Psalm 143:3

Last year, I read Psalm 143 in the ESV and noticed a way in which the punctuation in English translations heightens the meaning.

In the ESV, verse 3 is:  "For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead."  In the NIV, it's:  "The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead."  The NKJV renders it as:  "For the enemy has persecuted my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me dwell in darkness, like those who have long been dead."

The NIV has a comma splice, but otherwise, all of these translations connect the three clauses with semicolons.  Because the clauses follow each other so closely, without the pause that a sentence break or even a conjunction would provide, there's a sense of being "pursued" or "crushed."

1 Kings 2:33

While reading 1 Kings in the NIV last year, I found an-other instance where a chiastic structure highlights opposites, this time in 1 Kings 2:33:

May the guilt of their blood rest

on the head of Joab and his descendants forever.

But on David and his descendants, his house and his throne,

may there be the LORD's peace forever.

This structure is also in the Hebrew:

וְשָׁבוּ דְמֵיהֶם

בְּרֹאשׁ יוֹאָב וּבְרֹאשׁ זַרְעוֹ לְעֹלָם

וּלְדָוִד וּלְזַרְעוֹ וּלְבֵיתוֹ וּלְכִסְאוֹ

יִהְיֶה שָׁלוֹם עַד־עוֹלָם מֵעִם יְהוָֽה׃

And the Latin Vulgate:

et revertetur sanguis illorum

in caput Ioab et in caput seminis eius in sempiternum

David autem et semini eius et domui et throno illius

sit pax usque in aeternum a Domino

Psalm 139:5

A few months ago, I read Psalm 139 in the ESV and noticed a small feature in verse 5:  "You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me."  There's a sort of parallelism between "behind" and "before," and the visual similarity of the words matches this.

This feature is also present in the NIV and the NKJV, but it seems specific to what English translations I referenced.

1 Kings 1:25-26

In reading 1 Kings in the NIV a couple months ago, I found an-other chiasm that highlights opposites.  In verses 25-26, Nathan says to David, "25 Today he [Adonijah] has gone down and sacrificed great numbers of cattle, fattened calves, and sheep.  He has invited all the king's sons, the commanders of the army and Abiathar the priest.  Right now they are eating and drinking with him and saying, 'Long live King Adonijah!'  26 But me your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon he did not invite."

The sentence structure is inverted between "He has invited all the king's sons, the commanders of the army and Abiathar the priest" and "But me your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon he did not invite," highlighting this contrast.

This feature is also present in the Hebrew:

וַיִּקְרָא לְכָל־בְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ וּלְשָׂרֵי הַצָּבָא וּלְאֶבְיָתָר הַכֹּהֵן

וְלִי אֲנִֽי־עַבְדֶּךָ וּלְצָדֹק הַכֹּהֵן וְלִבְנָיָהוּ בֶן־יְהוֹיָדָע וְלִשְׁלֹמֹה עַבְדְּךָ לֹא קָרָֽא

And in the Latin Vulgate:

vocavit universos filios regis et principes exercitus Abiathar quoque sacerdotum

me servum tuum et Sadoc sacerdotem et Banaiam filium Ioiadae et Salomonem famulum tuum non vocavit

Psalm 132:18

A couple months ago, I read Psalm 132 in the ESV and noticed an interesting feature in verse 18:  "'His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine.'"  The phrases "clothe with shame" and "crown will shine" resemble each other visually, and to some degree, this superficial resemblance draws attention to their opposite nature.

Mark 12:44

On Worship Anew a couple months ago, the Gospel reading was Mark 12:38-44.  In all of the English translations I referenced (ESV, NIV, and NKJV), there's a chiastic structure in verse 44.  Here's the ESV:

"For they all contributed

out of their abundance,

but she out of her poverty

has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

Such a structure highlights the opposite natures of "abundance" (the NIV has "wealth") and "poverty" and perhaps even the different manners in which the rich people and poor widow gave their offerings.

This structure isn't in the Greek, though, where this verse is:  πάντες γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ περισσεύοντος αὐτοῖς ἔβαλον, αὕτη δὲ ἐκ τῆς ὑστερήσεως αὐτῆς πάντα ὅσα εἶχεν ἔβαλεν, ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς.  The two clauses have roughly the same structure here, something like "All out of their abundance contributed, but she out of her poverty put in...."

1 Kings 17:8-16

On Worship Anew a couple months ago (10 November, Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost), the Old Testament reading was 1 Kings 17:8-16, and I noticed a way in which the vocabulary sort of mirrors the meaning of the text.

Initially, the widow at Zarephath has "only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.  And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die."  Elijah asks her for some food and tells her "thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.'"  By the providence of God, "she and he and her household ate for many days."

"Her household" (בֵיתָהּ) here is really just her son, but the multitude of people that this term could imply matches the abundance of the provisions that don't run out.

Psalm 125:4-5

Last month, I read Psalm 125 in the ESV, and I noticed a sort of chiastic structure highlighting opposites in verses 4-5:

4 Do good, O LORD,

to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts!

5 But those who turn aside to their crooked ways

the LORD will lead away with evildoers!  Peace be upon Israel!

The structure is delineated more by meaning than strict grammatical form, though, since the phrases "those who are good" and "those who are upright in their hearts" are in the dative case where the phrase "those who turn aside to their crooked ways" is in the accusative.  The verbs are slightly different, too:  "do good" is an imperative, but "will lead away" is a future indicative (in the English, at least).

This structure is also present in the Hebrew:

הֵיטִיבָה יְהוָה לַטּוֹבִים וְלִֽישָׁרִים בְּלִבּוֹתָֽם׃

וְהַמַּטִּים עַֽקַלְקַלּוֹתָם יוֹלִיכֵם יְהוָה אֶת־פֹּעֲלֵי הָאָוֶן שָׁלוֹם עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

The Latin Vulgate:

4 benefac Domine

bonis et rectis corde

5 qui autem declinant ad pravitates suas

deducet eos Dominus cum his qui operantur iniquitatem pax super Israhel

And my German Psalter:

4 HERR, tu wohl

den Guten und denen, die frommen Herzens sind.

5 Die aber abweichen auf ihre krummen Wege,

wird der HERR dahinfahren lassen mit den Übeltätern.  Friede sei über Israel!

Hebrews 9:14

Last month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from the 6th:

The reading was Hebrews 9:11-14, and part of verse 14 caught my attention:  "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God" [ESV].

In the Greek, it's:  πόσῳ μᾶλλον τὸ αἷμα τοῦ χριστοῦ, ὃς διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου ἑαυτὸν προσήνεγκεν ἄμωμον τῷ θεῷ, καθαριεῖ τὴν συνείδησιν ὑμῶν ἀπὸ νεκρῶν ἔργων εἰς τὸ λατρεύειν θεῷ ζῶντι;

There's a sort of contrast between "from dead works" and "to serve the living God," and this is heightened by the different forms of the modifiers.  "Dead" (νεκρῶν) is just an adjective, but "living" (ζῶντι) is a participle, and since participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the dynamic action of a verb here rather than just the static nature of a plain adjective.

The same distinction is also in the Latin Vulgate ("quanto magis sanguis Christi qui per Spiritum Sanctum semet ipsum obtulit inmaculatum Deo emundabit conscientiam vestram ab operibus mortuis ad serviendum Deo viventi"), my German New Testament ("um wieviel mehr wird dann das Blut Christi, der sich selbst als Opfer ohne Fehl durch den ewigen Geist Gott dargebracht hat, unser Gewissen reinigen von den toten Werken, zu dienen dem lebendigen Gott!"), and my French New Testament ("combien plus le sang de Christ, qui, par un esprit éternel, s'est offert lui-même sans tache à Dieu, purifiera-t-il votre conscience des œuvres mortes, afin que vous serviez la Dieu vivant!").

Psalm 102:11

In catching up on reading the entire chapter of some Biblical references in the introduction to my copy of The Bhagavad Gita last month, I found yet an-other small feature to write about.  I read Psalm 102 in the ESV, in which verse 11 is:  "My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass."  (The NIV is basically the same:  "My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.")  There's a sort of redundancy in the phrase "an evening shadow" ("evening" and "shadow" both imply a degree of darkness), and this results in an imbalance between the two halves of the clause:  there's a single element as the subject ("days") but an adjective and noun pair with overlapping meanings as the predicate nominative ("evening shadow").  This unevenness with more weight placed on "an evening shadow" emphasizes the darkness of the Psalmist's plight.

This doesn't apply to the Hebrew, though, where the verse is:

יָמַי כְּצֵל נָטוּי וַאֲנִי כָּעֵשֶׂב אִיבָֽשׁ׃

The ESV and NIV translate נָטוּי as "evening" in this context, but the word actually means something like "stretched out" or "extended."  This is how the NKJV translates it:  "My days are like a shadow that lengthens, and I wither away like grass."

Isaiah 30:9-13

About a month ago, I read Isaiah 30 after having run across a citation of Isaiah 30:15 in the introduction to my edition of The Bhagavad Gita, and I noticed some significance in the diction in verses 9-13:

9 For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD; 10 who say to the seers, "Do not see," and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, 11 leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel."  12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, "Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, 13 therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant [ESV]

In verse 10, there are nouns and negated verbs built on the same roots:  "who say to the seers, 'Do not see,' and to the prophets, 'Do not prophesy...'"  This is also true of the Hebrew:

אֲשֶׁר אָמְרוּ לָֽרֹאִים לֹא תִרְאוּ וְלַחֹזִים לֹא תֶחֱזוּ

Bridging verses 11 and 12, there's a similar construction:  "'Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.'  Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel...."  Unlike the words in verse 10, the phrases "let us hear no more" and "therefore thus says" don't have the same verbal roots, but they're still related in meaning.  Significantly, the order is reversed here.  First, it's "to the seers, 'Do not see'" and "to the prophets, 'Do not prophesy,'" but now, it's "hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.  Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel...."  Altogether, then, the language here gives a sense of God's turning the tables on the rebellious people and doing precisely the opposite of what they want.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

Just over a month ago, I read 1 Corinthians 10 after having found a citation of it (verse 31 specifically) in the introduction to my edition of The Bhagavad Gita.  I noticed a couple rhetorical devices in the first four verses:

1 For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.  [ESV]

This passage exhibits both anaphora (the repeated "all") and polysyndeton (the repeated "and"), and these devices provide a sense of entirety.