpretations were responding to the particular challenges of their age. The Jews who lived in Israel during the classic age of Midrash experienced foreign occupation, the loss of the Temple, the flourishing of Christianity, and finally the advent of Islam. They needed to understand why these things happened to them as a nation. They needed to be reassured that there was a bright future awaiting them as a people. They needed to know if the promises of God and if the words of the Torah were still meaningful and relevant. Midrash makes the biblical text applicable to the issues of the day. The Bible is not a frozen document but a living, breathing work.

     The Rabbis also used Midrash to introduce new concepts into Judaism, which itself was developing during the same time that these interpretations were being written. (The Bible, read literally, does not have a concept of "soul"; however, the Rabbis used Midrash to find the basis for a soul in certain verses.) This creative reading allowed Rabbinic Judaism to expand and grow. Similarly, reinterpretations of sacred texts through Midrash provided comfort and consolation as well as a "revised" philosophy of Judaism that would make sense of the cataclysm—the destruction of the Temple—that Jews had only recently experienced.

     The basic assumption of the Rabbis was that the Torah was a sacred text, originating from God. The implication of this assumption was that there is more to the Bible than initially meets the eye. In each sentence, word, and letter, there was either a direct message from God or an opportunity for the Rabbi to elucidate what God wanted from the Jewish people. Therefore, the text couldn't just be read; it had to be studied. It could not be perused; it had to be deciphered. Everything about it was of ultimate significance.

     Scholars of the Midrash speak of two main methodologies used by the Rabbis: creative philology (the study of language and texts) and creative historiography (the study of history and narrative). First and foremost was the attention that the Rabbis paid to the language. Midrashic methodology included the following techniques, which will be found in the passages included in this book:

• Attention to unusual spellings: מָלֵא/maleh, "complete," and
  חָסֵר/ḥaser, "missing," where a vav or a yod might be
  included or left out.
• Puns, when a word could change meaning by minor
  changes in a vowel or consonant.
• The literal interpretation of a word instead of its
   usual, idiomatic meaning.
• The presence of superfluous words that were believed to
  have been included in order to transmit additional
  messages.
• The doubling of words—a common Hebrew form—seen by
  the Rabbis as signaling a message.
• Notarikon, where a word was understood as an abbreviation
  of two or more other words.
• Gematria, whereby the numerical sum of a word's letters
  either added up to a significant quantity or equaled
  another word of the same numerical sum.
• Gezeira Shava, in which two distinct stories shared the
  same word or phrase, and elements of the first were applied
  to the second.
• The etymology of names, which offered hints about a
  person's character.
• The juxtaposition of sections, not considered coincidental or
  meaningless, which was seen as planned and significant.

     These and many other techniques were formalized by the Rabbis in various lists of middot, "characteristics" or principles of interpretation. Among the most famous are the Thirteen Middot of Rabbi Yishmael (which became a part of the daily Shaḥarit liturgy).

     In addition to the detailed concern with the language, the Rabbis also employed other methodologies in analyzing Bible stories and creating the Midrash texts that have come down to us:

• Logic, interpretations created through reasoning. A classic
  example of the use of logic is the kol va-ḥomer, where a law
  or a situation applied in a "light" case was also applied to
  a "serious" case. [This is often referred to as kal va-ḥomer,
  though kol va-ḥomer is the more correct reading.]
• The resolution of contradictions within a story or between
  stories (often accomplished by limiting the situations
  in which the cases applied).
• The Bible as a paradigm of history, where the deeds of the
  ancestors are a sign regarding the actions of their
  descendants.
• The use of biblical stories to mask comments on politics
  and current events.
• The desire to fill in missing details of biblical stories.

     And perhaps most significant for the creation of midrashic narratives was the aversion to anonymity. The Rabbis tried to identify unnamed figures in the Bible and fill in missing background information.

     We also find in midrashic texts:

• Folk wisdom, including proverbs and parables.
• Case studies; incidents that actually occurred were used
  as precedents.
• Fauna and flora, as the source of an ethical lesson.
• Imitatio Dei (imitation of the divine), with God serving
  as a role model for human behavior.
• Apologetics, in which stories of interactions with non-Jews
  were a basis for arguing for Judaism's superiority over
  other religions.
• Ethical lessons derived from legal details, and legal
  details derived from narrative sections.

Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. Searching for Meaning in Midrash: Lessons for Everyday Living Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.

     The glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness.
--- Titus 2:13–14

     [Paul] believed the Lord Jesus Christ to be truly human, but he also believed him to be God. Classic Sermons on the Grace of God (Kregel Classic Sermons Series) There is no appearing of God the Father. It is of that second person of the Trinity who has already once appeared and who will appear a second time in the latter days. It was Paul's delight to extol the Lord who once was crucified in weakness. He calls him here the great God, thus specially dwelling on his power, dominion, and glory. This is the more remarkable because he immediately goes on to say, "who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness." He who surrendered life itself, who was stripped of all honor and glory and entered the utmost depths of humiliation, was assuredly the great God. If you take away the deity of Christ, what in the gospel is left that is worth preaching? No one but the great God is equal to the work of being our Savior.

     Paul believed also in a great redemption: "who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness." That word redemption sounds in my ears like a silver bell. We are ransomed, purchased back from slavery—and at an immeasurable price, not merely by the obedience, the suffering, nor even the death of Christ, but by Christ's giving himself for us. The splendor of the gospel lies in the redeeming sacrifice of the Son of God. It is the gem of all the gospel gems.

     Paul looked, [too], on the appearing of the Savior as a display of the grace of God. He says, "The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." It is not a private vision of God to a favored prophet but an open declaration of the grace of God to every creature under heaven—a display of the grace of God to all eyes that are open to behold it. When the Lord Jesus Christ came to Bethlehem and when he closed a perfect life by death on Calvary, he manifested the grace of God more gloriously than has been done by creation or providence. This is the clearest revelation of the mercy of God. In the Redeemer we see the unveiling of the Father's face—the laying bare of the divine heart. This was given us not because of any deservings on our part; it is a fullness of free, rich, undeserved grace. The grace of God has been made manifest to the entire universe in the appearing of Jesus Christ our Lord.
--- C. H. Spurgeon

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers (27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

     It isn't unusual for the accused in a trial to express regret and remorse for what they've done and to ask for another chance. That's just what Israel did, but God anticipated their hypocritical subterfuge and exposed not only their duplicity but the sinful way they had treated their Lord.

     The nation's false repentance (Hosea 6:1–3). When you read these words, you get the impression that the nation is sincerely repenting and seeking the Lord, but when you read what God says, you see how shallow their "confession" really was. "They do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek Him" (7:10). "They have spoken lies against Me" (v. 13). "They return, but not to the Most High" (v. 16). What went wrong with this "confession"?

     To begin with, their concern was for healing and not for cleansing. They saw their nation in difficulty and wanted God to "make things right," but they did not come with broken hearts and surrendered wills. They wanted happiness, not holiness, a change of circumstances, but not a change in character. Many times in my own ministry I've met people in trouble who treated God like a celestial lifeguard who should rescue them from danger but not deliver them from their sins. They shed tears of remorse over their suffering, but not tears of repentance over their sin.

     Furthermore, the people of Israel thought that the remedy would work quickly: "After two days will He revive us; in the third day He will raise us up" (6:2). What blind optimism! They were like the false prophets in Jeremiah's day who offered the nation superficial remedies but never got to the heart of the problem (Jer. 6:14; 8:11–16). They were like physicians putting suntan lotion on a cancerous tumor instead of calling for drastic surgery. Expecting a "quick fix" is one of the marks of an unrepentant heart that doesn't want to pay the price for deep cleansing (Ps. 51:6–7).

     There is a third evidence of their shallowness: they saw forgiveness and restoration as a "mechanical" thing that was guaranteed and not as a relational matter that involved getting right with God. To paraphrase Hosea 6:3, "If we seek Him, His blessing is sure to come just as the dawn comes each morning and the rains come each spring and winter." This is formula religion, like getting a candy bar out of a vending machine: put in the money, push the button, and out comes the candy. The Christian life is a relationship with God, and the relationships aren't based on cut-and-dried formulas.

     One more evidence of their shallowness is the fact that they depended on religious words rather than righteous deeds. When we truly repent, our words will come from broken hearts and they will cost us something. Hosea considered words to be like "spiritual sacrifices" brought to the Lord (14:2), and we must not give Him something cheap (2 Sam. 24:24). Words can reveal or conceal, depending on the honesty and humility of the sinner. (This is made clear in 1 John 1, where the phrase "if we say" is repeated three times. See also King Saul's "religious lies" in 1 Samuel 15:10–35.) We must take to heart the warning in Ecclesiastes 5:1–2. (1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil. 2 Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few.) ... and yet so many are so anxious to open their mouths in prayer that they might be heard. (by others)

     The nation's true condition (Hosea 6:4–7:16). In a series of vivid similes ad metaphors, Hosea revealed the true character of the people of Israel.

     Their love for the Lord was like a morning cloud and the dew (6:4–11). Early in the morning, the dew looks like sparkling jewels, but as soon as the sun comes up, the dew is gone. Israel's devotion to the Lord was temporary, lovely but not lasting. To give some substance to their faith, God sent them His prophets with the Word of God which is like a penetrating sword (Eph. 6:17) and a flash of lightning (Hosea 6:5), but the people turned a deaf ear.

     God doesn't want our relationship with Him to be one of shallow, transient feelings and empty words and rituals, hearts that are enthusiastic one day and frigid the next. "For I desired mercy [loyal love], and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" (v. 6). A superficial ritual can never take the place of sincere love and faithful obedience (1 Sam. 15:22–23; Amos 5:21–24; Micah 6:6–8; Matt 9:13; 12:7).

     "But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant" (Hosea 6:7, NASB).11 God promised Adam His blessings if he obeyed His commands, but Adam deliberately destroyed and plunged the human race into sin and death (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:21–22). God promised Israel the blessings of the Promised Land if they would obey Him (Deut. 28), but they broke the covenant and suffered the consequences. For both Israel and Judah, God had appointed a harvest, and they would reap just what they had sown (Gal. 6:7–8).

     Their lust was like an overheated oven (Hosea 7:1–7). It's probable that the last statement in 6:11 should be joined with 7:1 to read, "When I would have returned the captivity of My people, when I would have healed Israel." What prevented God from helping His distressed people? They wanted Him to act on their terms and not according to the condition of His holy covenant. They thought they could get away with their many sins, but God saw them all and remembered them (v. 2; contrast Heb. 10:16–17).

     Their passion for sin was like a fire in an oven: bank the fire at night, and it will be ready to blaze out in the morning. The oven was so hot that the baker could ignore it all night and know it would be ready for baking his bread in the morning. The "fuel" for the fire was wine, for alcohol and sin often go together.

     Hosea describes a palace celebration during which the king and his officers get drunk, and this gives the king's enemies opportunity to overthrow him and even kill him. Remember, Israel had five kings in thirteen years, and four kings were assassinated in twenty years. From Jeroboam I, the first king of Israel, to Hoshea, the last king, there were nine different dynasties! Because the leaders were far from the Lord, the political situation was confused and corrupt.

     The third simile is that of a half-baked cake (Hosea 7:8). The nomadic peoples of the East baked their bread on hot rocks. If the dough wasn't turned, one side of the loaf would be burned and the other side uncooked. Instead of remaining separate from the nations, Israel mixed with the nations and became like them. Because of her compromising political posture, the nation was "burned" by Assyria on the one hand and left uncooked on the other.

     When it comes to our relationship with the Lord, we must be thorough and not "half-baked." His gracious work must permeate our whole being so that heart, mind, and strength are all devoted to Him. Compromise with the world leads to unbalanced conduct and immature character.

     Continuing the theme of compromise, Hosea pictures Israel as a man getting gray and not knowing it (vv. 9–10). By mixing with the nations and ignoring the Lord, the nation was secretly losing her strength, like someone getting older and weaker but in her pride refusing to admit it. This is the tragedy of undetected losses that quietly lead to ultimate failures. Samson made this mistake (Jud. 16:20) and so did the church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:17). Israel saw her political strategy failing, but the leaders still refused to turn to the Lord. "The pride of Israel" (Hosea 7:10; see 5:5) refers to Israel's national glory which had greatly eroded since the days of David and Solomon. Selfish politicians and corrupt priests had brought the nation to ruin.

     In their political policies, the Israelites were like a silly dove (7:11–12). First they turned to Egypt for help and then to Assyria, and both nations proved to be false allies (5:13; 8:8–10; 12:1). If the leaders had listened to the prophets, they would have known that Assyria would one day invade the land (9:3; 10:5–6; Isa. 7:18–8:10). God warned that Israel's "flying here and there" would come to an end when He caught them in His net and gave them to the King of Assyria. God is in control of the nations, but His people would not obey Him.

     According to the covenant God had with His people, the Jews could trade with the other nations, but they were not to enter into political alliances that would compromise their obedience to the Lord. "I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations" (Num. 23:9, NIV). "You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own" (Lev. 20:26, NIV). Solomon used many wives to form alliances with other nations, and this was the beginning of the nation's downfall (1 Kings 11:1ff).

     The final image is a faulty bow (Hosea 7:13–16), because God couldn't depend on Israel to be faithful. (This image is also used in Ps. 78:57.) God had called Israel and trained them, so they should have been able to "hit the target." But because they had strayed from the Lord, rebelled against Him, lied to Him (in their feigned repentance), and refused to call upon Him, so they could not win the battle.

     As we review these images, we might take inventory of our own devotion to the Lord. How lasting is it? How deep is it? How strong is it? How serious is it? How dependable is it?

W. W. Wiersbe, (1996) Be Amazed (Minor Prophets): Restoring an Attitude of Wonder and Worship (The BE Series Commentary)