John 7:24

A couple months ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Latin video on John 7:24:

Dr. Flatt comes close to mentioning that, of course, the words "iustum iudicium iudicate" alliterate, and I realized that because of this alliteration, there's a sense in the Latin of the orderliness of a just judgement.  

In my German New Testament, this verse is:  "Richtet nicht nach dem, was vor Augen ist, sondern richtet gerecht."  To a lesser degree, the same feature is present here, although with consonance rather than alliteration:  "richtet gerecht."

John 20:26

A couple months ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on John 20:26:

Καὶ μεθ᾽ ἡμέρας ὀκτὼ πάλιν ἦσαν ἔσω οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ Θωμᾶς μετ᾽ αὐτῶν. ἔρχεται ὁ Ἰησοῦς τῶν θυρῶν κεκλεισμένων καὶ ἔστη εἰς τὸ μέσον καὶ εἶπεν· εἰρήνη ὑμῖν.

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.  Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." [ESV]

I was surprised to discovered that the "was" in the clause "Thomas was with them" isn't present in the Greek; it's just "Θωμᾶς μετ᾽ αὐτῶν."  I had a couple thoughts about this, although I'll admit they may be a bit far-fetched.

Most of the translations I lookt at render it like the ESV above and supply an implied verb:

Thomas war bei ihnen

Thomas se trouvait avec eux

Thomas was with them [NIV]

The Latin Vulgate and the NKJV are the exceptions:

Thomas cum eis

Thomas with them

I think it's possible to see Thomas as part of the plural subject of the verb "were."  Put an-other way, it would be "his disciples and Thomas with them were inside...."  Granted, the "with them" is a bit redundant then, but if Thomas is included with the other disciples as the subject of the sentence, it provides something of a foreshadowing of his return to faith after seeing Jesus' wounds.  In grammatical structure and in faith, he's part of the group again.

Alternatively, the lack of an explicit verb for Thomas' being there mirrors his lack of faith.

Matthew 27:20

For about a year and a half now, I've been slowly working through New Testament Greek for Laymen by Michael Merritt, which I downloaded from the resources page of the Daily Dose of Greek website.  Two months ago, I lookt up Matthew 27:20, since it's one of the "verses for application" at the end of Chapter 13 "Aorist Active and Middle Indicative."

Οἱ δὲ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεισαν τοὺς ὄχλους ἵνα αἰτήσωνται τὸν Βαραββᾶν, τὸν δὲ Ἰησοῦν ἀπολέσωσιν.

Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.  [ESV]

At first, I noticed only that - as I'd been noting with many other verses at the time - there's a chiastic structure that indicates opposites:  αἰτήσωνται τὸν Βαραββᾶν, τὸν δὲ Ἰησοῦν ἀπολέσωσιν  "to ask for Barabbas, Jesus to destroy."  By themselves, these two verbs don't mean opposite things, but they do in this context.

(For what it's worth, the same structure is also in the Latin Vulgate:  "Princeps autem sacerdotum et seniores persuaserunt populis ut peterent Barabban Iesum vero perderent")

In thinking about the verse some more, I realized that this chiastic structure may also indicate the thoughts of the chief priests and elders, namely that they want to crucify Jesus (the structure of the chiasm resembles the shape of the cross).  Right after this, in verses 22-23, the crowd, incited by the chief priests and elders, calls for Jesus' crucifixion.  The chiastic structure here may act as a sort of foreshadowing of this.

Genesis 12:3

This is becoming a somewhat regular occurrence, but a couple months ago, I found yet an-other chiastic structure that illustrates opposites.  In Genesis 12:3, God says to Abram, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (NIV).  The direct object follows the verb in the clause "I will bless those who bless you," but it precedes the verb in the clause "whoever curses you I will curse."  The inversion in the structure matches the opposites of blessing and cursing.

This is also present in the Hebrew ("וַאֲבָֽרֲכָה מְבָרְכֶיךָ וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ אָאֹר"), but it's not in the Vulgate.

Matthew 6:24

Last month, I read a few chapters in Matthew, and I found an-other instance where a chiastic structure illustrates opposites.  In Matthew 6:24, Jesus says, "No one 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."  There's an inversion between "he will hate the one and love the other" and "he will be devoted to the one and despise the other," demonstrating these opposites.

This feature is also present in the Greek ("ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει"), the Latin Vulgate ("aut enim unum odio habebit et alterum diliget aut unum sustinebit et alterum contemnet"), my German New Testament ("entweder er wird den einen hassen und den andern lieben, oder er wird an dem einen hängen und den andern verachten"), and my French New Testament ("Car, ou il haïra l'un, et aimera l'autre; ou il s'attachera à l'un, et méprisera l'autre").

Psalm 1:3-4

A little more than a month ago, I finished reading Proverbs in the NIV and started over again with the Psalms (in the ESV this time).  Previously, I'd noticed the contrast between the tree and the chaff in Psalm 1:3-4, but in reading it again last month, I realized that I'd been considering only one facet of this contrast.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.  4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

I'd been focusing only on the agricultural nature of these similes and the contrast between the prosperity of the living tree and the inactivity of the worthless and dead chaff, but the two also differ in their positions:  the tree is firmly "planted," but the chaff is "drive[n] away" by the wind.  The man who delights in and meditates on the law of the Lord has an arboreal steadfastness that the wicked man does not.

Psalm 23:4

For Good Shepherd Sunday (the Fourth Sunday of Easter) at the end of April, the Psalm on Worship Anew was Psalm 23 (although the text below the video lists Psalm 43).  I was following along in the Latin Vulgate and noticed a feature specific to this translation.  Verse 4 is:  "sed et si ambulavero in valle mortis non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum es virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa consolabunter me."  In the ESV, this is:  "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."  Often in Latin, the words in the prepositional phrase "with me" are combined (and inverted), so instead of "cum me," there's the single word "mecum."  Because of this idiosyncracy, there's a closer sense of God's accompaniment in this verse; "tu" and "me" are side-by-side.

Genesis 4:4-5

In mid-April, I finished reading The Lutheran Study Bible, the first time (hopefully of many) that I read the Bible straight through.  The same day I finished, I also started reading the NIV (my current plan is to alternate between the two, but I'll see what happens).

When I read Genesis 4, I noticed something interesting in these verses:  "3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD.  4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.  The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.  So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast."

Bridging verses 4 and 5, there's a chiastic structure in the description of how the Lord receives Abel and Cain and their respective offerings:  "The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor."  The structure highlights that the Lord's responses are opposite.

This feature is also present in Hebrew (I can't get the formatting to work correctly, so here's a link to the  passage in the STEP Bible) and in Latin ("et respexit Dominus ad Abel et ad munera eius ad Cain vero et ad munera illius non respexit").

Isaiah 45:18

A few years ago, I wrote a couple posts about grammar errors in the ESV (specifically word order problems with the "not... but..." correlative when combined with causal clauses).  Since then, I've found numerous similar errors (in the ESV, there are three word order errors with "not... but..." just in John 17), but I haven't written about them.  Last month, I ran across one that's a bit more interesting, so I'm noting it here.

In the NIV, part of Isaiah 45:18 is "He [the LORD] did not create it [the earth] to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited."  The ESV translation is similar:  "He did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!"  The "not" should negate "(to be) empty" not "create," and this is obvious in the Hebrew (לֹא־תֹהוּ בְרָאָהּ).  The King James Version correctly translates this as "he created it not in vain."

What I thought interesting about this particular instance is that the parallel structure makes it clear that this is an error.  "Create" parallels "formed" in the same way that "not empty" should parallel "inhabited" (in an inverted sort of way).

John 7:18

Last month, when I watched the Daily Dose of Latin video on John 7:18, I noticed something that I hadn't noticed when I went over the same verse with the corresponding Daily Dose of Greek video about two years ago.

ὁ ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ λαλῶν τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἰδίαν ζητεῖ· ὁ δὲ ζητῶν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ πέμψαντος αὐτόν, οὗτος ἀληθής ἐστιν, καὶ ἀδικία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν.

qui a semet ipso loquitur gloriam propriam quaerit qui autem quaerit gloriam eius qui misit illum hic verax est et iniustitia in illo non est

In the ESV, this is translated as:

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

In both the Greek and the Latin, the direct object in the first clause (τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἰδίαν, gloriam propriam, "his own glory") comes before the verb (ζητεῖ, quaerit, "seeks").  The word order in Greek and Latin is more flexible than in English, so I wouldn't argue for this too strongly, but placing "his own glory" earlier in the clause could provide a sense of this person's vanity.  In terms of his priorities and even in the clause that describes him, his glory comes first.

The word order in the second clause is different (the direct object comes after the verb [or the participle, as it is in the Greek]), and this mirrors the contrast in these two men, signalled more explicitly with δὲ, autem, and "but."

Proverbs 15:29

Last month, I read Proverbs 15, and I found an-other instance where two nouns are placed at opposite ends of a clause, which results in a sense of the distance that's mentioned in the verse.  In both the NIV and the ESV, Proverbs 15:29 is translated as:  "The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous."  The structure highlights the distance between "the LORD" and "the wicked."

This feature isn't in the Hebrew or the Latin Vulgate, but it is in my German translation of Proverbs:  "Der HERR ist ferne von den Gottlosen; aber der Gerechten Gebet erhört er."

John 20:19, 21

John 20:19-31 was the Gospel reading on Worship Anew last month (16 April).  In his sermon, Pastor Jonker briefly comments on how Jesus says, "Peace be with you" twice in the reading:

Again Jesus says, "Peace be with you."  Wasn't once enough?  Why receive forgiveness when you've already been forgiven?  Why speak peace a second time when you've already said it?  That's not what faith says.  Faith simply delights in receiving whatever the Lord has to give, and if He's giving out double peace on Easter Sunday, that's where I want to be.

I hadn't given much thought to this "double peace" that Jesus gives, but that particular phrase that Pastor Jonker uses brought to mind Isaiah 40:2:  "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins."  The study notes in my Bible comment that Jerusalem "received from the Lord's hand good things in double proportion to the punishment she deserved for her sins" and also cites Isaiah 61:7:  "Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy."  The double peace that Jesus speaks in John 20 is an instance of this.

I think the context here is significant, too.  This giving of double peace comes right after Jesus' resurrection and His victory over sin, death, and the devil, and this is also what Isaiah 40:2 describes:  "her warfare is ended... her iniquity is pardoned."