Psalm 121:5

Of course, after I already published a post about Psalm 121, I find something else to write about it.

When the Daily Dose of Hebrew went over verse 5 about two weeks ago, I learned that the word that my Bible translates as "keeper" is actually a participle from the verb שָׁמַר:

A participle is a verbal adjective, and some of the other translations I follow along in side more with the verbal part and simply translate it as a verb.  Latin:  "Dominus custodiet te."  German:  "Der HERR behütet dich."  My French translation, on the other hand, renders it as a noun:  "Le Seigneur, ton gardien," which is the same as the ESV:  "The LORD is your keeper."

I prefer translating this participle as a verb, however, because it more clearly illustrates God's active protection.

Psalm 139:5

The Psalm reading on Worship Anew last week was part of Psalm 139.  I was following along in my French translation and found an interesting feature in verse 5:  "Tu me devances et me poursuis, tu m'enserres, tu as mis la main sur moi."  The ESV translation, which doesn't correspond exactly to this French translation, is "You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me."

I've written about this sort of feature before, but because of French word order, "me" (in bold) is somewhat literally "hem[med]... in" by the subject and verb in this clause:  "Tu m'enserres."

Psalm 121:2

The Daily Dose of Hebrew has been going through some Psalms lately.  While following along in the Latin Vulgate, I noticed an interesting feature in Psalm 121:2:

"My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."

"Auxilium meum [venit] a Domino qui fecit caelum et terram."

I don't think "heaven and earth" is technically a merism, but there is a sense of opposites here.  Because caelum (second declension neuter) and terram (first declension feminine) are in different declensions and have different grammatical genders, these opposites are highlighted.

John 6:41

Last week, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on John 6:41:

Dr. Plummer mentions that "Ἐγόγγυζον" (which can mean "grumbled" or "murmured," among other things) is "an onomatopoetic word."

I don't have any particularly significant comment about this; I just found it interesting that in the three foreign language translations that I follow along in, this onomatopoetic quality is retained.

German:  "Da murrten die Juden über ihn, weil er sagte:  Ich bin das Brot, das vom Himmel gekommen ist,"

French:  "Les Juifs murmuraient à son sujet, parce qu'il avait dit:  Je suis le pain qui est descendu du ciel."

Latin:  "Murmurabant ergo Iudaei de illo quia dixisset ego sum panis qui de caelo descendi"

The French murmure and the Latin murmurare both mean "to murmur," but the German murren means "to complain about."