John 8:44

Last month, I watched the Daily Dose of Latin video on John 8:44:

In the ESV, this is "'You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.'"

I don't know how significant this is, but it occurred to me that parts of this contrast with John 1 in a way that seems deliberate.  In this verse, Satan, "your father the devil," is described as "a murderer from the beginning" who "has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him."  John 1 starts with "In the beginning was the Word" (verse 1), Who is "the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (verse 14).  An establishment from "the beginning" is common to both passages, but one describes "the father of lies," who "has nothing to do with the truth," and the other describes "the only Son from the Father," who is "full of... truth."

Psalm 25:6-7

On the Worship Anew program for 18 February, the First Sunday of Lent last month, the Psalm reading was Psalm 25:1-10.  I was following along in the Latin Vulgate and noticed a chiastic structure in verses 6-7:

6 recordare

miserationum tuarum Domine et misericordiarum tuarum quia ex sempiterno sunt 

7 peccatorum adulescentiae meae et scelerum meorum

ne memineris...

This is roughly the same structure the Hebrew has.

In the ESV, this section is translated as "6 Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions..." although adhering more closely to the original word order, it's something like "Remember your mercy, LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.  The sins of my youth and my transgressions do not remember."

The chiastic structure highlights the contrast between "Remember" ("recordare" זְכֹר) and "Remember not" ("ne memineris" אַל־תִּזְכֹּר) and between God's "mercy" and "steadfast love" and the Psalmist's "sins" and "transgressions."

Psalm 88:18

A few weeks ago, I read Psalm 88 in the NKJV, where verse 18 is translated as "Loved one and friend You have put far from me, and my acquaintances into darkness."  I noticed that "Loved one and friend" and "me" are at opposite ends of the first clause, lending a sense of the distance of having been "put far."  This structure seems unique to the NKJV, though; none of the other translations I referenced nor the Hebrew has it.

Daniel 5:23

Last month, I read Daniel 5 (in the ESV) after running across a reference to it in an Emily Dickinson poem ("Belshazzar had a letter"), and I noticed a chiasm highlighting opposites in a section of verse 23 where Daniel tells Belshazzar:

You have praised

the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, 

but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways,

you have not honored.

When I lookt up the Aramaic in the Step Bible, however, I discovered that this structure isn't original; both clauses have the same structure, with the direct object preceding the verb.  Here are the two Daily Dose of Aramaic videos on this section of the verse:

In the NIV, this section is translated as "You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or undersatnd.  But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways."

Mark 1:22

I'm still behind on watching Worship Anew programs, but when I watched the program for 28 January (the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany) a couple weeks ago, I noticed a significant contrast in the Gospel reading from Mark 1.  In the ESV, Mark 1:22 is "And they [the people in the synagogue] were astonished at his [Jesus'] teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes."  While following along in the Latin Vulgate, I noticed that what's translated as a relative clause in the ESV ("who had authority") is a participial in the Latin ("potestatem habens"), as it is in the Greek (ἐξουσίαν ἔχων), so it's more like "having authority."  Since participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the action quality of a verb here, and this contrasts with the more static nature of the noun "scribes" (γραμματεῖς, "scribae").

For what it's worth:  in my German New Testament, this participial is translated as a prepositional phrase ("mit Vollmacht" "with power"), but my French New Testament retains it as a participial ("ayant autorité").

Deuteronomy 28:47-48a

I've been reading Deuteronomy in the NIV lately.  A couple weeks ago, I read chapter 28 and found an-other chiasm highlighting opposites (bridging verses 47 and 48):

47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God

joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 

48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty,

you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you.

I referenced the underlying Hebrew and a couple other translations, but this structure isn't in any of them.  The ESV follows the Hebrew word order more closely:  "47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything."

The Conversion of Saul

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 25 January.  The text was Acts 9:1-22, the conversation of Saul:

I think it's not until Acts 13:9 that Saul is also named Paul, but in hearing the account in Acts 9 about his conversion and Pastor Smith's sermon, in which he mentions the significance of names, I realized that Paul's new name embodies John 3:30 where John the Baptist says, "He [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease" since the Latin adjective paulus, -a, -um, from which Paul's name comes, means "small" or "little."  Coincidentally, the same day I watched the CUW chapel service, I also watched a Daily Dose of Greek video on Hebrews 2:7, and in the Latin Vulgate (which I always reference), the Greek word βραχύ is translated as "paulo."

Psalm 49:6

A couple weeks ago, I read Psalm 49 and noticed a feature in verse 6.  In the NKJV, the sense continues beyond verse 6 into verse 7:  "6 Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, 7 none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him."

In the ESV, however, verse 6 continues the sense from verse 5:  "5 Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me, 6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches?"  The NIV is similar:  "5 Why should I fear when evil days come, when wicked deceivers surround me - 6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches?"

In any case, what I noticed is that the parallelism between "their wealth" and "their riches" highlights this abundance.

Psalm 115:5-7

Earlier this month, I read Psalm 115, and after looking up the original Hebrew, I discovered that it has the same sort of construction as Psalm 135, which I wrote about a couple months ago.  Here are verses 5-7 in the ESV:

5 They [the idols of the nations] have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.

In the Hebrew, the repeated construction is "mouth to them," "eyes to them," and so on:

פֶּֽה־לָהֶם וְלֹא יְדַבֵּרוּ עֵינַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִרְאֽוּ׃

אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יִשְׁמָעוּ אַף לָהֶם וְלֹא יְרִיחֽוּן׃

Verse 7 is a bit different, though; here, there are pronominal suffixes on "hands" and "feet":

יְדֵיהֶם ׀ וְלֹא יְמִישׁוּן רַגְלֵיהֶם וְלֹא יְהַלֵּכוּ לֹֽא־יֶהְגּוּ בִּגְרוֹנָֽם׃

In both constructions, the idols' possession of these body parts is described without using any verbs, and consequently, the only verbs in these verses are the negated actions that the idols cannot perform.  They "do not speak," "do not see," and so on.  Like the lifeless idols themselves, there is only inactivity in these verses.

Genesis 3:12

Earlier this month, I read Genesis 3 and realized the significance of the pleonasm in verse 12:  "The man said, 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.'"  This is also in the Hebrew:

וַיֹּאמֶר הָֽאָדָם הָֽאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר נָתַתָּה עִמָּדִי הִוא נָֽתְנָה־לִּי מִן־הָעֵץ וָאֹכֵֽל׃

Adam is trying to shift the blame away from himself and onto Eve, and this unnecessary pronoun in his explanation is an-other tactic he uses to try to divert God's attention.

Ecclesiastes 3:20

A couple weeks ago, I lookt up Ecclesiastes 3:20:  "All go to one place.  All are from the dust, and to dust all return" [ESV].  The second half has a chiastic structure:

All are

from the dust,

and to dust

all return.

To some degree, this mirrors the "return[ing]" mentioned in the verse itself.  It's a bit inverted in relation to the meaning, though; the clause starts and ends with "all," but it's "to dust" (the middle element in the chiasm) that "all return."

The NIV translation is similar ("all come from dust, and to dust all return"), but this structure isn't present in the Hebrew:

הַכֹּל הָיָה מִן־הֶֽעָפָר וְהַכֹּל שָׁב אֶל־הֶעָפָֽר

It's more prosaic:  "All are from the dust, and all return to the dust."

Psalm 126:5

Last month, I fell behind in watching Worship Anew.  While watching the program from 17 December (the third Sunday in Advent) last week, I was following along in the Latin Vulgate and noticed yet an-other chiastic structure highlighting opposites, this time in Psalm 126:5:  "qui seminant in lacrimis in exultatione metent."  This is the same basic word order as the original Hebrew, too:

הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹֽרוּ׃.

In the ESV, this is translated as "Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!" but in the original word order, it's more like "Those who sow in tears in shouts of joy will reap."