Stop with Me

A man’s wisdom (discretion, knowledge, prudence, sense, understanding, wisdom) 

gives him patience (makes him slow to anger); 

it is to his glory (splendor, beauty, bravery, glory, honor, majesty) 

to overlook (pass over, let pass by, cause to take away)  

an offence (rebellion, sin, transgression, trespass). Proverbs 19:11 

Sounds like God, doesn’t it? Slow to anger, passing over our trespass because of the blood. Proverbs 17:9 also says: 

He who covers over an offence promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. 

The word translated “covers over” is the Hebrew kacah. It means to plump or fill up the hollows, to cover, clothe, conceal. It is also used here: 

He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy conceals a matter. Proverbs 11:13 (NASB) 

This word is used for covering the nakedness of the priests with pure, white linen. 

You shall make for them linen undergarments to cover their naked flesh; they shall reach from the hips to the thighs; They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they come into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister in the holy place, that they do not incur iniquity and die. Exodus 28:42-43 (NKJV) 

The word was also used when Noah’s sons covered both his nakedness and his transgression when he got drunk. 

But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backwards and covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father’s nakedness. Genesis 9:23  

This reminds me in the New Testament of clothing ourselves with Christ and the “new self.” 

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Romans 13:14 

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on (clothed yourselves with) the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3:8-10 

I think we really need these verses right now when people are trying to kill each other for forgetting to turn on their turn signal, when people are forever cut out of our lives over words, when rage and violence erupts for the least misstep or mistake. We need to let some things pass. We need to be slow to anger. We need to clothe ourselves and each other. As my pastor, Dan Wolfe, used to say, we need to be a sponge sometimes and just let it sink in, be absorbed, and stop with me. 

Photo by Jack Bair