Isaiah 65:17

Isaiah 65:17-25 was one of the readings in a church service I attended back in the spring, and I noticed a small feature in verse 17:  "'For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.'" [ESV]

"Be remembered" and "come into mind" are parallel expressions, but this combination of passive voice and active voice provides a degree of emphasis or even a sense of totality.

I think there's a similar distinction in the Hebrew, although I'm still not very knowledgeable about the verb forms:

וְלֹא תִזָּכַרְנָה הָרִאשֹׁנוֹת וְלֹא תַעֲלֶינָה עַל־לֵֽב

John 3:16

At a church service I attended back in the spring, the pastor mentioned John 3:16 in his sermon.  Later, I had a small realization about the scope of the verse.

'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.'  [ESV]

In a way, the verse demonstrates both a macro view and micro view.  There's a breadth in "'whoever believes in him,'" but since this verse was originally directed to an individual person (as the verses at the beginning of the chapter make clear:  "1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.  2 This man came to Jesus by night..."), there's also a sort of specificity, similar to the intimate familiarity that God has with each person, as described in Psalm 139.

Proverbs 10:6

When I was flipping to Proverbs 14 in order to reference verse 35 and write this post about it, I ran across an-other significant chiastic structure, this time in Proverbs 10:6.  In the ESV, it's:

Blessings

are on the head of the righteous,

but the mouth of the wicked conceals

violence.

As with the last few chiasms in Proverbs that I've written about, the elements here are a bit more loosely equated, but the structure does highlight the contrasts between "blessings" and "violence" and between "the head of the righteous" and "the mouth of the wicked."

This chiasm is also in the Hebrew:

בְּרָכוֹת

לְרֹאשׁ צַדִּיק

וּפִי רְשָׁעִים יְכַסֶּה

חָמָֽס׃

and the Latin Vulgate:

benedictio

super caput iusti

os autem impiorum operit

iniquitatem

It's also in my German translation of Proverbs, but the meaning is a bit different:

Segen ruht

auf dem Haupt des Gerechten;

aber auf die Gottlosen

wird ihr Frevel fallen.

Something like:

Blessing rests

on the head of the righteous,

but on the wicked

will their iniquity fall.

The second half of this echoes Psalm 7:16:  "His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends."

Proverbs 29:3

Several months ago, I read Proverbs 29 in the ESV and noticed an ambiguity in verse 3:

He who loves wisdom makes his father glad, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.

It's unclear whether the antecedent of "his" in the second half of the verse ("his wealth") is the father of this "companion" (similar to how the first half mentions the father of "he who loves wisdom") or the "companion" himself.

The connection between this verse and the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, where the son does squander the father's wealth, suggests that the antecedent is an implied father.  Additionally, in this reading, the two halves of the verse parallel each other:  "he" with "companion," "wisdom" with "prostitutes" (in an inverted sort of way), and "father" with "his."

Alternatively, this "his" could indicate the "companion" himself ("his [own] wealth"), and this understanding results in an-other contrast between these two men.  The first half ("he who loves wisdom makes his father glad") contains three characters:  "he," personified "wisdom," and "father."  If "companion" is the antecedent of "his" in the second half, there are only two entities there (although, admittedly, one is plural):  "companion"/"his" and "prostitutes."  The first man ("he who loves wisdom") maintains his familial relationships, but the second (the "companion of prostitutes") lacks them.

I lookt up this verse in languages that have distinct forms for "his" and "his own" (reflexive possessive) and discovered that both follow this second reading ("his own").

Norwegian:

En mann som elsker visdom, gleder sin far; men den som holder vennskap med skjøger, øder sitt gods.

Esperanto:

Homo, kiu amas saĝon, ĝojigas sian patron; sed kiu komunikiĝas kun malĉastulinoj, tiu disperdas sian havon.

I'm not sure to what degree (if any) all of this applies to the original Hebrew text, though, because it has no "his" in the second clause; it's just "a companion of prostitutes squanders wealth":

אִֽישׁ־אֹהֵב חָכְמָה יְשַׂמַּח אָבִיו וְרֹעֶה זוֹנוֹת יְאַבֶּד־הֽוֹן׃