Psalm 119:121

Before watching the Daily Dose of Hebrew video on Psalm 119:121 last month, I read the translation in the Latin Vulgate.

Feci iudicium et iustitiam non tradas me calumniantibus me

In the ESV, this is rendered as:  "I have done what is just and right; do not leave me to my oppressors."

"Iudicium" and "iustitiam" alliterate, and they have the same number of syllables, so even in the language, there's a sense of the orderliness and balance of "what is just and right."

A couple weeks after noting this, I happened to look at this Psalm in the front of The Lutheran Hymnal and discovered that this alliteration and syllabic balance is present in that translation too:  "I have done judgement and justice:  leave me not to mine oppressors."

Luke 16:22

Last month, after finding a citation to Luke 14:23 in a book of C.S. Lewis' letters, I read some chapters of Luke.  When I got to the account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, I noticed a detail in verse 22:  "The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.  The rich man also died and was buried."

This may be obvious, but I hadn't realized before that this verse is the very point where the situations of these two men change.  Lazarus' situation improves, but the rich man's worsens.  Throughout the account, there's a contrast between the two men, and the parallel structure in this verse highlights it:  after death, Lazarus goes up ("carried by the angels to Abraham's side"), but the rich man goes down ("buried").

Simul iustus et peccator

This is a bit tangential to the focus of this blog, but I thought I'd put it here anyway.

In the Worship Anew service for All Saints' Day, Rev. Dr. Ahlersmeyer mentioned the Latin phrase "simul iustus et peccator" (simultaneously righteous and sinner).  I'd heard this phrase before, but after I heard it during the All Saints' Day service, I realized that the specific parts of speech of iustus and peccator may have significance.

Iustus is a simple adjective, but peccator is a noun derived from the fourth principle part of the verb peccare (to sin).  (In the same way, factor is derived from facere, monitor from monēre, et cetera.)  To my mind, then, peccator has a greater sense of action than an adjective like iustus, and this fits with how our righteousness (or justification, to use a word that's more closely related etymologically) comes not from us, but as a gift from God.  We play no active role in it.

Mark 10:30

I'll have started Luke by the time this post is published, but at the time of writing, I've been reading Mark.  I found an instance of polysyndeton in Mark 10:30 (quoted with verse 29 for context):  "29 Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.'"

The function of the polysyndeton here seems to be simply to illustrate the abundance of this "hundredfold."