Caperberry 杏仁—人所願的 《聖經植物:第17筆》 七劃 屬性:有的聖經把傳道書12章5節中「人所願的」,譯為「欲望」,不過根據描述,這種植物應該是刺山柑 (Capparis spinosa),屬於白花菜科的一種有刺灌木,在地中海地區很常見。生長在岩石和牆壁裂縫的植物,葉單生,花為大型白色,在夜間盛開,日出時凋落。果實為小形漿果。經意:古時人們將刺山柑的花苞放在醋中醃漬後,最為肉類的調味品,可增添菜餚的美味。據傳聞這是一種可以引起性慾的,也會刺激老年人的食慾。或許因此大多數聖經將這個字譯為「欲望」。和合本將此字譯為「牛膝草」,所以部份章節的牛膝草均有可能是指刺山柑 (出12:22,利14:6,民19:18,約19:29)。字源追溯:醒 (to be alert), the almond (tree or nut; as being the earliest in bloom)對等譯字:ALERT 一致譯字:almond 欽定本譯:almonds, almond tree 和合本譯:杏,杏仁 經文出處:出12:22拿一把牛膝草,蘸盆裡的血,打在門楣上和左右的門框上。你們誰也不可出自己的房門,直到早晨。詩51:7求你用牛膝草潔淨我,我就乾淨;求你洗滌我,我就比雪更白。傳12:5人怕高處,路上有驚慌,杏樹開花,蚱蜢成為重擔,人所願的也都廢掉;因為人歸他永遠的家,弔喪的在街上往來。相關經文:利14:4,6,民19:18,王上4:33,約19:29。
April 11 "What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light."(Matt. 10:27.) OUR Lord is constantly taking us into the dark, that He may tell us things. Into the dark of the shadowed home, where bereavement has drawn the blinds; into the dark of the lonely, desolate life, where some infirmity closes us in from the light and stir of life; into the dark of some crushing sorrow and disappointment. Then He tells us His secrets, great and wonderful, eternal and infinite; He causes the eye which has become dazzled by the glare of earth to behold the heavenly constellations; and the ear to detect the undertones of his voice, which is often drowned amid the tumult of earth's strident cries. But such revelations always imply a corresponding responsibility─"that speak ye in the light─that proclaim upon the housetops." We are not meant to always linger in the dark, or stay in the closet; presently we shall be summoned to take our place in the rush and storm of life; and when that moment comes, we are to speak and proclaim what we have learned. This gives a new meaning to suffering, the saddest element in which is often its apparent aimlessness. "How useless I am!" "What am I doing for the betterment of men?" "Wherefore this waste of the precious spikenard of my soul?" Such are the desperate laments of the sufferer. But God has a purpose in it all. He has withdrawn His child to the higher altitudes of fellowship, that he may hear God speaking face to face, and bear the message to his fellows at the mountain foot. Were the forty days wasted that Moses spent on the Mount, or the period spent at Horeb by Elijah, or the years spent in Arabia by Paul? There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the allvital condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have periods of lonely meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should have their mountains of fellowship, their valley of quiet rest beneath the shadow of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has veiled the material and silenced the stir of human like, and has opened the view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our bodies should have food. Thus alone can the sense of God's presence become the fixed possession of the soul, enabling it to say repeatedly, with the Psalmist, "Thou art near, O God." ─F. B. Meyer.