John 11:5

Yester-day, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 3 April 2017:

The text was John 11:1-45.  As usual, I was following along in my French New Testament, and I noticed a feature in verse 5:  "Or, Jésus aimait Marthe, et sa sœur, et Lazare."  ("Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.")  Because of the polysyndeton (Martha and her sister and Lazarus), there's a greater sense of each individual person than there would be in a mere list (Martha, her sister, and Lazarus), which gives more of a general overview or distant summary.  Consequently, this way of naming these people provides a greater sense of the specific and personal relationship that Jesus has with each of them.

This feature is also present in the Greek:  Ἠγάπα δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὴν Μάρθαν καὶ τὴν ἀδελφὴν αὐτῆς καὶ τὸν Λάζαρον.

Luke 14:9

Last week, the Gospel reading was from Luke 14, and I noticed some interesting translation differences in verse 9, specifically in the clause "δὸς τούτῳ τόπον."  I was following along in my French New Testament, where this is translated "Cède la place à cette personne-là."  In the ESV, it's translated as "Give your place to this person," and in the NIV, "Give this man your seat."  The ESV and NIV both supply a possessive adjective ("your place" and "your seat") that's not present in the original Greek or my French translation.  In the NKJV, this clause is rendered as "Give place to this man," which I think is the best of these three English translations.

As the context makes clear, the man who is askt to give up this seat doesn't have a valid claim to it, so the possessive adjective your doesn't truly apply.

Hebrews 11

An-other of the readings on Worship Anew two weeks ago was from Hebrews 11.  This reminded me of something I'd previously noticed about this chapter.  Almost half of the verses begin with the phrase "by faith."  This repetition illustrates the importance of faith, and this importance is further emphasized by the phrase's position at the beginning of most of these verses.

Psalm 103:11-12

The Psalm reading on Worship Anew last week was part of Psalm 103.  Years ago, I had a realization about verses 11-12 and I felt I should write about it here too.

In the ESV, these verses are:  "11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us."  In verse 11, there's a comparison involving height, and in verse 12, there's a comparison involving lateral distance.  Taken together, the directions of these two comparisons form a cross, and Christ's death on the cross illustrates "his steadfast love" and is how "he remove[s] our transgressions from us."

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."