Joel 2:3

I've been reading Joel lately (although by the time this post is published, I'll have finished it and moved on to Amos).  A couple weeks ago, I noticed a nice feature in the first part of 2:3:  "Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns."  There's a chiasm here, so even in the structure of the sentence, fire is both in front of and behind the people.  From what I can tell, however, this feature isn't present in the original Hebrew.

Mark 8:31

I'm still working my way through Mark in the Daily Dose of Greek archives.  A little over a week ago, I watched the video for Mark 8:31:

I noticed polysyndeton among the infinitives:  καὶ ἤρξατο διδάσκειν αὐτοὺς ὅτι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πολλὰ παθεῖν καὶ ἀποδοκιμασθῆναι ὑπὸ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καὶ τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ τῶν γραμματέων καὶ ἀποκτανθῆναι καὶ μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀναστῆναι·

This repetition gives some sense of amount, reflecting that πολλὰ.

1 Corinthians 15:24

I forgot to write about this earlier, but when I watched Worship Anew last month (22 November - the Last Sunday of the Church Year), I noticed a small feature in the epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 15.  Verse 24 is "Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power."  "εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν·"  There's polysyndeton (the repeated "and" or "καὶ"), and this - along with "every" (πᾶσαν) - gives a sense of completeness.

Hosea 1:7

I recently started reading Hosea and noticed a small feature in 1:7:  "'But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God.  I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.'"  The second sentence exhibits polysyndeton (the repeated conjunction "or"), and this emphasizes the contrast between the one who will save them and the many things that will not.

Proverbs 13:16

While reading Proverbs 13 last month, I noticed a small feature in verse 16:  "In everything the prudent acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly."  As if to highlight that "flaunt[ing]," that half of the verse has both alliteration and consonance ("a fool flaunts his folly").  I lookt at some other translations, but of what I have, this feature is unique to the ESV.

John 4:14

I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last month, and I started wondering whether the Latin inscription on the Grail tablet ("Quisquid bibit aquam...") had any similarity to John 4 in the Latin Vulgate.  I lookt it up and found that the Vulgate has different indefinite pronouns.

While looking this up, though, I noticed an error in verse 14 in the NIV translation.  "ὃς δ᾽ ἂν πίῃ ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος οὗ ἐγὼ δώσω αὐτῷ, οὐ μὴ διψήσει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, ἀλλὰ τὸ ὕδωρ ὃ δώσω αὐτῷ γενήσεται ἐν αὐτῷ πηγὴ ὕδατος ἁλλομένου εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον" is rendered as "but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  If I understand my Greek correctly, αὐτῷ is singular, but the NIV translates it as "them" (three times!).  Not only is this an inaccurate translation, but it also creates a grammatical problem in the English translation:  there's a disagreement in number between the plural "them" and the singular antecedent "whoever."

Proverbs 6:20-22

At the end of September, I started reading a chapter of Proverbs before I go to bed.  I noted before that there's a similarity between Proverbs 1:8-9 and Deuteronomy 6:4-9, but I found an even stronger resemblance between that same passage in Deuteronomy and Proverbs 6:20-22:  "20 My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.  21 Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.  22 When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you."

Here's Deuteronomy 6:4-9:  "4 'Hear, O Israel:  The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.'"

Both passages talk about "bind[ing]" these commandments to one's self, but the strongest similarity is between Deuteronomy 6:7 and Proverbs 6:22:  "when you walk... when you lie down... and when you rise/awake."

Daniel 9:18

I've been reading Daniel lately, and a couple weeks ago, I found the same sort of translation error that I found in Deuteronomy 9:6 last month.  The ESV translates Daniel 9:18 as:  "O my God, incline your ear and hear.  Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name.  For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy."  (The NIV is no better; its translation is "Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name.  We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.")

As with that verse in Deuteronomy, there's a misplaced "not."  It's clear from looking at the Hebrew that "because of our righteousness" is what should be negated, not our "present[ing] our pleas before you."  A better translation would be:  "We present our pleas before you not because of our righteousness but because of your great mercy."

Deuteronomy 9:6

A little over a month ago, the Daily Dose of Hebrew went over Deuteronomy 9:6:

My routine is to copy the verse, read it in my Bible, and then watch the video.  While doing this, I found a translation error in the ESV, which translates this verse as:  "Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people."  The "not" is misplaced.  It's clear from the Hebrew word order that "because of your righteousness" is what's negated, not God's "giving you this good land."  The NIV translation gets it right:  "Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people."

Psalm 22:13

A section of Psalm 32 was one of the readings on Worship Anew a couple weeks ago.  I was following along in the Psalms portion of my French hymnal, and half of verse 7 ("de chants de délivrance, tu m'as entouré") made me realize that a specific feature of French almost mirrors the meaning.  It doesn't quite work in Psalm 32:7 (because there's an ablative of means), but I found a better example in Psalm 22:13.  In French, it's "Des fauvres nombreux me cernent, des taureaux de Basan m'encerclent" ("Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me").  Because French has a subject-object-verb word order*, "me" (in bold) is literally "surround[ed]" by the noun and verb (in italics):  "Des fauvres nombreux me cernent, des taureaux de Basan m'encerclent."

I lookt in my German Psalter and found a similar feature there.  In the German translation, the verbs are perfects ("they have surrounded me"), but because of German word order, the "me"s here are literally surrounded too:  "Gewaltige Stiere haben mich umgeben, mächtige Büffel haben mich umringt."

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*In this instance, at least.  If I remember aright, French uses subject-object-verb word order only if the object is a pronoun.

Colossians 1:23

Last week, I was looking at some verses in Colossians 1, and I noticed a small feature in verse 23:  "if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister."  "Stable" and "steadfast" alliterate, and this repetition of sound gives a sense of the words' meanings.  There's a sense of constancy.

Of the translations I have (English and otherwise), this feature is specific to the ESV.  In the NIV, this phrase is translated as "established and firm," and in the NKJV it's "grounded and steadfast."

Psalm 147:9

I recently remembered something I'd noticed about Psalm 147:9 years ago, and I figured I might as well write about it here.  The verse is:  "He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry."  Because "their food" is implied in the second clause, because "that" can function as a relative pronoun or a demonstrative adjective, and because the form of "cry" here can be read as a noun or a verb, the English translation of this verse can also mean something along the lines of:  "God gives food to the beasts, and He gives a specific noise to the ravens."  While this is true from a certain point of view, it's clear from looking at the Hebrew that this isn't the intended reading.

In German, this verse is "Der dem Vieh sein Futter gibt, den jungen Raben, die zu ihm rufen."  This is phrased differently so that there's no ambiguity:  "to the young ravens that cry to Him."

In doing a bit of research to write about this, I discovered that Jesus references this verse in Luke 12:24:  "'Consider the ravens:  they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.  Of how much more value are you than the birds!'"  Job 38:41 is also relevant:  "Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?"

Proverbs 1:8-9

Sharper Iron on KFUO recently started going through Proverbs.  This reminded me that back in March, when the Daily Dose of Hebrew was going through Proverbs 1, I found a connection between verses 8-9 and Deuteronomy 6.

First, here are the texts.  Proverbs 1:8-9:  "8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, 9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck."

Deuteronomy 6:4-9:  "4 'Hear, O Israel:  The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.'"

Dr. Howell - the host of the Daily Dose of Hebrew - notes the similarity between "Hear, my son..." in Proverbs 1:8 and "Hear, O Israel..." in Deuteronomy 6:4, but this similarity can be taken a bit further.  In the same way that the "words that I command you today" will be "a sign on your hand" and "frontlets between your eyes," the "father's instruction" and "mother's teaching" are "a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck."  I don't think there are any similarities in the specific Hebrew words used, but in both passages (Proverbs 1:8-9 and Deuteronomy 6:8), the words of wisdom are worn, almost as adornments.

The study notes in my Bible also point to Proverbs 3:3:  "Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart."  Reading a bit further, I noticed Proverbs 3:21-22:  "My son, do not lose sight of these - keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck."

Psalm 136

On Worship Anew a few weeks ago, the Psalm reading was a section of Psalm 136.  This reminded me of something I'd realized before but hadn't thought to write about.

Every other line of the Psalm is "for his steadfast love endures forever."  Here are the first three verses:  "1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.  2 Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.  3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever."  This refrain even punctuates the accounts of Creation and the Exodus:  "6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever; 7 to him who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever; 8 the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever; 9 the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever... 13 to him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever; 14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever."

This repetition of "his steadfast love endures forever" provides a sense of the surety and constancy of that "steadfast love."

Deuteronomy 8:4

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Hebrew went over Deuteronomy 8:4:

"Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years."

I thought it interesting that while these verbs are opposites in some ways ("wear out" describes a decrease in material, and "swell" describes in increase in size), because they're both negated, they end up relating the same thing (that God preserved His people during the exodus), just coming from different directions.

John 4:9

About a month ago, the Daily Dose of Greek went over John 4:9:

"The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?'  (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)"

I found it interesting that while the meaning is "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans," the words for "Jews" and "Samaritans" are next to each other.

My French New Testament is exactly the opposite in this regard.  Almost as an illustration of this comment, "Jews" and "Samaritans" are as far apart as they can be in the sentence:  "Les Juifs, en effet, n'ont pas de relations avec les Samaritains."

Psalm 91:5-6

I've written about Psalm 91 twice before, but when it was one of the readings on Worship Anew last month, I noticed something else about verses 5-6.  I was following along in my French hymnal, where these verses are:

5 Tu ne craindras ni les terreurs de la nuit,
ni la flèche qui vole au grand jour,
6 ni la peste qui rôde dans le noir,
ni le fléau qui frappe à midi.

The formatting (which I followed) makes it clear that there's anaphora here:  the repeated "ni."  There are four "ni"s, but the corresponding English has a "not" and three "nor"s:

5 You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

It may just be because of the formatting, but I think the French does a better job of evoking a list of things that we need not fear because we have God's protection.  It's as if each "ni" is a separate bullet point.

Additionally, both grammatical genders (masculine "le" and feminine "la") and singular and plural are represented, which gives a sense of entirety.

Romans 8:38-39

I recently wrote a post about anaphora in LSB #724 "If God Himself Be for Me."  The verses of the hymn in which I noticed anaphora are drawn from Romans 8:38-39, which also exhibits this feature (although here, because they're all conjunctions, it's polysyndeton):  "38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  As in the hymn, the repetition of "nor" provides a sense of assurance.

Mark 5:25-27

Last month, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos that cover Mark 5:25-27.

In the video for verse 25, Dr. Plummer says that this hypotactic style is "unusual for Mark."  Since I don't have much experience in reading the original Greek of the New Testament, I'll have to take his word on that, but in studying these verses, I realized that this hypotactic style has a function here.

The subject γυνὴ in verse 25 doesn't receive a verb (ἥψατο) until verse 27.  In between are various participles.

25 Καὶ γυνὴ οὖσα ἐν ῥύσει αἵματος δώδεκα ἔτη
26 καὶ πολλὰ παθοῦσα ὑπὸ πολλῶν ἰατρῶν καὶ δαπανήσασα τὰ παρ᾽ αὐτῆς πάντα καὶ μηδὲν ὠφεληθεῖσα ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον εἰς τὸ χεῖρον ἐλθοῦσα,
27 ἀκούσασα περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, ἐλθοῦσα ἐν τῷ ὄχλῳ ὄπισθεν ἥψατο τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ·

(Here's a link to the interlinear.)

The distance between the subject and the verb provides an illustration of the twelve years during which this woman has been in this condition.  Along with giving detail, it represents duration.  Her touching Jesus' garment simultaneously completes this clause ("the woman... touched") and heals her discharge of blood (as verse 29 describes).  The end of her suffering coincides with this grammatical completion.

Deuteronomy 6:4

In his sermon for Trinity Sunday on Worship Anew last month, Dr. Ahlersmeyer mentions Deuteronomy 6:4:  "'Hear, O Israel:  The LORD our God, the LORD is one.'"  I'd had this verse on my list of things to write about for almost a year (since 18 July), but I waited to write about it until the Daily Dose of Hebrew went over this verse to see if I could gain any additional insight.

What I noticed almost a year ago is that there are three nouns here ("The LORD our God, the LORD") that are linkt by the predicate nominative ("one"), so there's something of a picture of the Trinity:  one God, three persons.

I noticed and wrote about a similar feature in Deuteronomy 4:35 back in February, and as I followed along in the Daily Dose of Hebrew videos, I found the same thing in 4:39 and 5:6.

Matthew 28:20

One of the readings for Trinity Sunday earlier this month was Matthew 28:16-20.  In following along in my French New Testament, I noticed something interesting about the last verse.  In English, it's "'teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'"  The French is "et enseignez-leur à observer tout ce que je vous ai prescrit.  Et voici, je suis avec vous tous les jours, jusqu'à la fin du monde."  "Tous les jours" stuck out to me.  At first, I thought this was simply a characteristically French expression, but I found the same phrase ("all of the days") when I lookt at the German ("und lehret sie halten alles, was ich euch befohlen habe.  Und siehe, ich bin bei euch alle Tage bis an der Welt Ende.") and the Greek ("διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν· καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος.").

I greatly prefer "all of the days" or "every day" over "always."  "Always" is broad and rather general where "all of the days"/"every day" is more specific and focused, which gives a greater sense of assurance.

Psalm 146:7-10

Back in January (while watching Worship Anew from 15 December), I noticed some anaphora at the end of Psalm 146, starting halfway through verse 7:

The LORD sets the prisoners free; 8 the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.  The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.  9 The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.  10 The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations.  Praise the LORD!

I didn't write about it then, probably because I didn't have anything else to say about it.

Psalm 146 was also the Psalm in the Worship Anew program for 10 May, and while watching this last month (only one week late this time!), I realize a function of this anaphora.  "The LORD" is repeated, but His actions are different in every clause, which illustrates the variety of His capabilities.  In a word, His omnipotence.

John 3:12

Back in May 2018, one of the readings in the lectionary was from John 3, and I noticed a chiasm in verse 12.  Jesus says to Nicodemus, "'If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?'"

It breaks down like this:

If I have told you earthly things

And you do not believe, 

How can you believe

If I tell you heavenly things?

In my note to myself, I said that I didn't know if this feature was present in the Greek or whether it has any significance.

The Daily Dose of Greek went over this verse last month, and I learned that this chiasm isn't present in the Greek.  It's a feature unique to the English translation.

Mark 4:41

The Daily Dose of Greek "re-runs" of Mark on YouTube stopt after chapter 2, but I've been continuing on my own and digging through the archives.  Last month, I finished chapter 4, and I noticed a small feature in the last verse:

"And they [the disciples] were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'"

Both that translation (ESV) and Dr. Plummer render "καὶ ὁ ἄνεμος καὶ ἡ θάλασσα" as "even the wind and the sea," but since "καὶ... καὶ..." can function as a correlative, that phrase could also be translated as "both the wind and the sea."  In that reading and because ἄνεμος is masculine and θάλασσα is feminine (as opposed to two words of the same grammatical gender), there's an even greater sense of the range of creation that is obedient to Jesus.

That said, I do think "even the wind and the sea" is a better translation.  Even provides greater emphasis.

Ezekiel 36:25

Earlier this month, I read Ezekiel 36, and I found a chiasm in verse 25:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean

From all your uncleannesses, 

And from all your idols

I will cleanse you.

I lookt up the Hebrew text, and I'm pretty sure it also has this feature.

Around the same time I read this particular verse, I was following along with the Daily Dose of Greek series in John 3 where Jesus is talking to Nicodemus and refers to baptism.  Dr. Plummer mentions this verse from Ezekiel in his video on John 3:5, and the study notes in my Bible also reference it.  Clearly, this verse in Ezekiel describes baptism.

But since it has this chiastic structure, it also points to Christ's crucifixion.  The study notes in my Bible explain that "sprinkle" is a "term most often used with the blood of the atonement and covenant," and that description seems to fit more with the crucifixion than with baptism.

Les siècles des siècles

For a little over a year and a half (26 June 2018 to 4 February 2020), I followed along in the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Revelation (copying out each verse).  This is where I learned that the Greek phrase "τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων" literally means something like "the ages of the ages" but is an idiom that means "forever."  (The first instance of this that I could find is in Revelation 11:15.)

As I noted before, since the lectionary started over in December, I've been following along with each Sunday's readings in French.  I have a French New Testament and a French hymnal that has most of the Psalms.  At end of the Gloria Patri after each Psalm, the French has "les siècles des siècles," and for a few weeks, I'd been suspicious that this is the same way that the French New Testament translates "τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων."  I finally lookt it up a couple weeks ago, and not only did I confirm that, but I also discovered that "les siècles des siècles" has the same literal meaning as "τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων" - "the centuries of the centuries."

John 10:11

Once again, I'm behind, but while watching the previous week's Worship Anew last week, I noticed a small feature in John 10:11 in my French New Testament.  "Je suis le bon berger.  Le bon berger donne sa vie pour ses brebis."  "I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."  Granted, it's a rather small instance, but in French, there's alliteration in "good shepherd" ("bon berger").  This consonance gives something of an idea of Jesus' perfection.

Ezekiel 29:9-10

I'm still making my way through Ezekiel, but I recently found a note I made in late March about chapter 29 that I forgot to write about.

The Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy against Pharaoh, and in the second half of verse 9 and into verse 10, He says, "Because you [Pharaoh] said, 'The Nile is mine, and I made it,' 10 therefore, behold, I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Cush."

Pharaoh's claim that "The Nile is mine, and I made it" is very similar to what the Psalmist says of God in Psalm 95:5:  "The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land."  (I lookt up the Hebrew, and while most of it is beyond me, I did notice that both verses use the same verb for "made.")  Pharaoh's claim is prideful and arrogant, but the Psalmist properly credits and (elsewhere in this Psalm) praises God for His creation.


As brief side notes:

"From Migdol to Syene" and "the sea/the dry land" are both merisms.  The first seems simply to indicate a specific geographic area, but the second illustrates the variety and expanse of God's creation and - in turn - His powerful dominion over it.

Psalm 95:5 has a chiastic structure whose elements are features of God's creation ("the sea" and "the dry land") and the act of creation ("he made it" and "his hands formed"):

The sea is his

for he made it 

and his hands formed

the dry land.

Psalm 13:1-2

A couple weeks ago, I heard Psalm 13 and discovered a small feature in the first two verses:

1 How long, O LORD?  Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?  2 How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?  How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

The repeated "how long" is an example of anaphora, and in its use here, it gives a sense of duration.  Things have been going on in this same way for some time, and the Psalmist wonders when there will be a change.

Psalm 113:3

Last month, Concordia University Wisconsin tweeted Psalm 113:3:

#PassageOfTheDay "From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised!" - Psalms 113:3 pic.twitter.com/aPZQ4cocmc

— Concordia University (@CUWisconsin) March 19, 2020

I'd realized before that "from the rising of the sun to its setting" is a merism, but I had been thinking about it merely temporally:  from morning to night.  The paraphrase "from east to west" made me realize that it can also be taken spatially:  all over the world.

Psalm 28:7

Within the span of one week last month, I ran across references to Psalm 28:7 in two different hymns:  "Be Thou still my strength and shield" in LSB #918 "Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer" and "You are my strength, my shield, my rock" in LSB #734 "I Trust, O Lord, Your Holy Name" (which KFUO posted on Instagram).  Psalm 28:7 is "The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him."

I noticed that there's a bit of alliteration:  "my strength and my shield."  While only slight, this illustrates that God is steadfast and immovable.

For what it's worth, the same feature is present in German:  "Der HERR ist meine Stärke und mein Schild; auf ihn hofft mein Herz, und mir ist geholfen.  Nun ist mein Herz fröhlich, und ich will ihm danken mit meinem Lied."

Proverbs 1:13

Although I'm about two weeks behind, I've been following along in the Daily Dose of Hebrew's diversion into Proverbs as the series takes a break from Deuteronomy.  A couple weeks ago, I noticed some significance of the structure of Proverbs 1:13:

There's something of a chiastic structure:  "All precious goods we shall find; we shall fill our houses with plunder."  While the subjects are inflected into the verbs, they're literally surrounded by "precious goods" and "plunder," so in their description of themselves, the enticing sinners are exactly where they want to be:  in the midst of wealth.

Matthew 4:10-11

A couple weeks ago, I found an old note I'd made about Matthew 4:10-11 back when I was following along in the lectionary in my German New Testament.  This is at the end of the account of the temptation of Jesus:  "10 Da sprach Jesus zu ihm:  Weg mit dir, Satan! denn es steht geschrieben:  »Du sollst anbeten den Herrn, deinen Gott, und ihm allein dienen.«  11 Da verließ ihn der Teufel.  Und siehe, da traten Engel zu ihm und dienten ihm."

"10 Then Jesus said to him, 'Be gone, Satan!  For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."'  11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him."

I was curious about "him only shall you serve" and "angels... were ministering to him."  These are different verbs in English, but the same verb in German (albeit with different inflections).  Jesus says, "Du sollst... deinen Gott... dienen," and then, "Engel... dienten ihm."  Immediately after Jesus quotes, "You shall serve your God," the angels do serve their God.  The range of meaning of the verb dienen is wide enough to cover both of these uses.

The same is true of the French translation I'm following along in now:  "10 Jésus lui dit:  Retire-toi, Satan! Car il est écrit:  Tu adoreras le Seigneur, ton Dieu, et tu le serviras lui seul.  11 Alors le diable le laissa.  Et voici, des anges vinrent auprès de Jésus, et le servaient."

I lookt up the Greek to find that it uses different verbs (λατρεύω and διακονέω), so this is a feature specific to these German and French translations.

Psalm 121:6-8

Psalm 121 was the appointed Psalm last Sunday (the Second Sunday in Lent), and while following along in my French New Testament while watching Worship Anew, I noticed some significant anaphora in verses 7 and 8:

7 Le Seigneur te gardera de tout mal, il gardera ta vie.  8 Le Seigneur te gardera, au départ et au retour, maintenant, à jamais.

 I like the New King James Version:

7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.  8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

The repeated "shall preserve" illustrates God's constancy of care while the variety of direct objects ("you," "your soul," and "your going out and your coming in") demonstrates the breadth.  As in Psalm 91, the you here ("te" in French) is singular (as it is in the Hebrew), which indicates God's individualized protection.

About a year ago, I noticed that there's a merism in verse 6:  "The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night."  There are also merisms in verse 8 ("your going out and your coming in" and "this time... forevermore"), and all of these provide an idea of the range of God's care.

Psalm 2:9

The Psalm reading for last Sunday (Transfiguration) was a section of Psalm 2.  This doesn't appear in Liturgies et cantiques Luthériens, so I followed along in my German Bible and noticed again something I discovered three years ago.  In verse 9, the parallelism is emphasized by alliteration:

Du sollst sie mit einem eisernen Zepter zerschlagen, wie Töpfe sollst du sie zerschmeißen.

In English, this is:  "You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."  The alliteration between zerschlagen and zerschmeißen highlights the parallelism of break and dash.

Deuteronomy 4:35

I've been following along in the Daily Dose of Hebrew series on Deuteronomy, and I noticed a small feature in Deuteronomy 4:35:

אַתָּה הָרְאֵתָ לָדַעַת כִּי יְהוָה הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים אֵין עוֹד מִלְבַדּֽוֹ׃

"To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him."

In English, there's merely "the LORD is God," but in Hebrew there are three words referring to God:  "the LORD," "He," and "God."  Because there are three, there's a picture of the Trinity.

Matthew 4:20, 22; Luke 5:11

A couple weeks ago (the Third Sunday after Epiphany), one of the readings was Matthew 4:12-25.  Part of this (verses 18-22, Jesus' calling the first disciples) is paralleled in Mark 1:16-20, and - after looking up the Greek text - I discovered that what I wrote about two of the verses from Mark 1 is applicable to this too.

Matthew 4:20:  οἱ δὲ εὐθέως ἀφέντες τὰ δίκτυα ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ.

"Immediately they [Simon and Andrew] left their nets and followed him [Jesus]."

Matthew 4:22:  οἱ δὲ εὐθέως ἀφέντες τὸ πλοῖον καὶ τὸν πατέρα αὐτῶν ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ.

"Immediately they [James and John] left the boat and their father and followed him [Jesus]."

In both verses, the participle ἀφέντες (leaving) is translated as a finite verb (left) in all of the translations I referenced.  As with Mark 1:18, 20, I would argue that it should be translated as a participle because this leaves only a single verb in each verse and that verb is the most significant:  following Jesus.

The account in Luke (5:1-11) has not only ἀφέντες but also καταγαγόντες and - aside from my French translation, which keeps καταγαγόντες as a participle ("ayant ramené") - all of the translations I lookt at translated these as finite verbs too.

Luke 5:11:  καὶ καταγαγόντες τὰ πλοῖα ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, ἀφέντες πάντα ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ.

"And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him."

With just ἠκολούθησαν as a finite verb and the participles as participles, the focus is kept on following Jesus:  "And having brought their boats to shore and leaving everything, they followed him."

Revelation 1:8, 22:13

I'm getting to the end of the Daily Dose of Greek series on Revelation and probably will have finished by the time this post is published.  I noticed that in Revelation 22:13 (and also in Revelation 1:8) there are seven nominatives (excepting the speech tag in Revelation 1:8):

Revelation 22:13:  ἐγὼ [εἰμι] τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ, ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ὁ ἔσχατος, ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ τέλος.

"I [am] the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Revelation 1:8:  Ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ, λέγει κύριος ὁ θεός, ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὁ παντοκράτωρ.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "Who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

Seven is a significant number in the Bible (the number of days in creation, the number of petitions in the Lord's Prayer, &c.), so I think it's significant that each of these verses has seven nominatives, but I'm not quite sure what that significance is.

Mark 2:3

Although still behind, I'm continuing along in the Daily Dose of Greek series on Mark.  Recently, I watched the video for Mark 2:3:

I think it's significant that αἰρόμενον is a passive participle.  Because it's not a finite verb, the sense of action isn't as strong (it's more incidental than a focus), and because it's passive there's obviously the meaning of the paralytic's being acted upon rather than his acting himself.  Both of these grammatical features illustrate his paralysis.

Psalm 103:20

While translating an-other Intonation and Responsorium pair from the Kirchen-Gesangbuch, I discovered something I thought interesting.

Here's the text from the Kirchen-Gesangbuch:

I.  Lobet den HErrn, ihr seine Engel, ihr starken Helden.  Halleluja.
R. Die ihr seinen Befehl ausrichtet.  Halleluja.

This is most of Psalm 103:20:  "Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, [obeying the voice of his word!]"

Where the ESV has "you mighty ones," the German has "ihr starken Helden," which I would translate as either "you mighty heroes" or "you mighty champions."  In French, it's "invincibles porteurs de ses ordres," which combines this with "who do his word" ("die ihr seinen Befehl ausrichtet") and which I would translate as "invincible carriers of His commands."

When I lookt up this passage in the STEP Bible, I discovered that the Hebrew simply uses the adjective "mighty" as a substantive.  The ESV follows this, but both the German and French translations provide a noun for "mighty" (or "invincible") to modify.