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.

Ephesians 3:17-19

A couple weeks ago, I was looking at Ephesians 3:17-19:  "17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." [ESV]

I noticed that there are a number of rhetorical effects in the phrase "the breadth and length and height and depth" (τὸ πλάτος καὶ μῆκος καὶ ὕψος καὶ βάθος).  The list of various dimensions is something of a rhetorical catalogue; the dimensions all go in different directions, forming a sort of three-dimensional merism; and all of the elements are linked with polysyndeton.  Even just one of these effects would provide a sense of this vastness, but because there are multiple effects, the sense is compounded.

I also noticed that the phrase "filled with all the fullness of God" (πληρωθῆτε εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ) is somewhat redundant, not only in "filled with... fullness" but also in "all the fullness."  As in Psalm 65:11, though, which I wrote about last month, these redundancies mirror this abundance.

John 10:9

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Latin went over John 10:9:

ego sum ostium per me si quis introierit salvabitur et ingredietur et egredietur et pascua inveniet

"I am the door.  If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture." [ESV]

The foreignness of "ingredietur et egredietur" caught my attention, and I realized that there's an echo of Psalm 121 here.  Although the order is reversed, "go in and out" also appears in Psalm 121:8:  "The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore" [ESV].  There's also a similarity between "be[ing] saved" and the repeated יִשְׁמֹר in the last two verses of Psalm 121, which the NKJV translates as "shall preserve":  "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."

Psalm 69

Last month, I read Psalm 69 in the ESV and noticed a few features.  The Psalm starts with some water imagery that recurs in later verses:

1 Save me, O God!  For the waters have come up to my neck.  2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.  3 I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

14 Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.  15 Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.

There are waters both above and below the Psalmist, so there's something of the same effect as a merism here, and the degree of the Psalmist's peril is emphasized.

There's a similar effect with the wetness of the water that threatens to drown him and the dryness of his throat as he calls out for help.  Both qualities cause him discomfort.

Verse 8 exhibits a sort of parallelism:

I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons.

While "my brothers" and "my mother's sons" refer to the same people, the second expression describes the relationship in more distant terms, so even in the language, there's a sense of this ostracism.

Isaiah 40:30-31

A couple weeks ago, I read Isaiah 40:30-31:  "30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." [ESV]

I noticed that the contrast between the faltering strength of the "youths" and "young men" and the sustained strength of "they who wait for the LORD" is highlighted by the different number of verbs used to describe them.  The first group has three ("shall faint," "[shall] be weary," and "shall fall exhausted"), but the second group has four ("shall renew their strength," "shall mount up," "shall run," and "shall walk") (plus a further two if you include the negated "not be weary" and "not faint").  That those in the second group are able to do more illustrates the greater strength that they have because they "wait for the LORD."

Psalm 65:11

I read Psalm 65:11 in the ESV last week and noticed that the clause "your wagon tracks overflow with abundance" contains a sort of redundant description ("overflow" and "abundance" have similar meanings) and that this redundancy matches this surfeit.

This is also the sense in the NIV ("your carts overflow with abundance") and the Latin Vulgate (translated from the Septuagint, at least:  "campi tui replebuntur ubertate," "your fields will be overflowed with fertility"), but I'm not sure that this is quite the sense in the Hebrew:

עִטַּרְתָּ שְׁנַת טוֹבָתֶךָ וּמַעְגָּלֶיךָ יִרְעֲפוּן דָּֽשֶׁן׃

According to the STEP Bible, the word translated as "overflow" (יִרְעֲפוּן) means drip or trickle.  This is the sense in the NKJV ("Your paths drip with abundance"), the Vulgate translated from the Hebrew ("vestigia tua rorabunt pinguidine," "Your tracks will drip with fertility"), and my German Psalter ("deine Fußtapfen triefen von Segen," "Your footsteps drip with blessing").

I can't account for this difference in meaning, but in at least some of the translations, the abundance is mirrored by the redundant description.

Matthew 9:37

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on Matthew 9:37:

Τότε λέγει τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ· ὁ μὲν θερισμὸς πολύς, οἱ δὲ ἐργάται ὀλίγοι·

Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few" [ESV]

I noticed that in my German New Testament, the word order is altered so that the structure is inverted between "the harvest is plentiful" ("die Ernte ist groß") and "the laborers are few" ("wenige sind der Arbeiter"), highlighting the opposite nature of "plentiful" ("groß") and "few" ("wenige"):

Da sprach er zu seinen Jüngern:  Die Ernte ist groß, aber wenige sind der Arbeiter.

Psalm 51:4

I read Psalm 51 in the ESV last week, and I noticed a feature that's similar to what I found in Isaiah 1 a number of years ago.  Initially, every verse exhibits a sort of parallelism:

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin!

3 For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

This structure is broken in the fourth verse, though:

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgement.

There's no reiteration or doubling of the same sentiment here, and this more singular focus matches the exclusivity in the verse itself:  "against you, you only, have I sinned."

Proverbs 29:27

While reading Proverbs in the NKJV a couple months ago, I found yet an-other significant chiasm, this time in Proverbs 29:27:

An unjust man

is an abomination to the righteous,

and he who is upright in the way

is an abomination to the wicked.

The same structure is present in the ESV:

An unjust man

is an abomination to the righteous,

but one whose way is straight

is an abomination to the wicked.

And, very bluntly, in the NIV:

The righteous

detest the dishonest;

the wicked

detest the upright.

It's also in my German translation of Proverbs:

Ein ungerechter Mensch

ist dem Gerechten ein Greuel;

und wer recht wandelt,

ist dem Gottlosen ein Greuel.

This structure is in the Hebrew but inverted from the above:

תּוֹעֲבַת צַדִּיקִים אִישׁ עָוֶל וְתוֹעֲבַת רָשָׁע יְשַׁר־דָּֽרֶךְ׃

The word order in the Latin Vulgate is comparable:

Abominantur iusti

virum impium

et abominantur impii

eos qui in recta sunt via

Something like:

An abomination to the righteous

is an unjust man

and an abomination to the wicked

are those who are in the straight way.

In the English and German translations, the order is [unjust | righteous || upright | wicked], where in the Hebrew and the Latin Vulgate, it's [righteous | unjust || wicked | upright], but in both, the structure highlights the mutual animosity.

Proverbs 27:6

Last month, I read Proverbs 27 in the NKJV and noticed some significance in the structure of verse 6:

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

The clauses' structures are inversions of each other:  [adjective][implied copulative verb][noun + prepositional phrase] in the first but [noun + prepositional phrase][implied copulative verb][adjective] in the second.  This inversion highlights the opposites "faithful" and "deceitful," "wounds" and "kisses," and "friend" and "enemy."

None of the other translations I referenced have this structure, though, and some even differ in meaning, which I can't account for.  My German translation of Proverbs and the Latin Vulgate have the same basic meaning as the NKJV, but the ESV and NIV go in an-other direction.  In the ESV, this verse is:  "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy," and in the NIV:  "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

Proverbs 24:11

Last month, I read Proverbs 24 in the NKJV and noticed some interesting features in verse 11:

Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.

There's parallelism (of both structure and meaning) between "drawn toward death" and "stumbling to the slaughter," and this is highlighted by the alliteration in each phrase and by the balanced number of syllables in the principal words within each phrase ("drawn" and "death" have one syllable each; "stumbling" and "slaughter" two).

I referenced some other translations and the Hebrew text, but these features seem specific to the NKJV.

Matthew 8:27, Mark 4:41

When I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on Matthew 8:27 last month, I remembered my comments on Mark 4:41, which is a very similar verse, and I had a few more thoughts.

Οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι ἐθαύμασαν λέγοντες· ποταπός ἐστιν οὗτος ὅτι καὶ οἱ ἄνεμοι καὶ ἡ θάλασσα αὐτῷ ὑπακούουσιν;

And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?" [ESV]

Because καὶ... καὶ... can also be the correlative "both... and..." (as in Matthew 10:28:  καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα, "both body and soul"), the last part of the verse could be translated as "What sort of man is this that both the winds and the sea obey him?" which provides a sense of the breadth of Jesus' command over nature.  (I'll reiterate what I said about Mark 4:41, though:  "Even the winds and the sea" is probably a better translation.)

This may be (and probably is) overanalyzing the text, but there's an additional sense of breadth because there's a variety in the grammatical gender and number of the direct objects:  ἄνεμοι is masculine plural, and θάλασσα is feminine singular.  Of course, there's also a range just because the sea is beneath and the winds are around and above.

Nearly all the same can be said for this text in the Latin Vulgate:  "porro homines mirati sunt dicentes qualis est hic quia et venti et mare oboediunt ei."  "Et... et..." can be the correlative "both... and..." or even and and individually; venti (winds) is masculine plural; but mare (sea) is neuter singular.

Of what features I noted, the German text has only different grammatical genders for wind (masculine Wind) and sea (neuter Meer):  "Die Menschen aber verwunderten sich und sprachen:  Was ist das für ein Mann, daß ihm Wind und Meer gehorsam sind?"

In French, there's something of a sense of breadth between masculine plural vents (winds) and feminine singular mer (sea):  "Ces hommes furent saisis d'étonnement:  Quel est celui-ci, disaient-ils, à qui obéissent même les vents et la mer?"

John 10:4-5

About a month ago, I read John 10 in the ESV after having run across a reference to it in The Heath Anthology of American Literature, and I noticed a contrast between parts of verses 4 and 5.  Talking about a shepherd, Jesus says, "'the sheep follow him...  A stranger they will not follow.'"  The structure is inverted in the second clause (with the direct object coming first), emphasizing this difference.

I doubt that the word order in the original Greek holds this significance, though, because Greek is a more inflected language than English and word order doesn't matter as much.  In Greek, these clauses are:  τὰ πρόβατα αὐτῷ ἀκολουθεῖ (the sheep him follow) and ἀλλοτρίῳ δὲ οὐ μὴ ἀκολουθήσουσιν (a stranger but not they will follow).

The NIV and NKJV both translate these clauses with the same basic structure:  "his sheep follow him... they will never follow a stranger" and "the sheep follow him... they will by no means follow a stranger," respectively, but this inverted word order is present in my German New Testament, where these clauses are "die Schafe folgen ihm nach" and "Einem Fremden aber folgen sie nicht nach."

Luke 16:13

Earlier this month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 25 September 2019.

The reading was Luke 16:1-15, and I noticed verse 13 in particular:  "'No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money.'"  This verse is nearly identical to Matthew 6:24 and contains the same feature that I noticed there about a year ago.  There's a chiastic structure to highlight the opposites:

He will hate the one

and love the other, 

or he will be devoted to the one

and despise the other.

As with Matthew 6:24, this structure is also present in the Greek:

Οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μεισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει. οὐ δύνασθε θεῷ δουλεύειν καὶ μαμωνᾷ.

the Latin Vulgate:

Nemo servus potest duobus dominis servire aut enim unum odiet et alterum diliget aut uni adherebit et alterum contemnet non potestis Deo servire et mamonae

my German New Testament:

Kein Knecht kann zwei Herren dienen; entweder er wird den einen hassen und den andern lieben, oder er wird an dem einen hängen und den andern verachten.  Ihr könnt nicht Gott dienen und dem Mammon.

and my French New Testament:

Nul serviteur ne peut servir deux maîtres.  Car, ou il haïra l'un et aimera l'autre; ou il s'attachera à l'un et méprisera l'autre.  Vous ne pouvez servir Dieu et Mamon.

Proverbs 11:11

About a month ago, I read Proverbs 11 in the NKJV and noticed some significance in the structure of verse 11:  "By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked."  The two clauses' structures are inversions of each other, highlighting the opposites ("upright" & "wicked" and "exalted" & "overthrown").

Of the translations I have, this feature is unique to the NKJV.  It's not in the Hebrew either, where this verse is:

בְּבִרְכַּת יְשָׁרִים תָּרוּם קָרֶת וּבְפִי רְשָׁעִים תֵּהָרֵֽס׃

Following this word order, the verse is something like:  "By the blessing of the upright is exalted a city, but by the mouth of the wicked, it is overthrown."

Proverbs 10:1

A few weeks ago, I read Proverbs 10 in the NKJV and noticed a small feature in the first verse:  "The proverbs of Solomon:  A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother."

In Hebrew, the verse is:

מִשְׁלֵי שְׁלֹמֹה פ בֵּן חָכָם יְשַׂמַּח־אָב וּבֵן כְּסִיל תּוּגַת אִמּֽוֹ׃

If I understand correctly, the word יְשַׂמַּח means "makes glad," so the first clause is something like "A wise son makes glad a father," which the NKJV just shuffles around a bit.

At first, I noticed only that the contrast between "wise" and "foolish" and between "glad" and grief" is further emphasized by the different types of verbs:  "makes" is an active verb, but "is" (which is merely implied in the Hebrew) is a stative verb.

When I started looking at other translations, I found more to comment on.  The ESV is basically the same as the NKJV (it has "sorrow to" instead of "grief of"), but the NIV is different:  "A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother."  Here, these contrasts are highlighted by the omission of the verb in the second clause ("a foolish son [brings] grief to his mother").

Either of these constructions (the contrasting active and stative verbs or the elliptical phrasing) may hint at laziness on the part of the foolish son, who merely exists instead of actively doing or whose efforts are lacking.  The following verses, which continue to compare sons, comment plainly on laziness:  "4 Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.  5 He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son."

In the Latin Vulgate, the verse is comparable to the NKJV and ESV translations:  "Parabolae Salomonis Filius sapiens laetificat patrem filius vero stultus maestitia est matris suae."

Proverbs 2:6

A few weeks ago, I started reading Proverbs in the NKJV.  I noticed a minor feature in the second half of Proverbs 2:6:  "from His [the LORD's] mouth come knowledge and understanding."  The sentence structure is inverted so that the source (the LORD's mouth) precedes that which comes from it (knowledge and understanding), which obviously mirrors the meaning.

The ESV and NIV translations are the same as the NKJV, and this structure is also in the Hebrew:

מִפִּיו דַּעַת וּתְבוּנָֽה׃

the Latin Vulgate:

ex ore eius [veniunt] scientia et prudentia

and my German translation of Proverbs, albeit with a subject-verb disagreement:

aus seinem Munde kommt Erkenntnis und Einsicht

Psalm 145:20

While reading Psalm 145 in the NKJV last month, I noticed an-other chiastic structure that highlights opposites.  Verse 20 is:

The LORD preserves

all who love Him, 

but all the wicked

He will destroy.

This structure is also present in the Hebrew:

שׁוֹמֵר יְהוָה אֶת־כָּל־אֹהֲבָיו וְאֵת כָּל־הָרְשָׁעִים יַשְׁמִֽיד׃

The ESV and NIV translations are similar to the NKJV and also retain this structure.

Proverbs 12:13

A few weeks ago, I read Proverbs 12 and noticed something in verse 13 that's similar to what I noted in Proverbs 11:6 last year.  In the ESV, it's "An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, but the righteous escapes from trouble."  I still don't know enough about Hebrew verbs to be able to comment on whether this is the case in the original language, but in English, at least, there's a contrast between the passive voice of "is ensnared" and the active voice of "escapes."  The ensnared man has a lack of agency, and this is mirrored by the passive voice, in which the subject is acted upon.

This is also the case in my German translation of Proverbs:  "Der Böse wird gefangen in seinen eigenen falschen Worten; aber der Gerechte entgeht der Not."

Matthew 7:29

I think it was even before the Daily Dose of Greek got to Matthew 7:29 that I noticed that it has the same feature that I noted in Mark 1:22 a few months ago.  (I'd lookt ahead after watching the Daily Dose video on verse 28.)

ἦν γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν.

In the ESV, this is translated as "For he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes," but ἔχων is a participle, so it's actually more like "he was teaching them as one having authority...."  Because participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the dynamic element of a verb here, and it contrasts with the more static nature of the noun γραμματεῖς (scribes).

As with Mark 1:22, the participial ἐξουσίαν ἔχων is retained in the Vulgate ("potestatem habens") and my French New Testament ("ayant authorité"), but it's rendered as a prepositional phrase ("mit Vollmacht") in my German New Testament.

Matthew 7:25, 27

A few weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Matthew 7:25 and Matthew 7:27:

καὶ κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι, καὶ προσέπεσαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ οὐκ ἔπεσεν· τεθεμελίωτο γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν.

καὶ κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι, καὶ προσέκοψαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ ἔπεσεν· καὶ ἦν ἡ πτῶσις αὐτῆς μεγάλη.

In the ESV, these verses are:

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

It wasn't until looking at the Vulgate that I realized that both of these verses exhibit polysyndeton (the repeated καὶ, translated as "and").  In my copy of the Vulgate, the first part of each of these verses is formatted as:

et descendit pluvia

et venerunt flumina

et flaverunt venti

et inruerunt in domum illam

which makes the polysyndeton obvious.  Here, it highlights the multitude of forces assaulting the houses.  In the Greek and the Latin, the verbs (the first three, at least) precede their respective nouns, and this structure may also heighten the sense of action.

Additionally, the formatting of the Latin suggests (to me, anyway) that "flaverunt" (ἔπνευσαν, blew) and "inruerunt" (προσέπεσαν/προσέκοψαν, beat) have different subjects (the explicit "venti," ἄνεμοι, "winds" and an inflected "they," respectively), resulting in a slightly different translation:  "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they [all three forces!] beat on that house."  Like the polysyndeton and the inverted structure, this reading also highlights the intensity of the elements' assault on the houses.

[For what it's worth, I also wrote about this passage a few years ago.]

Matthew 7:17-19

A few weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Matthew 7:17-19:

17 οὕτως πᾶν δένδρον ἀγαθὸν καρποὺς καλοὺς ποιεῖ, τὸ δὲ σαπρὸν δένδρον καρποὺς πονηροὺς ποιεῖ.  18 οὐ δύναται δένδρον ἀγαθὸν καρποὺς πονηροὺς ποιεῖν οὐδὲ δένδρον σαπρὸν καρποὺς καλοὺς ποιεῖν.  19 πᾶν δένδρον μὴ ποιοῦν καρπὸν καλὸν ἐκκόπτεται καὶ εἰς πῦρ βάλλεται.

In the ESV, these verses are:

17 'So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.'

In each of these verses, the phrase "good fruit" alliterates and has a balanced number of syllables, even though it's plural in verses 17 and 18 (καρποὺς καλοὺς) but singular in verse 19 (καρπὸν καλὸν).  These features provide a euphony that matches the description "good."

Psalm 119:125

A few weeks ago, I read the Ayin section (verses 121-128) of Psalm 119.  I was thinking about the underlying Hebrew as I read, and I correctly deduced that part of verse 125 was inverted in translation and that in the original Hebrew, the word for servant (עֶ֫בֶד) comes first.  (Each verse in this section starts with an ayin.)

In the NKJV, the verse is

I am Your servant, give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies.

In Hebrew, it's

עַבְדְּךָ־אָנִי הֲבִינֵנִי וְאֵדְעָה עֵדֹתֶֽיךָ׃

In the original word order, the first clause is something like "Your servant [am] I."

Then I realized that, perhaps coincidentally, the word order of the Hebrew matches the outlook of a good servant:  the word servant (עַבְדְּךָ, with the possessive suffix "your") comes before the pronoun I (אָנִי) in the same way that the duties of the position take precedence over personal interests.

I referenced the Latin Vulgate and found that it follows the Hebrew word order and thus also has this feature:

servus tuus ego instrue me et cognoscam testimonia tua

1 Chronicles 16:26, Psalm 96:5

About a month ago, I read some of 1 Chronicles 16 and noticed a couple contrasting features in verse 26:  "For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens."  In the first clause, there's only a stative verb, which is actually merely implied in the Hebrew (it's just "For all the gods of the peoples - idols":  כִּי כָּל־אֱלֹהֵי הָעַמִּים אֱלִילִים), but in the second clause, there's an active verb ("made" עָשָֽׂה).  The different qualities of these verbs (absent or present and stative or active) distinguish between the "idols" and "the Lord" and highlight the inactivity of the idols.

This verse seemed familiar to me, and after some searching, I discovered that it appears verbatim as Psalm 96:5.

The same features are present in the Vulgate, although there's a slight difference in that "idols" is translated as "idola" in 1 Chronicles but as "sculptilia" ("sculpted things") in the Psalm:

omnes enim dii populorum idola Dominus autem caelos fecit 

omnes enim dii populorum sculptilia Dominus autem caelos fecit

Matthew 7:3

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on Matthew 7:3:

"'Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?'" [ESV]

Even before Dr. Plummer mentioned it in the video, I noticed that the verse has a chiastic structure:

τί δὲ βλέπεις

τὸ κάρφος

τὸ ἐν τῷ ὀφθαλμῷ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου,

τὴν δὲ ἐν τῷ σῷ ὀφθαλμῷ

δοκὸν

οὐ κατανοεῖς;

Something like:

Why do you see

the speck

that is in your brother's eye,

but that is in your own eye

the log

you do not notice?

Since the words in the two clauses appear in an inverted order, this structure highlights the contrast between βλέπεις ("you do see") and οὐ κατανοεῖς ("you do not notice") and perhaps also between the sizes of τὸ κάρφος ("the speck") and τὴν δοκὸν ("the log").

Joshua 5:1

Last month, I read Joshua 5 in the NIV, and I noticed a feature in verse 1 that's related to what I noticed in the ESV translation of Jeremiah 4:9 last year.

The entire verse is "Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites."

The Hebrew clause וְלֹא־הָיָה בָם עוֹד רוּחַ is translated as "and they no longer had the courage," although it's literally something like "and there was no longer any spirit in them," which is how the ESV translates it.  Because the word courage is related to cor, the Latin word for heart, the NIV translation actually exhibits a sort of parallelism between "their hearts melted" and "they no longer had the courage."

Genesis 1:18

About a month ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Aramaic video on Genesis 1:18 in Targum Onkelos:

"to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.  And God saw that it was good" [ESV]

I had a small realization about the phrase בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ and its Aramaic equivalent.  In English, it's translated as "the light from the darkness," but in Hebrew and Aramaic the preposition בֵּין is repeated, so it's actually "between the light and between the darkness."  I'm not sure a native Hebrew or Aramaic speaker would see it this way, but compared to the English, at least, there's a greater sense of that separation because there are two distinct phrases.  Each object has its own preposition.

John 8:44

Last month, I watched the Daily Dose of Latin video on John 8:44:

In the ESV, this is "'You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.'"

I don't know how significant this is, but it occurred to me that parts of this contrast with John 1 in a way that seems deliberate.  In this verse, Satan, "your father the devil," is described as "a murderer from the beginning" who "has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him."  John 1 starts with "In the beginning was the Word" (verse 1), Who is "the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (verse 14).  An establishment from "the beginning" is common to both passages, but one describes "the father of lies," who "has nothing to do with the truth," and the other describes "the only Son from the Father," who is "full of... truth."

Psalm 25:6-7

On the Worship Anew program for 18 February, the First Sunday of Lent last month, the Psalm reading was Psalm 25:1-10.  I was following along in the Latin Vulgate and noticed a chiastic structure in verses 6-7:

6 recordare

miserationum tuarum Domine et misericordiarum tuarum quia ex sempiterno sunt 

7 peccatorum adulescentiae meae et scelerum meorum

ne memineris...

This is roughly the same structure the Hebrew has.

In the ESV, this section is translated as "6 Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions..." although adhering more closely to the original word order, it's something like "Remember your mercy, LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.  The sins of my youth and my transgressions do not remember."

The chiastic structure highlights the contrast between "Remember" ("recordare" זְכֹר) and "Remember not" ("ne memineris" אַל־תִּזְכֹּר) and between God's "mercy" and "steadfast love" and the Psalmist's "sins" and "transgressions."

Psalm 88:18

A few weeks ago, I read Psalm 88 in the NKJV, where verse 18 is translated as "Loved one and friend You have put far from me, and my acquaintances into darkness."  I noticed that "Loved one and friend" and "me" are at opposite ends of the first clause, lending a sense of the distance of having been "put far."  This structure seems unique to the NKJV, though; none of the other translations I referenced nor the Hebrew has it.

Daniel 5:23

Last month, I read Daniel 5 (in the ESV) after running across a reference to it in an Emily Dickinson poem ("Belshazzar had a letter"), and I noticed a chiasm highlighting opposites in a section of verse 23 where Daniel tells Belshazzar:

You have praised

the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, 

but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways,

you have not honored.

When I lookt up the Aramaic in the Step Bible, however, I discovered that this structure isn't original; both clauses have the same structure, with the direct object preceding the verb.  Here are the two Daily Dose of Aramaic videos on this section of the verse:

In the NIV, this section is translated as "You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or undersatnd.  But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways."

Mark 1:22

I'm still behind on watching Worship Anew programs, but when I watched the program for 28 January (the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany) a couple weeks ago, I noticed a significant contrast in the Gospel reading from Mark 1.  In the ESV, Mark 1:22 is "And they [the people in the synagogue] were astonished at his [Jesus'] teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes."  While following along in the Latin Vulgate, I noticed that what's translated as a relative clause in the ESV ("who had authority") is a participial in the Latin ("potestatem habens"), as it is in the Greek (ἐξουσίαν ἔχων), so it's more like "having authority."  Since participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the action quality of a verb here, and this contrasts with the more static nature of the noun "scribes" (γραμματεῖς, "scribae").

For what it's worth:  in my German New Testament, this participial is translated as a prepositional phrase ("mit Vollmacht" "with power"), but my French New Testament retains it as a participial ("ayant autorité").

Deuteronomy 28:47-48a

I've been reading Deuteronomy in the NIV lately.  A couple weeks ago, I read chapter 28 and found an-other chiasm highlighting opposites (bridging verses 47 and 48):

47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God

joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 

48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty,

you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you.

I referenced the underlying Hebrew and a couple other translations, but this structure isn't in any of them.  The ESV follows the Hebrew word order more closely:  "47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything."

The Conversion of Saul

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 25 January.  The text was Acts 9:1-22, the conversation of Saul:

I think it's not until Acts 13:9 that Saul is also named Paul, but in hearing the account in Acts 9 about his conversion and Pastor Smith's sermon, in which he mentions the significance of names, I realized that Paul's new name embodies John 3:30 where John the Baptist says, "He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease" since the Latin adjective paulus, -a, -um, from which Paul's name comes, means "small" or "little."  Coincidentally, the same day I watched the CUW chapel service, I also watched a Daily Dose of Greek video on Hebrews 2:7, and in the Latin Vulgate (which I always reference), the Greek word βραχύ is translated as "paulo."

Psalm 49:6

A couple weeks ago, I read Psalm 49 and noticed a feature in verse 6.  In the NKJV, the sense continues beyond verse 6 into verse 7:  "6 Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, 7 none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him."

In the ESV, however, verse 6 continues the sense from verse 5:  "5 Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me, 6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches?"  The NIV is similar:  "5 Why should I fear when evil days come, when wicked deceivers surround me - 6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches?"

In any case, what I noticed is that the parallelism between "their wealth" and "their riches" highlights this abundance.

Psalm 115:5-7

Earlier this month, I read Psalm 115, and after looking up the original Hebrew, I discovered that it has the same sort of construction as Psalm 135, which I wrote about a couple months ago.  Here are verses 5-7 in the ESV:

5 They [the idols of the nations] have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.

In the Hebrew, the repeated construction is "mouth to them," "eyes to them," and so on:

פֶּֽה־לָהֶם וְלֹא יְדַבֵּרוּ עֵינַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִרְאֽוּ׃

אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִשְׁמָעוּ אַף לָהֶם וְלֹא יְרִיחֽוּן׃

Verse 7 is a bit different, though; here, there are pronominal suffixes on "hands" and "feet":

יְדֵיהֶם ׀ וְלֹא יְמִישׁוּן רַגְלֵיהֶם וְלֹא יְהַלֵּכוּ לֹֽא־יֶהְגּוּ בִּגְרוֹנָֽם׃

In both constructions, the idols' possession of these body parts is described without using any verbs, and consequently, the only verbs in these verses are the negated actions that the idols cannot perform.  They "do not speak," "do not see," and so on.  Like the lifeless idols themselves, there is only inactivity in these verses.

Genesis 3:12

Earlier this month, I read Genesis 3 and realized the significance of the pleonasm in verse 12:  "The man said, 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.'"  This is also in the Hebrew:

וַיֹּאמֶר הָֽאָדָם הָֽאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר נָתַתָּה עִמָּדִי הִוא נָֽתְנָה־לִּי מִן־הָעֵץ וָאֹכֵֽל׃

Adam is trying to shift the blame away from himself and onto Eve, and this unnecessary pronoun in his explanation is an-other tactic he uses to try to divert God's attention.

Ecclesiastes 3:20

A couple weeks ago, I lookt up Ecclesiastes 3:20:  "All go to one place.  All are from the dust, and to dust all return" [ESV].  The second half has a chiastic structure:

All are

from the dust,

and to dust

all return.

To some degree, this mirrors the "return[ing]" mentioned in the verse itself.  It's a bit inverted in relation to the meaning, though; the clause starts and ends with "all," but it's "to dust" (the middle element in the chiasm) that "all return."

The NIV translation is similar ("all come from dust, and to dust all return"), but this structure isn't present in the Hebrew:

הַכֹּל הָיָה מִן־הֶֽעָפָר וְהַכֹּל שָׁב אֶל־הֶעָפָֽר

It's more prosaic:  "All are from the dust, and all return to the dust."

Psalm 126:5

Last month, I fell behind in watching Worship Anew.  While watching the program from 17 December (the third Sunday in Advent) last week, I was following along in the Latin Vulgate and noticed yet an-other chiastic structure highlighting opposites, this time in Psalm 126:5:  "qui seminant in lacrimis in exultatione metent."  This is the same basic word order as the original Hebrew, too:

הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹֽרוּ׃.

In the ESV, this is translated as "Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!" but in the original word order, it's more like "Those who sow in tears in shouts of joy will reap."