1 Corinthians 12:18

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 29 January 2016:

The text was 1 Corinthians 12:12-26.  I noticed in particular verse 18:  "But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose."  This comes right after Paul's arguments that a foot is still part of the body even though it's not a hand and that an ear is still part of the body even though it's not an eye.

Hearing the text this time, I realized that God's "arrang[ing] the members in the body" has a broader sense.  It works both within and outside of this illustration.  In the immediate context, it refers to the positions of the foot and ear and so on.  Since these body parts are acting as metaphors for individuals in the body of Christ, however, there's also a second sense:  God puts people in specific places and times.

Proverbs 29:6

Last week, I read some more chapters in Proverbs and noticed two contrasts in the verbs in Proverbs 29:6:  "An evil man is ensnared in his transgression, but a righteous man sings and rejoices."  In the first clause, there's one verb, and it's passive ("is ensnared"); in the second clause, there are two verbs, and both are active ("sings" and "rejoices").  These contrasts emphasize the trapped nature of the evil man.  Even in the language used to describe him, he has no agency.  He is acted upon; he himself doesn't act.  The righteous man, on the other hand, is the active agent in his clause and does two actions.

This may not be the case in the original Hebrew though.  As I've mentioned before, I don't understand Hebrew verbs well enough yet to be able to comment on this, but in my German translation of Proverbs, what's rendered as "is ensnared" in English is translated as an active voice verb:  "Wenn ein Böser sündigt, verstrickt er sich selbst" ("when an evil man sins, he ensnares himself").

Proverbs 24:3-4

Last week, I read a few chapters of Proverbs, and I noticed some significance in the structure of Proverbs 24:3-4:  "3 By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; 4 by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches."

In each of these three clauses, the agents precede the passive voice verbs.  To some degree, this particular structure illustrates that wisdom is a prerequisite for building a house, understanding is a prerequisite for establishing it, and knowledge is a prerequisite for filling the rooms.  In the same way that wisdom, understanding, and knowledge come first in these clauses, they also must come first in a temporal sense.

This same structure is present in the Hebrew.  I don't know enough about Hebrew verbs to be able to comment on how the verbs in this verse relate to the English passive forms, but I think the notion of wisdom being necessary before a house is built and so on for the other clauses is comparable.

1 John 4:20

In going through 1 John in the archives of the Daily Dose of Greek, I recently noticed an interesting structure in 1 John 4:20:  "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen."

In the Greek text, the structure of the phrases "love God" and "hates his brother" are inverted from each other.  In the first, the direct object follows the verb (ἀγαπῶ τὸν θεὸν), but in the second, the direct object precedes the verb (τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῇ).  This inversion illustrates that these two ideas are opposites.

Daniel 3

I've been following along in the Daily Dose of Aramaic's series on Daniel.  I noticed that throughout chapter three (verses 6, 11, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 26), there's a redundant description:  "the burning fiery furnace."  There are fires in furnaces, and fires burn; neither of these words is really necessary.  This redundant description, however, may demonstrate the severity of Nebuchadnezzar's threat or indicate the extreme heat of the furnace even before it is "heated seven times more than it was usually heated" in verse 19.

Jonah 3:6

Near the end of March, I started going through Jonah in the archives of the Daily Dose of Hebrew.  A couple weeks ago, I went over Jonah 3:6:  "The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes."  I think there's some significant word choice in the Hebrew here.  "Word" (דָּבָר) and "arose" (from the verb קוּם) also appear at the beginning of the book, in Jonah 1:1-3a:  "1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.'  3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD."

Using the same words in these two sections highlights the contrast between Jonah in chapter 1 and the king of Nineveh in chapter 3.  When the word of the LORD comes to Jonah, he rises to try to avoid it, but when the word reaches the king of Nineveh, he rises to take action.

John 6:2, 5

Recently, the Daily Dose of Latin started John 6.  I noticed that in John 6:2 and 6:5, the Greek word ὄχλος is translated in the Vulgate as multitudo.

This struck me as a bit unusual.  Most of the time, ὄχλος is translated as turba.  I did a search with the STEP Bible, and while my numbers might not be entirely accurate, it seems that out of 171 occurrences of a form of ὄχλος, 155 of them are translated as a form of turba.

These instances in particular seem odd because "multitudo magna" and "multitudo maxima" are redundant; both mean something like "a great multitude."  (Maxima is the superlative form of magna.)  Perhaps this is intended to indicate the exceedingly great size of the crowd.

As I've been following along with the Daily Dose of Latin, I've been reading the New King James Version.  There, both of these phrases are translated as "great multitude."  In the ESV, they're both "large crowd," and in the NIV, "great crowd."

Hebrews 4:12

Recently, I was thinking about Hebrews 4:12:  "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."  I had to look up the Greek text to make sure, but "living" is a participle there too:  "ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐνεργὴς..."  I think this is significant.  Because a participle is a verbal adjective, there's some of the dynamic nature of a verb here, and this goes well with the meaning of the word "living."

1 John 3:5

Since February, I've been going through 1 John in the archives of the Daily Dose of Greek.  A few weeks ago, I copied out 1 John 3:5 and then read it in a few different translations.  The ESV made me cringe.  The Greek text is καὶ οἴδατε ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ἐφανερώθη ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἄρῃ, καὶ ἁμαρτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν. but the ESV renders this as "You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin."  In the intended reading, "appeared" has the sense of "showed up," and "to take" is an infinitive of purpose, but this translation could be misread so that "appeared" has the sense of "seemed" and (if my parsing is right) "to take" is an epexegetical infinitive.  Understood this way, the clause is saying that this "tak[ing] away [of] sins" was merely an illusion ("he seemed to take away sins"), but this is obviously not the meaning of the Greek text.  Simply adding "in order to" clears up this ambiguity:  "You know that he appeared in order to take away sins...."

The NIV has a much better translation:  "But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins.  And in him is no sin."

Matthew 20:24, Mark 10:41

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 23 March 2015:

The reading was Mark 10:35-45.  I'm pretty sure that Dr. Feiertag reads the NIV, where verse 41 is translated as "When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John."  I was following along in my French New Testament, where this verse is rendered as "Les dix, ayant entendu cela, commencèrent à s'indigner contre Jacques et Jean."  Where the NIV has "indignant with" and the ESV has "indignant at," the French translation has "s'indigner contre."  (In Greek, the preposition here is περὶ.)  In French, contre also means against.  This carries a greater weight than de (the other preposition, meaning with or at, used with this verb), so in this particular translation, there's a greater sense of opposition between the ten disciples and the two brothers.

Matthew 20:24 is comparable.

My French translation has:  "Les dix, ayant entendu cela, furent indignés contre les deux frères."

The ESV has:  "And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers."

And the NIV has:  "When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers."

Genesis 3:15

When I went to church a couple weeks ago, the pastor referenced Genesis 3:15 in his sermon.  I noticed that the second half of the verse has a chiastic structure:  "He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."  The study notes in my Bible explain that "This points to Christ and His defeat of Satan on the cross."  It may be coincidental, but even the structure here (the cross form of the chiasm) seems to point to Christ's crucifixion.  I lookt up this verse in the STEP Bible, and while the possessive adjectives for "head" and "heel" are implied, this structure is present in the Hebrew too.

Luke 15:11-32 (The Prodigal Son)

The Gospel reading last week was Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, the parable of the prodigal son.  While watching Worship Anew, I realized that the father acts the same way toward both of his sons.  There's a sort of parallelism between "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him" (verse 20) and "His father came out and entreated him" (verse 28).  Clearly, the father cares for both of his sons, and while the situations are different, he goes out to each of them and shows his compassion.