Dictionary: Face
Synonyms: countenance, physiognomy, profile, features, expression, facial expression, look, appearance, air, manner, bearing, guise, cast, aspect, impression, grimace, scowl, wry face, wince, frown, glower, smirk, pout, moue, side, flank, vertical, surface, plane, facet, wall, elevation, dial, display, (outward) appearance, nature, image, front, show, act, false front, facade, exterior, mask, masquerade, pretence, charade, pose, illusion, smokescreen, veneer, camouflage, respect, honour, esteem, regard, admiration, approbation, acclaim, approval, favour, appreciation, popularity, estimation, veneration, awe, reverence, deference, recognition, prestige, standing, status, dignity, glory, kudos, cachet, effrontery, audacity, nerve, gall, brazenness, brashness, shamelessness, look out on, front on to, look towards, be facing, have/afford/command a view of, look over/across, open out over, look on to, overlook, give on to, give over, be opposite (to), accept, come to accept, become reconciled to, reconcile oneself to, reach an acceptance (of), get used to, become accustomed to, adjust to, accommodate oneself to, acclimatize oneself to, be confronted by, be faced with, encounter, experience, come into contact with, run into, come across, meet, come up against, be forced to contend with, beset, worry, distress, cause trouble to, trouble, bother, confront, burden, brave, face up to, meet head-on, dare, defy, oppose, resist, withstand, cover, clad, skin, overlay, dress, pave, put a facing on, laminate, inlay, plate, coat, line
Antonyms: dodge, fear, back, give way, back down, dodge, avoid, throw in the towel, withdraw, cave in, retreat, succumb to, lay down one's arms, throw in the sponge, defer, submit, escape, bashfulness, shun, evade, elude
Showing 2101 to 2125 of 2781 results
Understanding Series
Iain W. Provan
... to trained military personnel, especially the elite soldiers of whom some commentators speak. The involvement of such men would introduce exactly that element of doubt about who had achieved the victory that in other narratives of this sort is so deliberately avoided (cf., for example, the complete helplessness of Israel in the exodus story, and esp. Exod. 14:14; and the requirement that Gideon should divest himself of warriors before the battle of Judg. 7). It is, moreover, the case that naʿar elsewhere ...
Understanding Series
Iain W. Provan
... of the disguise? 22:29–36 The reader suspects that it is Micaiah who is speaking the truth. Ahab is therefore predestined to listen to the false prophets; the LORD has decreed it (v. 22). He is also predestined to die, no matter what measures he takes to avoid this fate, for the LORD is intent on judgment, rather than salvation. The donning of disguise is no more than a harbinger of disaster; it recalls the actions of Jeroboam and Saul (1 Sam. 28) just before their own deaths (cf. 1 Kgs. 14:1–18, esp ...
Understanding Series
Iain W. Provan
... . Dependent upon him for guidance, they are led to the Israelite capital, where they too (like the servant) move from “blindness” to “sight,” and discover they have been captured (v. 20, cf. v. 17). Jehoram wants to kill them; is this an attempt to avoid his father’s mistake in 1 Kings 20? The circumstances, however, are not the same. Jehoram would not kill men captured with his own sword or bow, Elisha claims—and these are not even men like that. After a great feast, they are accordingly sent ...
Understanding Series
Iain W. Provan
... new story appears to be 4:13, where Elisha makes her an offer of help. The woman declines, for she has “a home among [her] own people.” In 8:1–6, however, she no longer has such a home; she has followed Elisha’s advice and avoided famine by sojourning in Philistia. While she has been away, someone seems to have taken her land. Perhaps it is even Jehoram himself, showing the same land-grabbing proclivities as his parents (cf. 1 Kgs. 21). Providentially, however, just at the moment she arrives at the ...
Understanding Series
Iain W. Provan
... made in the NT of the Jesus-Elisha connection. Yet it may be that it is precisely because both Joshua and Elisha are successors to more famous men that this kind of thinking was inhibited. There would have been a natural desire within the church to avoid the suggestion that Jesus was John’s successor in any sense that detracted from his pre-eminence—particularly since this was apparently a live issue in some quarters (note the careful way in which John 1:1–42 addresses the issue). Thus it is not ...
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... the light of the LORD. If Yahweh is committed to achieving a purpose whereby the nations let their lives be shaped by Yahweh’s teaching, the least Israel can do is let that teaching shape their own lives now. Perhaps they may then be in a position to avoid the trouble that 1:2–31 and 2:6–4:1 otherwise envisage. Or perhaps their letting their lives be thus shaped contributes to the achieving of Yahweh’s purpose. It becomes part of what draws the nations. The image of light can denote truth as opposed ...
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... speaks (message is lit. “word”), that sets a process under way (see 55:10–11). Eventually people will have to acknowledge it (v. 9a), as they did not in 1:3. They will have to acknowledge what Yahweh has put down (v. 10), though their words pointedly avoid acknowledging that it was Yahweh who was responsible for the falling/felling. They will have to acknowledge what Yahweh has raised (the more literal meaning of strengthened in v. 11: see on 2:11). Aram is in danger from Assyria (v. 11) and is also a ...
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... the chapters have been described as a “Little Apocalypse.” “Apocalypse” is another word for a vision or a revelation with an “eschatological” character. The words “eschatological” and “apocalyptic” are used in such varying and often ill-defined ways that they are best avoided. As a form of writing, apocalypses flourished in Israel much later than Isaiah’s day. Many come from the period after the last of the OT writings (“apocalypsis” is the Greek word in the title of the NT book of ...
2109. Woe to Ephraim
Isaiah 28:1-29
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... attitudes to Yahweh (do people trust?), the other to do with attitudes to society (do they implement justice?). Different contexts may require an emphasis on one or the other, but both are important. If the people fail them, then the calamity they are seeking to avoid will overwhelm them. Jerusalem has made its bed and it must lie in it (v. 20). Judah’s strange covenant provokes Yahweh to do a strange deed. The section comes to a powerful close in verses 21–22. Isaiah pictures a great act of God like ...
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... (see Additional Notes). The people are destined for a tough journey through a land of hardship and distress. The middle of verse 6 describes the land through which the caravan travels, but describes it in terms of the destiny that the nation wishes to avoid. Perhaps there is further irony in the collocation of riches/ treasures and donkeys’ backs/humps of camels: the whole enterprise looks stupid. The point starts to be explicit in the last line of verse 6, which NIV rightly links with verse 7. They are ...
2111. Hezekiah’s Illness
Isaiah 38:1-22, Isaiah 39:1-8
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... when Babylon will get its comeuppance and King Cyrus of the Persians will make it possible for the treasures and the people to return and the city to be rebuilt—as happened beginning in 539 B.C. 38:1–8 It is difficult to avoid the assumption that prophecy involves speaking about the inevitable. But this story, among others in the OT, reflects the opposite assumption. Prophecy unveils what will happen “if/unless.” The if/unless is rarely stated, but prophet and recipient know they are there. Here ...
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... will be hard for the audience to swallow. 42:18–25 The problem lying under the surface since chapter 40 at last comes out into the open. Although Jacob-Israel is Yahweh’s servant, it cannot fulfill the role of that servant. The servant avoids contracting the weaknesses of those he ministers to (vv. 3–4). This servant has those weaknesses aplenty (vv. 7, 19, 22). Isaiah has amply fulfilled his commission (6:9–10). The community has gone through the terrifying experiences of defeat and deportation but ...
Understanding Series
John Goldingay
... 23–24). It is not clear whether the ragers who are shamed are the same people as the fugitives who are saved, or whether shame is an alternative destiny to salvation, or whether the ragers are the Judeans of verses 9–11: no reader can relax and avoid saying “Is it I?” But for all the openness of the invitation of verse 22, the chapter ends with the promise that Israel will be found righteous and will exult. And we recall that the Judean community is the audience throughout these prophecies. The most ...
2114. Ezekiel's Call
Ezekiel 1:1-28, Ezekiel 2:1-3:15, Ezekiel 3:16-27
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... ’s “vulnerable and easily strained” personality (R. E. Clements, Ezekiel [Westminster Bible Companion; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996], p. 19), diagnosing mental illnesses ranging from hysterical paralysis to paranoid schizophrenia to post-traumatic stress disorder. We should avoid such approaches as we do not have the patient at hand to enable a proper diagnosis and psychoanalyzing the dead is a chancy enterprise at best. Further, such readings effectively distance us from prophet and text ...
2115. Signs and Oracles of Judgment
Ezekiel 4:1-5:17, Ezekiel 6:1-14, Ezekiel 7:1-27
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... v. 27; see also 17:12). Otherwise, “king” occurs in Ezekiel only in the editorial superscription (1:2), with reference to the future Davidic messiah (37:22, 24), and in the expansion of Ezekiel’s temple vision (43:7b–9). Ezekiel’s avoidance of the word “king,” together with his judgment upon the Jerusalem priesthood, reveals that Ezekiel reacted against the institutions and ideology of Jerusalem and its temple even more forcefully than students of this book have often recognized. It is little ...
2116. The Glory Departs
Ezekiel 8:1-18, Ezekiel 9:1-11, Ezekiel 10:1-22, Ezekiel 11:1-15, Ezekiel 11:16-25
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... LXX reads “they turn up the nose:” that is, they treat God with contempt. The Masoretes, the Jewish scribes responsible for preserving the MT, regarded this as one of 18 changes that had been made in the earlier transmission of the text to avoid disrespect to God; the original, they claimed, had been “Look at them putting the branch to my nose.” To be sure, either of these ancient readings fits the Lord’s response to the priests’ action. The Lord has been insulted, perhaps even metaphorically ...
2117. Signs, Sayings, and Oracles of Judgment
Ezekiel 12:1-28, Ezekiel 13:1-23, Ezekiel 14:1-11, Ezekiel 14:12-23
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... distinctive feature of Ezekiel’s use of nasiʾ is in reference to kings in Jerusalem (in addition to the 2 citations in vv. 10, 12, see 19:1; 21:17, 30; 22:6; 34:24; 37:25). Indeed, as we observed above in the discussion of 7:27, Ezekiel positively avoids the common term melek (“king”). In chs. 1–39, nasiʾ is the prophet’s term of choice for Israel’s kings (the use of nasiʾ in chs. 40–48 will be discussed in context). A clue to this odd usage is 1 Kgs. 11:34, the only text outside of ...
2118. Riddles and Metaphors
Ezekiel 15:1-8, Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 17:1-24
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... not seen as applying to the family of those ruling in the land after 597 bce, but through the family of those deported in 597 bce” (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, p. 368). Although Ezekiel seems not to evidence that much interest in kings or politics (recall his avoidance of the word melek, which means “king”), his vision of Israel’s restoration does provide a place for David’s descendant (see 34:23–25; 37:24–25). Even here in verses 22–24, however, Ezekiel’s point is scarcely political. He gives no ...
2119. An Unholy History
Ezekiel 20:1-29, Ezekiel 20:30-49
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... ” (Heb. Yhwh tsebaʾot), the divine title associated most closely with Zion (T. N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies [trans. F. H. Cryer; ConBOT 18; Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1982], pp. 11, 109–13). Together with Ezekiel’s avoidance of melek (Heb. for “king”) and his negative view of the Jerusalem priesthood, this feature of the book underlines the prophet’s anger and disillusionment with the religious and political establishments of Jerusalem.
2120. Jerusalem’s Siege, in Parable and Sign
Ezekiel 24:1-14, Ezekiel 24:15-27
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... the city, without distinction (without casting lots for them, v. 6). The reason for this judgment is bloodshed: the slaughter of the innocent through the oppression and injustice of this bloody city (vv. 7–8; see also 11:6; 22:6). Leviticus 17:13 declares that to avoid defilement the people must cover even the blood of an animal they killed in the wild with earth. Yet the blood of the slain in Jerusalem is poured . . . on the bare rock (v. 7), where it cannot soak into the ground, and is left exposed. The ...
2121. Ezekiel a Watchman
Ezekiel 33:1-20, Ezekiel 33:21-33
Understanding Series
Steven Tuell
... , then, is resistance to God. Given the crimes of the survivors, the Lord asks, “Should you then possess the land?” (v. 26). This expression appears once in the Holiness Code (Lev. 20:24), where Israel’s possession of the land is conditional upon their avoidance of those customs that had caused the land to vomit out the nations before them (Lev. 20:22). In Ezekiel, the only references to possessing the land are here (vv. 24–26) and in the oracle against Mount Seir (35:10). This expression occurs ...
Teach the Text
Jeannine K. Brown
... section by one). As a solution, some have suggested that David be counted twice, given the emphasis on his title as king and his prominence in the genealogy’s frame (1:1, 17). Given these numeric difficulties, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Matthew has chosen three sets of fourteen for a particular thematic purpose, although interpreters have debated its precise meaning. Two primary options are typically raised. First, the importance of the number “seven” to signal completion might indicate ...
2123. Jesus as True King of Israel
Matthew 2:19-23, Matthew 2:13-18, Matthew 2:1-12
Teach the Text
Jeannine K. Brown
... Jesus to be a threat and responds by killing every boy in Bethlehem who might be the one whom the magi came to find (2:16), necessitating that Joseph and Mary take Jesus and flee to Egypt. Even when they return to Israel after Herod dies, they avoid coming under the rule of Herod’s son Archelaus by settling in the north, in Galilee. 2:4 chief priests and teachers of the law. This first reference to Jewish leaders in Matthew’s Gospel couples Israel’s temple leaders with its learned men. The chief ...
Teach the Text
Jeannine K. Brown
... solely in physical bread/food, or do we recognize and affirm the reality that we live by God’s word and guidance? Do we test God by our actions that reveal a lack of trust in God’s provision, or do we, with Jesus, obey the command to avoid testing the Lord? Do we believe the lie that we can flirt with other allegiances (gods) while claiming to be faithful to the one true God? For Matthew (and for us), allegiance to God is fundamental to living a life of covenant loyalty. Jesus passes the tests in ...
Teach the Text
Jeannine K. Brown
... and politically significant. What we do see in Matthew is that, by drawing on Isaiah, Jesus is shown to be a Messiah who inaugurates a kingdom of mercy and justice on behalf of those most downcast (the blind, lame, poor [11:5]). So we might avoid preaching the kingdom that comes through Jesus as just a “spiritual” reality. Instead, we might focus people’s attention on the ways that Jesus brings holistic restoration to people and to the created world. 2. Even though Jesus’ actions show him to be the ...
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