Proverbs 14:25

After I finished reading the Psalms in the NIV, I continued on into Proverbs.  A couple weeks ago, I read chapter 14, and I noticed a contrast in verse 25:  "A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful."  (The ESV is similar:  "A truthful witness saves lives, but one who breathes out lies is deceitful.")  Obviously, "truthful" and "false" are opposites, and to some degree, these are mirrored by the different types of verbs:  "saves" is an active verb, but "is" is merely a stative verb.

John 20:1

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on John 20:1:

In the ESV, this verse is:  "Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb."

I realized that the description "while it was still dark," while providing a veritable detail of the account, could also be understood metaphorically.  Its being "still dark" could also refer either to the gloom of Mary's sadness after Jesus' death or to her ignorance of His resurrection.

Isaiah 55:8

Last month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 28 September 2017:

The text was Isaiah 55:8-11, and I noticed a small feature in verse 8:  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD."  The possessive adjectives have a chiastic structure ("my" "your" "your" "my"), and this provides some indication of the disparity between the two "thoughts" and the two "ways."  Arranging the clauses so that these possessive adjectives are parallel ("My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways") doesn't have the same effect.

This same structure is also present in Hebrew (כִּי לֹא מַחְשְׁבוֹתַי מַחְשְׁבוֹתֵיכֶם וְלֹא דַרְכֵיכֶם דְּרָכָי נְאֻם יְהוָֽה) and Latin ("non enim cogitationes meae cogitationes vestrae neque viae vestrae viae meae dicit Dominus").

Last First/First Last

Last month, I tried to watch the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 25 September 2017 (the audio cuts out about two thirds of the way through).  The reading, which was Matthew 20:1-16, is intact, though, and I had a small realization about verse 16:  "'So the last will be first, and the first last.'"  There's a chiastic structure here, and it illustrates that inversion.

The same feature is present elsewhere:  Matthew 19:30 ("'But many who are first will be last, and the last first.'"), Mark 10:31 ("'But many who are first will be last, and the last first.'"), and Luke 13:30 ("'And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.'").

Psalm 119:150, 155

In continuing on in reading Psalm 119 in the NIV, I found two more instances where two nouns are placed at opposite ends of a clause, giving a sense of distance.

Psalm 119:150:

Those who devise wicked schemes are near, but they are far from your law.

and Psalm 119:155:

Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek out your degrees.

The same feature is present in the ESV, the NKJV, and even my German Psalter ("sie sind fern von deinem Gesetz" and "das Heil ist fern von den Gottlosen"), but it's not in either verse in the original Hebrew text.

Jeremiah 4:22

While continuing through Jeremiah 4 in the archives of the Daily Dose of Hebrew last month, I noticed an interesting feature in verse 22:

When I read the ESV translation before watching the video, I noticed the chiastic structure near the end of the verse:  "'They are 'wise' - in doing evil!  But how to do good they know not.'"  This is also true of the Hebrew:

חֲכָמִים הֵמָּה לְהָרַע וּלְהֵיטִיב לֹא יָדָֽעוּ

The inversion between the two clauses illustrates the opposites:  חֲכָמִים ("wise," used ironically) with לֹא יָדָֽעוּ ("they know not") and לְהָרַע (to do evil) with לְהֵיטִיב (to do good).

This structure is also maintained in the Vulgate:  "sapientes sunt ut faciant mala bene autem facere nescierunt."

On Barabbas

Even before the Daily Dose of Greek got to John 18:40 last month, I started thinking about Barabbas.  Back in August last year, I had a small realization about this particular verse (which I never got around to writing about), and I had an-other realization after watching the Daily Dose of Greek video.

Previously, I'd thought of this exchange between Barabbas and Jesus only as a representation of the exchange between guilt and innocence (aside, of course, from the recounting of an actual event).  In the same way that innocent Jesus takes the place of guilty Barabbas, He also takes the punishment that should be ours.

Considering the passage more closely, I realized that there's a bit more depth than that; there are also specific contrasts between the characters of these two figures.  In John 18:40, the Evangelist comments "Now Barabbas was a robber," and this contrasts with Jesus, Who gives freely (the feeding of the five thousand, for example).  In Mark 15:7, Barabbas is described as one of "the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection."  Jesus is the exact opposite of these attributes, too.  Instead of rebelling, He kept the law perfectly (Hebrews 9:14), and rather than murdering, He creates life (in Acts 3:15, He is called the Author of life).

My other realization, looking at the accounts from a different perspective, is that the crowd is representative of our sinful human nature.  In the same way that the crowd calls for Barabbas and rejects Jesus, we would cling to the darkness of sin and shun the Light of righteousness.

Jeremiah 4:9

In October, I started going through the Daily Dose of Hebrew's weekend series on Jeremiah from the beginning.  I'd watched most of these videos when they were originally posted, but this time, I'm copying out the verses, and eventually, I'll catch up to where the series is currently (in chapter 9 as of this writing).

After I watched the video on Jeremiah 4:9, I noticed an interesting feature of the ESV translation.

וְהָיָה בַיּוֹם־הַהוּא נְאֻם־יְהוָה יֹאבַד לֵב־הַמֶּלֶךְ וְלֵב הַשָּׂרִים וְנָשַׁמּוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים וְהַנְּבִיאִים יִתְמָֽהוּ׃

"In that day, declares the LORD, courage shall fail both king and officials.  The priests shall be appalled and the prophets astounded."

The phrase "יֹאבַד לֵב" is literally something like "the heart will perish," but in the ESV, it's translated as "courage shall fail."  This has a slightly different sense, but the etymology of courage actually points back to "the heart will perish," although this may be just coincidental.  The word courage comes ultimately from cor, the Latin word for heart.  In the Vulgate, this section of the verse is "peribit cor regis et cor principum."

Psalm 113:1-2

A little over a month ago, my daily psalm was Psalm 113.  In the NIV, the first two verses are:

1 Praise the LORD.

Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD.

2 Let the name of the LORD be praised, both now and forevermore.

The same sentiment is in both verses, but in verse 1, it's in active voice ("praise the name of the LORD") and in verse 2, it's in passive voice ("let the name of the LORD be praised").  In a way, this is a merism of verb voices, and it emphasizes this command.  Additionally, it mirrors the temporal merism at the end of the second verse ("now and forevermore") and the spatial/temporal merism in verse 3, which I wrote about a few years ago.

This feature is also present in my German Psalter ("lobet den Namen des HERRN!  Gelobt sei der Name des HERRN"), but it's not in any of the other translations I referenced nor in Hebrew, where these are two different verbs.  Most of the other translations have some version of "Blessed be the name of the LORD" in the second verse.

Galatians 6:14

Last month, a footnote in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II led me to Galatians 6, where I found an interesting feature in verse 14:  "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

The clauses "the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" exhibit a chiastic structure, so it's almost as if Paul's boasting in the cross suffuses even how he talks about it.

When I lookt up the Greek text, however, I found that this structure isn't present there:

ἐμοὶ κόσμος ἐσταύρωται κἀγὼ κόσμῳ

nor it is present in the Latin Vulgate or my German translation, but it is in the NIV and the NKJV, both of which also render this as "the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

It's also in my French New Testament:

le monde est crucifié pour moi, comme je le suis pour le monde

Psalm 101:4

Last month, in my daily Psalm reading (in the NIV), I read Psalm 101, and I noticed the same sort of feature that I'd found in Psalm 119:29 a few days before.  The first half of verse 4 is "Men of perverse heart shall be far from me."  As if to reflect this distance, the "men of perverse heart" and "me" are at opposite ends of the clause.

This is also true in the Hebrew:

לֵבָב עִקֵּשׁ יָסוּר מִמֶּנִּי

In the ESV:

A perverse heart shall be far from me

In the NKJV:

A perverse heart shall depart from me

And in the Latin Vulgate

cor pravum recedet a me [according to the Hebrew]

cor pravum declinante a me [according to the Septuagint]

The only translation I lookt at that doesn't have this feature is my German Psalter, where this part of the verse is:

Ein falsches Herz muß von mir weichen

Psalm 119:29

About a month ago, as I was reading the Daleth part of Psalm 119, I noticed something about verse 29 that may be pretty obvious.  In the Hebrew, it's:

דֶּֽרֶךְ־שֶׁקֶר הָסֵר מִמֶּנִּי וְֽתוֹרָתְךָ חָנֵּֽנִי׃

In the ESV, this is:

Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law!

In the NIV:

Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law.

In all of these, "me" (the נִּי suffix) is about as far from "false ways"/"deceitful ways" (it's singular in Hebrew:  דֶּֽרֶךְ־שֶׁקֶר) as it can be in the clause, illustrating the separation that the Psalmist wishes for.

The Latin Vulgate is similar, whether according to the Hebrew:

viam mendacii aufer a me et legem tuam dona mihi

Or according to the Septuagint:

viam iniquitatis amove a me et lege tua miserere mei

Both of these actually follow the Hebrew word order more closely than the English translations do, with דֶּֽרֶךְ־שֶׁקֶר ("viam mendacii" or "viam iniquitatis") preceding מִמֶּנִּי ("a me").

This distance isn't present in all of the translations I lookt at, though.  In the New King James Version, this verse is:

Remove from me the way of lying, and grant me Your law graciously.

And in my German Psalter:

Halte fern von mir den Weg der Lüge und gib mir in Gnaden dein Gesetz.

In both of these, "me" ("mir") and "the way of lying" ("den Weg der Lüge") are side by side.