Clutter

I was reading Isaiah ch28 this morning and was confused...  I noticed while trying to research the point of reference regarding an obscure piece of symbolism that the word "as" was included in the text.  He wasn't going to rise AT the mountain, He was going to rise AS AT the mountain.  The word "as" in italics.  The explanation for cluttering up a sentence with squiggs didn't make a bit of sense.  And the concept is rather irrelevant unless you're some serious Bible student, which would require hours of history lessons and possibly multiple seminaries. Most if not all words in The Bible were not found in the English text. My ol pastor was telling me (in more neutral terms) that when The Bible says "loving kindness", it's actually watering down the original Hebrew word because there is no English word that succinctly encompasses it.  Maybe I don't particularly remember lk being italicized because it's such a distinct word you can't confuse it as being a verse number or something.

Someone was making a Bible concordance and felt the need to insert verse numbers a few hundred years ago. I think verse numbers are a lazy person's guide to Bible reading.  You can get some seriously flawed understanding if you hear some person saying "Well.. The Bible says this". Ya?  What verse?  Ooh..I guess it does say that.  I've actually been advised to be aware of context when I'm reading The Bible apparently because I'm one of those weirdos who understands when Paul says "Hello, Philippians" that the book of Philippians is a letter that he wrote to the Phillipian believers.  I have never found it useful or even entertaining to just read some selection of verses from The Bible.  It's one thing when you're buying and looking at home decor but I don't consider that to be Bible reading.  It is good opportunity to meditate on it assuming you're familiar with the context.  Matthew 7:1 is not something to meditate on unless you understand it in context.  And people constantly take it out of context.  And in all truthfulness, it probably is safer to just not judge.  If you look strictly at Matt7:1, you're setting yourself up for Hell if you have any negative opinions about someone else's actions.  From what I've read, God did accept Jeffrey Dahmer into His kingdom but that doesn't mean whoever was in charge of whatever jurisdiction of The USA he was tried and convicted in was committing a sin.  People say "We all have the capacity..." And true, many of us, if not all of us, probably would be mass murderers if it were not looked down on by parents and punishable by most jurisdictions in the US.  Jeffrey Dahmer wasn't raised in some pagan culture.  His evil actions were a threat to anyone who crossed paths with him.  My own perverted tendencies of thought offend God and have maybe an indirect negative impact on other people and although my sins against God are probably not a significant stretch from Jeffrey Dahmer's, I find it difficult to believe that is true with most professing Christians or even ordinary working folk.  The important thing is not to delude yourself into thinking you're the most evil person that's ever lived.  The important thing is to realize your sin, whatever it is or how justified you feel in it, is an offense to God and should be dying if not altogether dead.

Anyway...got a little off topic sorta...