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.