Isaiah 13:22

Last week, as I was flipping through my Bible, I happened to notice some alliteration in Isaiah 13:22:  "Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged."

Like I noticed with Psalm 16:6 about a year ago, the euphony of "pleasant palaces" matches the meaning of the words.

I lookt up the Hebrew and discovered that this feature is not present there.

John 17:1

When the Daily Dose of Greek went over John 17:1 last week, I noticed a chiasm.

Ταῦτα ἐλάλησεν Ἰησοῦς, καὶ ἐπάρας τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν εἶπεν· πάτερ, ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα· δόξασόν σου τὸν υἱόν, ἵνα ὁ υἱὸς δοξάσῃ σε

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you."

This particular word order ("[You] glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you") illustrates this reciprocity.

John 16:32

The Daily Dose of Greek has been going through John 16.  A couple days ago, I watched the video for John 16:32:

ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται ὥρα καὶ ἐλήλυθεν ἵνα σκορπισθῆτε ἕκαστος εἰς τὰ ἴδια κἀμὲ μόνον ἀφῆτε· καὶ οὐκ εἰμὶ μόνος, ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐστιν.

Behold the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.  Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

The verb σκορπισθῆτε ("you will be scattered") has a plural subject, but ἕκαστος is singular ("each"), so even in the language here, there's a sense of this division.  There's a movement from plural to singular.

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.