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Welcome to Day 1544 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomBible Study – "Literal" Interpretations and "Meanings" of Original Language – Meditation MondayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1544 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.
We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our current insights are focusing on accurately interpreting the Bible. Today let us meditate on:
Bible Study – “Literal” Interpretation and “Meaning” of Original Language· Insight Forty-Seven: What is meant by “Literal” Interpretation of the Bible Needs Interpretation
Many readers have heard the old argument in defense of literal Bible interpretation: “When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense. It’s pithy. If you don’t overthink it, it might even sound like it makes sense. It’s not very helpful.
Consider the word “water. What does it “literally” mean? What exactly is its “plain sense”? Here are a few possibilities:
Noun:
H20 (chemical compound)
Body of water (“Look at all that water.”)
Ocean
Sea
Lake
Pond
River
Stream
Creek
Inlet
Liquid drink (“I’d like some water.”)
Hydration supply (“They turned off the water.”)
Verb:
Irrigate (“Water the fields.”)
Provide hydration (“He watered the cattle.”)
Saliva (“My mouth watered.”)
Tearing up (“His eyes watered.”)
Which one of these is the plainest of the plain? That’s the point. They’re all plain. What distinguishes them is context. Things get even more interesting when you move into metaphorical meanings for water, which can be exactly what context requires. “Water” can speak of a life source, purification, transformation, motion, or danger. The metaphors work because of the “literal’ characteristics of water.

Biblical writers used words loaded with symbolic, abstract meanings that were well known in their culture. We miss all that when we insist words must mean what pops into our heads in our time and culture. We ought to be trying to discern what the biblical writers and their original readers were thinking, not what we’re thinking. What the “plain sense” is to us may not have been at all plain to them.
· Insight Forty-Eight: The Meaning of an Original Language Word Is Not Determined by the Sound of That Word in a Different Language
I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how in the world anyone could believe that the title of this section could be true. I agree; the idea is genuinely bizarre. That’s why it’s so disturbing when you encounter people who think they’re “digging into the Word’’ by interpreting Scripture that way.
I’ll start with a typical example many readers will (sadly) have heard. Ezekiel 38:2-3 refer to a figure known as “Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. The Hebrew behind “chief prince” is pronounced nesi rosh. Some well-meaning Bible teachers want to translate