The Hebrew Letter Quph, part 2

As I explained last week, the Hebrew letter quph matches up with three books in the Bible: Psalms, Mark, and 2nd John. Mark's gospel is unique because it emphasizes Jesus’ actions more than His teachings, moving quickly from one episode to another. Thus we get our connection to the quph word qal (swift).

Mark describes Jesus’ journeys through Galilee, the surrounding areas, and then to Judea at a rapid pace. In fact, the swiftness is revealed in the actually telling of the events. An example of this unique swiftness presents itself early on in chapter 1, verses 10 – 14 (this is from Young’s Literal Translation so you can see the fast pace exactly as it was written. Although it is divided into 5 verses, notice the punctuation - just two sentences:

 9 And it came to pass in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John at the Jordan;
 10 and immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens dividing, and the Spirit as a dove coming down upon him;
 11 and a voice came out of the heavens, `Thou art My Son -- the Beloved, in whom I did delight.'
 12 And immediately doth the Spirit put him forth to the wilderness,  13 and he was there in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by the Adversary, and he was with the beasts, and the messengers were ministering to him.

Whew!                      

There are nearly identical scenes recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that tell of  the healing of the demon-possessed man, the feeding of the 5000, the healings at Gennesaret, the healing of the boy with an evil spirit, and the rich young man, which all are told in Mark with the addition of the word ran to portray that “swiftness”.

Find out more in Crossing the Scriptures.