The homework covered chapters 19 through 23, but I got bogged down in chapter 22, doing a dead-man float in the pools.

Hearing the "Man Born Blind" just Sunday, I wonder whether these are the same pools. Such a peaceful place, there.

And I fall asleep just before a point of significance ... where Currie picks up ...

Isaiah 22:22: "I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open."

Compare that with Jesus' words in Matthew: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Hearing it only in the study discussion was enough to jog my memory of Currie's treatment. Well, partially. Because I read verse 25:

On that day, says the LORD of hosts, the peg fixed in a sure spot shall give way, break off and fall, and the weight that hung on it shall be done away with.

and couldn't remember how Currie handled that.

Everyone around me read verse 25 and assured themselves of it: "Why trust men?" came the consensus. One would use verse 25 against any man, all men, not just the successor of Peter.

The footnote in my Jewish Study Bible suggests the "peg" of verse 25 refers to Shebna, as strange (and convenient) as that could be. But even if the "peg" refers to Eliakim, as the JPS/JSB also suggests, and the NAB agrees, it still seems to describe the creation of an office with authority.