Joel 2:3

I've been reading Joel lately (although by the time this post is published, I'll have finished it and moved on to Amos).  A couple weeks ago, I noticed a nice feature in the first part of 2:3:  "Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns."  There's a chiasm here, so even in the structure of the sentence, fire is both in front of and behind the people.  From what I can tell, however, this feature isn't present in the original Hebrew.

Mark 8:31

I'm still working my way through Mark in the Daily Dose of Greek archives.  A little over a week ago, I watched the video for Mark 8:31:

I noticed polysyndeton among the infinitives:  καὶ ἤρξατο διδάσκειν αὐτοὺς ὅτι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πολλὰ παθεῖν καὶ ἀποδοκιμασθῆναι ὑπὸ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καὶ τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ τῶν γραμματέων καὶ ἀποκτανθῆναι καὶ μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀναστῆναι·

This repetition gives some sense of amount, reflecting that πολλὰ.

1 Corinthians 15:24

I forgot to write about this earlier, but when I watched Worship Anew last month (22 November - the Last Sunday of the Church Year), I noticed a small feature in the epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 15.  Verse 24 is "Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power."  "εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν·"  There's polysyndeton (the repeated "and" or "καὶ"), and this - along with "every" (πᾶσαν) - gives a sense of completeness.

Hosea 1:7

I recently started reading Hosea and noticed a small feature in 1:7:  "'But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God.  I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.'"  The second sentence exhibits polysyndeton (the repeated conjunction "or"), and this emphasizes the contrast between the one who will save them and the many things that will not.

Proverbs 13:16

While reading Proverbs 13 last month, I noticed a small feature in verse 16:  "In everything the prudent acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly."  As if to highlight that "flaunt[ing]," that half of the verse has both alliteration and consonance ("a fool flaunts his folly").  I lookt at some other translations, but of what I have, this feature is unique to the ESV.

John 4:14

I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last month, and I started wondering whether the Latin inscription on the Grail tablet ("Quisquid bibit aquam...") had any similarity to John 4 in the Latin Vulgate.  I lookt it up and found that the Vulgate has different indefinite pronouns.

While looking this up, though, I noticed an error in verse 14 in the NIV translation.  "ὃς δ᾽ ἂν πίῃ ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος οὗ ἐγὼ δώσω αὐτῷ, οὐ μὴ διψήσει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, ἀλλὰ τὸ ὕδωρ ὃ δώσω αὐτῷ γενήσεται ἐν αὐτῷ πηγὴ ὕδατος ἁλλομένου εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον" is rendered as "but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  If I understand my Greek correctly, αὐτῷ is singular, but the NIV translates it as "them" (three times!).  Not only is this an inaccurate translation, but it also creates a grammatical problem in the English translation:  there's a disagreement in number between the plural "them" and the singular antecedent "whoever."

Proverbs 6:20-22

At the end of September, I started reading a chapter of Proverbs before I go to bed.  I noted before that there's a similarity between Proverbs 1:8-9 and Deuteronomy 6:4-9, but I found an even stronger resemblance between that same passage in Deuteronomy and Proverbs 6:20-22:  "20 My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.  21 Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.  22 When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you."

Here's Deuteronomy 6:4-9:  "4 'Hear, O Israel:  The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.'"

Both passages talk about "bind[ing]" these commandments to one's self, but the strongest similarity is between Deuteronomy 6:7 and Proverbs 6:22:  "when you walk... when you lie down... and when you rise/awake."

Psalm 22:13

A section of Psalm 32 was one of the readings on Worship Anew a couple weeks ago.  I was following along in the Psalms portion of my French hymnal, and half of verse 7 ("de chants de délivrance, tu m'as entouré") made me realize that a specific feature of French almost mirrors the meaning.  It doesn't quite work in Psalm 32:7 (because there's an ablative of means), but I found a better example in Psalm 22:13.  In French, it's "Des fauvres nombreux me cernent, des taureaux de Basan m'encerclent" ("Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me").  Because French has a subject-object-verb word order*, "me" (in bold) is literally "surround[ed]" by the noun and verb (in italics):  "Des fauvres nombreux me cernent, des taureaux de Basan m'encerclent."

I lookt in my German Psalter and found a similar feature there.  In the German translation, the verbs are perfects ("they have surrounded me"), but because of German word order, the "me"s here are literally surrounded too:  "Gewaltige Stiere haben mich umgeben, mächtige Büffel haben mich umringt."

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*In this instance, at least.  If I remember aright, French uses subject-object-verb word order only if the object is a pronoun.

Colossians 1:23

Last week, I was looking at some verses in Colossians 1, and I noticed a small feature in verse 23:  "if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister."  "Stable" and "steadfast" alliterate, and this repetition of sound gives a sense of the words' meanings.  There's a sense of constancy.

Of the translations I have (English and otherwise), this feature is specific to the ESV.  In the NIV, this phrase is translated as "established and firm," and in the NKJV it's "grounded and steadfast."

Psalm 147:9

I recently remembered something I'd noticed about Psalm 147:9 years ago, and I figured I might as well write about it here.  The verse is:  "He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry."  Because "their food" is implied in the second clause, because "that" can function as a relative pronoun or a demonstrative adjective, and because the form of "cry" here can be read as a noun or a verb, the English translation of this verse can also mean something along the lines of:  "God gives food to the beasts, and He gives a specific noise to the ravens."  While this is true from a certain point of view, it's clear from looking at the Hebrew that this isn't the intended reading.

In German, this verse is "Der dem Vieh sein Futter gibt, den jungen Raben, die zu ihm rufen."  This is phrased differently so that there's no ambiguity:  "to the young ravens that cry to Him."

In doing a bit of research to write about this, I discovered that Jesus references this verse in Luke 12:24:  "'Consider the ravens:  they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.  Of how much more value are you than the birds!'"  Job 38:41 is also relevant:  "Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?"

Proverbs 1:8-9

Sharper Iron on KFUO recently started going through Proverbs.  This reminded me that back in March, when the Daily Dose of Hebrew was going through Proverbs 1, I found a connection between verses 8-9 and Deuteronomy 6.

First, here are the texts.  Proverbs 1:8-9:  "8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, 9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck."

Deuteronomy 6:4-9:  "4 'Hear, O Israel:  The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.'"

Dr. Howell - the host of the Daily Dose of Hebrew - notes the similarity between "Hear, my son..." in Proverbs 1:8 and "Hear, O Israel..." in Deuteronomy 6:4, but this similarity can be taken a bit further.  In the same way that the "words that I command you today" will be "a sign on your hand" and "frontlets between your eyes," the "father's instruction" and "mother's teaching" are "a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck."  I don't think there are any similarities in the specific Hebrew words used, but in both passages (Proverbs 1:8-9 and Deuteronomy 6:8), the words of wisdom are worn, almost as adornments.

The study notes in my Bible also point to Proverbs 3:3:  "Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart."  Reading a bit further, I noticed Proverbs 3:21-22:  "My son, do not lose sight of these - keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck."

Psalm 136

On Worship Anew a few weeks ago, the Psalm reading was a section of Psalm 136.  This reminded me of something I'd realized before but hadn't thought to write about.

Every other line of the Psalm is "for his steadfast love endures forever."  Here are the first three verses:  "1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.  2 Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.  3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever."  This refrain even punctuates the accounts of Creation and the Exodus:  "6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever; 7 to him who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever; 8 the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever; 9 the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever... 13 to him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever; 14 and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever."

This repetition of "his steadfast love endures forever" provides a sense of the surety and constancy of that "steadfast love."