Blotting Out: From Flood to Forgiveness - Episode 164

This week we’re back in the Flood narrative—but we zoom out to follow one biblical metaphor across the whole storyline: “blotting out.” This is a frame-semantics-heavy episode where we build what I’m calling the erasure frame and track how the meaning shifts depending on what is erased and where it’s erased from.

In this episode

• Why “blotting out” isn’t a single idea—the object + the medium control the meaning.
• The five frame elements I use to map each passage: agent, object, medium, resultant state, moral logic.
• “Blotting out” in the Flood: erasure as judgment (and possibly purification).
• A concrete “prototype” scene: Numbers 5 (curses written, washed off, and ingested)—erasure as judicial cleansing.
• Erasing a place (Jerusalem “wiped like a dish”) and what that could imply beyond simple demolition.
• Erasing a name (legacy/standing)—more than physical death: social memory and generational continuity.
• Erasing from a book/record (Exodus 32): what it might mean to be “blotted out,” and why that doesn’t automatically equal annihilation.
• The major turn: erasing sins instead of erasing sinners—blotting out as forgiveness and covenant restoration.
• The far horizon: wiping away tears—erasure as comfort, healing, and new-creation restoration.
• Contrast frame: remembering in Scripture isn’t “God recalling facts”—it’s covenant action (deliverance, preservation, inclusion).

Scripture and passages referenced

Genesis 6–8; Numbers 5; 2 Kings 21:13; Deuteronomy 29:20; Exodus 32:32–33; Isaiah 43:25; Isaiah 44:22; Isaiah 25:8; Jeremiah 31:34; Luke 23:42–43; Leviticus 2:2; Numbers 10:10; Joshua 4:6–7; Exodus 12.

Notes

• Don’t forget to check out the earlier discussion on "blotting out" in Episode 077 
• Study guide notes: I’ll be building a companion resource to go with this “deep frame semantics” episode (check back later!)

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Music credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan

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Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan