“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. This is what God did for us when He gave us His son: By showing kindness to you the other person, you are treating someone as a friend who deserves to be treated as an enemy. Your sin is atoned for” (Isaiah 9:4-6).ĥ. When he cried out, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips,” the angel took a live coal from the altar, touched Isaiah’s lips with it, and said, “See, your guilt is taken away. Think about when Isaiah had his vision in the temple. In scripture, coals and fire are often used figuratively to describe cleansing. After all, if someone is trying to balance burning coals on their head, they can’t haul off and punch you without endangering themselves.Ĥ. Putting a container of burning coals on your enemy’s head is a cleaver means of protecting yourself. And if God rains down fire and brimstone on their head, so much the better.ģ. You are seeking to make the other person feel bad for how they have treated you. So perhaps the picture is of you offering coals from your own hearth to a neighbor so that his own fire won’t go out.Ģ. We are reminded that in many cultures, even today, people carry items in containers on their heads. There will be some benefit to you if you choose to give food and water to your enemy.Ī wonderful article from the Massachusetts Bible Society sums up the different possible interpretations:ġ. It also means that the Lord will reward you if you do. So what does it mean that if you show kindness to your enemy, you are heaping burning coals on his or her head?Īt the root, it means that whether you understand it or not, you are commanded to show kindness to your enemy, If he is hungry, feed him. Note to future historians: It means I married a woman who is far better than I deserve. Even the explanations of the first metaphor require an understanding of other metaphors. Three thousand years from now, someone reading the previous paragraph would have absolutely no clue what I was trying to say about my wife. Here in the South, most guys would understand what I mean when I say, “I outkicked my coverage” when describing my wife. Part of the problem is that we are trying to make sense of a three thousand year old idiom. Wait, what? Is this about being nice to someone you hate so they feel ashamed for how they have treated you? Is it about bringing God’s judgment down on their head? Is it is about showing kindness that leads to repentance (see Romans 2:4)? If so, then setting your enemy’s head on fire seems like a strange way to reconcile. “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” Proverbs 25:21-22 ESV But you don’t know they are going to betray you until you bite the apple or step on the sidewalk.īut then you get to a verse like 21-22, and no matter how many times you read it, or how slowly you read it, you still can’t quite figure it out: Like verse 19: “Trusting in a treacherous man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips.”Ī bad tooth or a slippery surface are both things that you expect to be trustworthy, until they aren’t. Some of them take a little more work, but then the light dawns, and you understand. Remember those from English class? “This is that,” or “This is like that.” Many of them, like verse 28, are obvious: When you lack self-control, you make yourself vulnerable to attack, like a city without walls. In today’s reading, there are lots of similes and metaphors. The beauty of poetry is that it forces you to read slowly, deliberately, and repeatedly. Proverbs is a book that rewards reflection. “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”
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