#ra'

[twentyone-questions]

[quotesfromscripture]

Do not eat from it

Waytsaw [and commanded] Y--- ‘Elohiym  over ha’adam  saying  of every ‘etz [tree] of the garden  akol tokel [you shall eat your fill, you shall freely eat] 

but of the tree hada’at tov wara [knowledge good and bad]  do not tokal [eat] from it  for in the yom that you eat from it  surely tamut [you shall die] 

- Genesis 2:16-17

[quotesfromscripture]

Flee for safety, O children of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem; for evil looms out of the north, and great destruction.

Jeremiah 6:1 NRSV (1989)

[quotesfromscripture]

God said to His Son, “Man was like us, but he has changed. He now knows good and evil, so he’s infected with sin. If we leave him in the garden and he continues to eat from the Tree of Life, he will never die, and he and his descendants will live in sin forever. We can’t let this happen.”

- Genesis 3:22 Clear Word

[quotesfromscripture]

Angels: fallen angels

So far the ONLY verse I can find in the Old Testament having anything to do with “fallen angels” or “evil angels” is Psalm 78:49 and even that is a stretch, because the term is mal’ake ra’im.

I am under the firm belief that ra’ and ra’im do NOT mean evil in the sense of moral wickedness. It would be more accurate to say “bad things” or “trouble” in the sense of “things you do not want to happen to you”. A disease can be ra’, a punishment can be ra’. A person can do ra’ or think ra’. The tree in Eden is the Tree of Good and Ra’. 

In 2 Samuel 24:16 even the angel of the LORD is doing ra’ by punishing Jerusalem. 

A more accurate translation of Psalm 78:49, then, might be “messengers of trouble”.

[quotesfromscripture]

"Shall we indeed accept tov from Elohiym and not accept ra’?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

- Job 2:10b

[quotesfromscripture]

Getting fat on the flesh of the powerless

Then I said,  “Listen, you leaders of Jacob,  You rulers of the house of Israel.  Should you not know justice,  You who hate good and love evil;  Who tear the skin from my people  And the flesh from their bones?” 

- Micah 3:1-2 NIV