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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 'Prophesying' 1 Samuel 18:10
  • Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 03:41:53 -0500

Dear Brian,

I want to add a couple of thoughts to what I said last night. Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar notes that the Hithpael is primarily the reflexive of Piel. While the intensive is not always

distinctly marked, it is so in other cases, e.g. HTNQM "to show oneself revengeful" (Niph., simply "to
take revenge"), and in the numerous instances where the Hithpael expresses to make oneself that
which is predicated by the stem, to conduct oneself as such, to show oneself, to imagine oneself, to
effect to be of a certain character.

Regarding the meaning of "evil spirit," it seems helpful to recall the framework of a heavenly juridical setting for much of the angelic conflict between evil and God. God is sovereign but does not commit evil. The OT shows Him sovereign over Satan and evil spirits and seemingly directing (1 Kings 22) or allowing (Job) their work. But we know from Revelation that the evil spirits are only tolerated in heaven. Though Zechariah shows Satan with a role in the heavenly courtroom, Revelation shows that it is as an Accuser. Though the OT seems to have God deputizing evil spirits to do His work, Matthew 25 teaches that Gehenna is prepared for the devil and his angels. So the heavenly courtroom is just part of the overall struggle between good and evil.

God allows evil to exist for the accomplishment of His greater purposes of good, and He can utilize evil spirits, in their hostile rebellion to Him, for those purposes. If Scripture says that God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem, we can trust that this was part of the heavenly drama, and that God allowed demonic spirits to carry out certain actions, as in the case of Job. The text says that He did it in order that Abimelech's crime against Jerub-Baal's seventy sons might be avenged (Jdg 9:24). God is separated from evil (holy), and so it is the part of creation that is in rebellion to Him that must be involved in God sending an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem, it seems to me.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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