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."