Hebrews 9:14

Last month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from the 6th:

The reading was Hebrews 9:11-14, and part of verse 14 caught my attention:  "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God" [ESV].

In the Greek, it's:  πόσῳ μᾶλλον τὸ αἷμα τοῦ χριστοῦ, ὃς διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου ἑαυτὸν προσήνεγκεν ἄμωμον τῷ θεῷ, καθαριεῖ τὴν συνείδησιν ὑμῶν ἀπὸ νεκρῶν ἔργων εἰς τὸ λατρεύειν θεῷ ζῶντι;

There's a sort of contrast between "from dead works" and "to serve the living God," and this is heightened by the different forms of the modifiers.  "Dead" (νεκρῶν) is just an adjective, but "living" (ζῶντι) is a participle, and since participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the dynamic action of a verb here rather than just the static nature of a plain adjective.

The same distinction is also in the Latin Vulgate ("quanto magis sanguis Christi qui per Spiritum Sanctum semet ipsum obtulit inmaculatum Deo emundabit conscientiam vestram ab operibus mortuis ad serviendum Deo viventi"), my German New Testament ("um wieviel mehr wird dann das Blut Christi, der sich selbst als Opfer ohne Fehl durch den ewigen Geist Gott dargebracht hat, unser Gewissen reinigen von den toten Werken, zu dienen dem lebendigen Gott!"), and my French New Testament ("combien plus le sang de Christ, qui, par un esprit éternel, s'est offert lui-même sans tache à Dieu, purifiera-t-il votre conscience des œuvres mortes, afin que vous serviez la Dieu vivant!").

Psalm 102:11

In catching up on reading the entire chapter of some Biblical references in the introduction to my copy of The Bhagavad Gita last month, I found yet an-other small feature to write about.  I read Psalm 102 in the ESV, in which verse 11 is:  "My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass."  (The NIV is basically the same:  "My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.")  There's a sort of redundancy in the phrase "an evening shadow" ("evening" and "shadow" both imply a degree of darkness), and this results in an imbalance between the two halves of the clause:  there's a single element as the subject ("days") but an adjective and noun pair with overlapping meanings as the predicate nominative ("evening shadow").  This unevenness with more weight placed on "an evening shadow" emphasizes the darkness of the Psalmist's plight.

This doesn't apply to the Hebrew, though, where the verse is:

יָמַי כְּצֵל נָטוּי וַאֲנִי כָּעֵשֶׂב אִיבָֽשׁ׃

The ESV and NIV translate נָטוּי as "evening" in this context, but the word actually means something like "stretched out" or "extended."  This is how the NKJV translates it:  "My days are like a shadow that lengthens, and I wither away like grass."

Isaiah 30:9-13

About a month ago, I read Isaiah 30 after having run across a citation of Isaiah 30:15 in the introduction to my edition of The Bhagavad Gita, and I noticed some significance in the diction in verses 9-13:

9 For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD; 10 who say to the seers, "Do not see," and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, 11 leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel."  12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, "Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, 13 therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant [ESV]

In verse 10, there are nouns and negated verbs built on the same roots:  "who say to the seers, 'Do not see,' and to the prophets, 'Do not prophesy...'"  This is also true of the Hebrew:

אֲשֶׁר אָמְרוּ לָֽרֹאִים לֹא תִרְאוּ וְלַחֹזִים לֹא תֶחֱזוּ

Bridging verses 11 and 12, there's a similar construction:  "'Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.'  Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel...."  Unlike the words in verse 10, the phrases "let us hear no more" and "therefore thus says" don't have the same verbal roots, but they're still related in meaning.  Significantly, the order is reversed here.  First, it's "to the seers, 'Do not see'" and "to the prophets, 'Do not prophesy,'" but now, it's "hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.  Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel...."  Altogether, then, the language here gives a sense of God's turning the tables on the rebellious people and doing precisely the opposite of what they want.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

Just over a month ago, I read 1 Corinthians 10 after having found a citation of it (verse 31 specifically) in the introduction to my edition of The Bhagavad Gita.  I noticed a couple rhetorical devices in the first four verses:

1 For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.  [ESV]

This passage exhibits both anaphora (the repeated "all") and polysyndeton (the repeated "and"), and these devices provide a sense of entirety.

James 1:1

Last month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from the 23rd:

The reading was James 1:1-12.  I was following along in the Vulgate and noticed a small feature in the first verse, specifically in the phrase "Iacobus Dei et Domini nostri Iesu Christi servus."  In the ESV, this is translated as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ," and every other translation I lookt at has a similar rendering in terms of word order.  In the Latin, though, the word for "servant" ("servus") comes last in the phrase, and this mirrors a servant's subordinate position.  This is also true of the Greek:  Ἰάκωβος θεοῦ καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ δοῦλος.

Amos 5:12

About a month ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 17 October:

The reading was Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, and I noticed a small feature that I'd missed earlier that week when the same reading was on Worship Anew.

Here's Amos 5:12:  "For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins - you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate."

There's parallelism between "how many are your transgressions" and "how great are your sins," and this provides a sense of that large amount.

For what it's worth:  I noticed a similar feature in Psalm 49:6 earlier this year.

Matthew 6:30, Luke 12:28

A few weeks ago, I finally got back to my practice of reading the whole chapter of any Biblical citations I run across, after having neglected it for months.  In catching up, I read Matthew 6 because of a reference to it in a C.S. Lewis letter (writing to Owen Barfield in September 1945, Lewis alludes to verse 3).  Jesus' comment "'will he not much more clothe you'" (in verse 30) caught my attention, and I realized that it may have a wider scope than I'd originally thought (also the parallel in Luke 12:28).

In its immediate context, the comment refers merely to physical clothing.  I hadn't considered before that what God does for Adam and Eve at the end of Genesis 3 (verse 21:  "And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them") is a specific example of this, probably the epitome.  The phrase "'much more clothe you'" reminded me of 2 Corinthians 5:4, though, which seems to refer to clothing in a different way:  "For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened - not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."  In light of that context, I think the clothing in Matthew 6:30 and Luke 12:28 can also be viewed more metaphorically, as it is in Isaiah 61:10:  "He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness."  God clothes us physically, as He does the lilies of the field, but He also clothes us metaphorically by giving us that salvation and righteousness.

Matthew 10:39

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Greek went over Matthew 10:39:

I noticed that there's a chiastic structure, and that this highlights the opposites "find" and "lose."

ὁ εὑρὼν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ

ἀπολέσει αὐτὴν

καὶ ὁ ἀπολέσας τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ

εὑρήσει αὐτήν.

Here's the ESV translation:

'Whoever finds his life

will lose it,

and whoever loses his life for my sake

will find it.'

This structure is also in the Latin Vulgate:

Qui invenit animam suam

perdet illam

et qui perdiderit animam suam propter me

inveniet eam

My German New Testament:

Wer sein Leben findet,

der wird's verlieren;

und wer sein Leben verliert um meinetwillen,

der wird's finden.

And my French New Testament:

Celui qui conservera sa vie

la perdre,

et celui qui perdra sa vie à cause de moi

la retrouvera.

Mark 10:21

A couple weeks ago (13 October, Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost), the Gospel reading was Mark 10:17-22.  While watching Worship Anew, I was following along in the Latin Vulgate and noticed a significant difference in verse 21.  In the ESV, Jesus tells the rich young man, "You lack one thing" (the NIV and NKJV simply invert this:  "One thing you lack"), but in the Vulgate, He says, "Unum tibi deest" ("One thing is lacking from you," although technically, "tibi" is in the dative case).  The Greek is similar:  ἕν σε ὑστερεῖ.

The rich young man is too concerned about his own efforts in acquiring eternal life, apparently not understanding that whatever they are, they would be insufficient and that eternal life is given to him freely (just like an earthly inheritance).  The accusative σε in the Greek (and dative "tibi" in the Latin) stands in contrast to the nominative "you" in the English translations, and, coincidentally, this matches the lesson (or a lesson) that the man needs to learn:  he doesn't have to be the subject or the one doing the action.  It's done for him.  

For what it's worth:  in my German New Testament, this clause is "Eines fehlt dir" (with the dative "dir"), and in my French New Testament, it's "Il te manque une chose" (with the accusative "te").

2 Samuel 11-12

Lately, I've been reading 2 Samuel in the NIV, and I noticed an interesting feature about how Bathsheba is referred to in chapters 11 and 12.  She's introduced in 2 Samuel 11:3:  "and David sent someone to find out about her.  The man said, 'Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?'"  She's not called Bathsheba again until 12:24.  Aside from pronouns and one instance of "the woman" (in 11:5), she's called various forms of "Uriah's wife" (11:26, 12:9, 12:10, 12:15).  By repeatedly referring to her this way, the text emphasizes Bathsheba's existing marriage to Uriah and the adulterous nature of the relationship that she and David have.

Matthew 10:28

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Greek went over Matthew 10:28:

καὶ μὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶμα, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι· φοβεῖσθε δὲ μᾶλλον τὸν δυνάμενον καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα ἀπολέσαι ἐν γεέννῃ.

'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.'  [ESV]

I noticed that there's a chiastic structure between ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶμα (in which the direct object comes last) and τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι (in which the direct object comes first), and this inversion highlights the sort of opposite nature of "killing" and "not being able to kill."

This same structure is also in the Latin Vulgate:  "et nolite timere eos qui occidunt corpus animam autem non possunt occidere sed potius eum timete qui potest et animam et corpus perdere in gehennam."

Matthew 6:21

A couple weeks ago, I happened to read Matthew 6:21 in Middle English:  "For where thi tresoure is, there also thin herte is."  In Greek, it's ὅπου γάρ ἐστιν ὁ θησαυρός σου, ἐκεῖ ἔσται καὶ ἡ καρδία σου, and in the ESV, it's "'For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.'"  In the Middle English version, ἔσται is translated in the present tense ("is") rather than the future ("will be"), but maybe it was because of this that I realized that structurally, the two clauses have much in common.  In the Greek, it's:

[form of "to be"] [article] [noun] [possessive pronoun]

ἐστιν ὁ θησαυρός σου ("is the treasure of you")

ἔσται... ἡ καρδία σου ("will be... the heart of you")

The sort of parallelism between ἐστιν and ἔσται isn't as clear in Modern English because the single word is doesn't correspond to the two-word phrase "will be" as neatly.

To some degree, this structural similarity mirrors the meaning; the treasure and heart are in the same place, and the clauses have a parity, too.

This feature is also present in the Latin Vulgate, perhaps even a bit more strongly, since the relative pronoun ubi ("where") is only one letter different from the adverb ibi ("there"):

Ubi enim est thesaurus tuus ibi est et cor tuum

And in my French New Testament:

Car là où est ton trésor, là aussi sera ton cœur.