Sunday, December 17, 2023
Psalm 5:7, 10
Recently, I started over in my daily reading of Psalms and Proverbs. I had been alternating between the ESV and the NIV, but this time, I'm reading the NKJV, which I'm not very familiar with. Last week, I read Psalm 5 and noticed a contrast I'd never seen before. In verse 7, the Psalmist writes, "I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy," and in verse 10, he says, "cast them [his enemies] out in the multitude of their transgressions." The word multitude (בְּרֹב in Hebrew) is used in both verses, which highlights the contrast between "come into" and "cast... out" and between "Your mercy" and "their transgressions."
Sunday, December 3, 2023
Matthew 4:24-25
Last month, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Matthew 4:24-25:
24 Καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ἡ ἀκοὴ αὐτοῦ εἰς ὅλην τὴν Συρίαν· καὶ προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ πάντας τοὺς κακῶς ἔχοντας, ποικίλαις νόσοις καὶ βασάνοις συνεχομένους, [καὶ] δαιμονιζομένους καὶ σεληνιαζομένους καὶ παραλυτικούς· καὶ ἐθεράπευσεν αὐτούς.25 καὶ ἠκολούθησαν αὐτῷ ὄχλοι πολλοὶ ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ Δεκαπόλεως καὶ Ἱεροσολύμων καὶ Ἰουδαίας καὶ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου.24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, [and] those oppressed by demons, [and] epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
I noticed that both verses exhibit polysyndeton (the repeated καὶ), although one conjunction is in brackets in Dr. Plummer's Greek text and some are omitted in the ESV translation. In these contexts, the polysyndeton provides a sense of abundance and variety.
This feature is also present in the Latin Vulgate:
24 et abiit opinio eius in totam Syriam et obtulerunt ei omnes male habentes variis languoribus et tormentis conprehensos et qui daemonia habebant et lunaticos et paralyticos et curavit eos25 et secutae sunt eum turbae multae de Galilaea et Decapoli et Hierosolymis et Iudaea et de trans Iordanen
In my French translation, there's a repeated "de" ("from") instead of "and" in verse 25:
Une grande foule le suivit, de la Galilée, de la Décapole, de Jérusalem, de la Judée, et d'au delà du Jourdain.
This is anaphora rather than polysyndeton, but the resulting effect (a sense of abundance and variety) is the same.
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