Luke 16:13

Earlier this month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 25 September 2019.

The reading was Luke 16:1-15, and I noticed verse 13 in particular:  "'No servant 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.'"  This verse is nearly identical to Matthew 6:24 and contains the same feature that I noticed there about a year ago.  There's a chiastic structure to highlight the opposites:

He will hate the one

and love the other, 

or he will be devoted to the one

and despise the other.

As with Matthew 6:24, this structure is also present in the Greek:

Οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μεισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει. οὐ δύνασθε θεῷ δουλεύειν καὶ μαμωνᾷ.

the Latin Vulgate:

Nemo servus potest duobus dominis servire aut enim unum odiet et alterum diliget aut uni adherebit et alterum contemnet non potestis Deo servire et mamonae

my German New Testament:

Kein Knecht kann zwei Herren dienen; entweder er wird den einen hassen und den andern lieben, oder er wird an dem einen hängen und den andern verachten.  Ihr könnt nicht Gott dienen und dem Mammon.

and my French New Testament:

Nul serviteur ne peut servir deux maîtres.  Car, ou il haïra l'un et aimera l'autre; ou il s'attachera à l'un et méprisera l'autre.  Vous ne pouvez servir Dieu et Mamon.

Proverbs 11:11

About a month ago, I read Proverbs 11 in the NKJV and noticed some significance in the structure of verse 11:  "By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked."  The two clauses' structures are inversions of each other, highlighting the opposites ("upright" & "wicked" and "exalted" & "overthrown").

Of the translations I have, this feature is unique to the NKJV.  It's not in the Hebrew either, where this verse is:

בְּבִרְכַּת יְשָׁרִים תָּרוּם קָרֶת וּבְפִי רְשָׁעִים תֵּהָרֵֽס׃

Following this word order, the verse is something like:  "By the blessing of the upright is exalted a city, but by the mouth of the wicked, it is overthrown."

Proverbs 10:1

A few weeks ago, I read Proverbs 10 in the NKJV and noticed a small feature in the first verse:  "The proverbs of Solomon:  A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother."

In Hebrew, the verse is:

מִשְׁלֵי שְׁלֹמֹה פ בֵּן חָכָם יְשַׂמַּח־אָב וּבֵן כְּסִיל תּוּגַת אִמּֽוֹ׃

If I understand correctly, the word יְשַׂמַּח means "makes glad," so the first clause is something like "A wise son makes glad a father," which the NKJV just shuffles around a bit.

At first, I noticed only that the contrast between "wise" and "foolish" and between "glad" and grief" is further emphasized by the different types of verbs:  "makes" is an active verb, but "is" (which is merely implied in the Hebrew) is a stative verb.

When I started looking at other translations, I found more to comment on.  The ESV is basically the same as the NKJV (it has "sorrow to" instead of "grief of"), but the NIV is different:  "A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother."  Here, these contrasts are highlighted by the omission of the verb in the second clause ("a foolish son [brings] grief to his mother").

Either of these constructions (the contrasting active and stative verbs or the elliptical phrasing) may hint at laziness on the part of the foolish son, who merely exists instead of actively doing or whose efforts are lacking.  The following verses, which continue to compare sons, comment plainly on laziness:  "4 Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.  5 He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son."

In the Latin Vulgate, the verse is comparable to the NKJV and ESV translations:  "Parabolae Salomonis Filius sapiens laetificat patrem filius vero stultus maestitia est matris suae."

Proverbs 2:6

A few weeks ago, I started reading Proverbs in the NKJV.  I noticed a minor feature in the second half of Proverbs 2:6:  "from His [the LORD's] mouth come knowledge and understanding."  The sentence structure is inverted so that the source (the LORD's mouth) precedes that which comes from it (knowledge and understanding), which obviously mirrors the meaning.

The ESV and NIV translations are the same as the NKJV, and this structure is also in the Hebrew:

מִפִּיו דַּעַת וּתְבוּנָֽה׃

the Latin Vulgate:

ex ore eius [veniunt] scientia et prudentia

and my German translation of Proverbs, albeit with a subject-verb disagreement:

aus seinem Munde kommt Erkenntnis und Einsicht

Psalm 145:20

While reading Psalm 145 in the NKJV last month, I noticed an-other chiastic structure that highlights opposites.  Verse 20 is:

The LORD preserves

all who love Him, 

but all the wicked

He will destroy.

This structure is also present in the Hebrew:

שׁוֹמֵר יְהוָה אֶת־כָּל־אֹהֲבָיו וְאֵת כָּל־הָרְשָׁעִים יַשְׁמִֽיד׃

The ESV and NIV translations are similar to the NKJV and also retain this structure.

Proverbs 12:13

A few weeks ago, I read Proverbs 12 and noticed something in verse 13 that's similar to what I noted in Proverbs 11:6 last year.  In the ESV, it's "An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, but the righteous escapes from trouble."  I still don't know enough about Hebrew verbs to be able to comment on whether this is the case in the original language, but in English, at least, there's a contrast between the passive voice of "is ensnared" and the active voice of "escapes."  The ensnared man has a lack of agency, and this is mirrored by the passive voice, in which the subject is acted upon.

This is also the case in my German translation of Proverbs:  "Der Böse wird gefangen in seinen eigenen falschen Worten; aber der Gerechte entgeht der Not."

Matthew 7:29

I think it was even before the Daily Dose of Greek got to Matthew 7:29 that I noticed that it has the same feature that I noted in Mark 1:22 a few months ago.  (I'd lookt ahead after watching the Daily Dose video on verse 28.)

ἦν γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν.

In the ESV, this is translated as "For he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes," but ἔχων is a participle, so it's actually more like "he was teaching them as one having authority...."  Because participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the dynamic element of a verb here, and it contrasts with the more static nature of the noun γραμματεῖς (scribes).

As with Mark 1:22, the participial ἐξουσίαν ἔχων is retained in the Vulgate ("potestatem habens") and my French New Testament ("ayant authorité"), but it's rendered as a prepositional phrase ("mit Vollmacht") in my German New Testament.

Matthew 7:25, 27

A few weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Matthew 7:25 and Matthew 7:27:

καὶ κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι, καὶ προσέπεσαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ οὐκ ἔπεσεν· τεθεμελίωτο γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν.

καὶ κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι, καὶ προσέκοψαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ ἔπεσεν· καὶ ἦν ἡ πτῶσις αὐτῆς μεγάλη.

In the ESV, these verses are:

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

It wasn't until looking at the Vulgate that I realized that both of these verses exhibit polysyndeton (the repeated καὶ, translated as "and").  In my copy of the Vulgate, the first part of each of these verses is formatted as:

et descendit pluvia

et venerunt flumina

et flaverunt venti

et inruerunt in domum illam

which makes the polysyndeton obvious.  Here, it highlights the multitude of forces assaulting the houses.  In the Greek and the Latin, the verbs (the first three, at least) precede their respective nouns, and this structure may also heighten the sense of action.

Additionally, the formatting of the Latin suggests (to me, anyway) that "flaverunt" (ἔπνευσαν, blew) and "inruerunt" (προσέπεσαν/προσέκοψαν, beat) have different subjects (the explicit "venti," ἄνεμοι, "winds" and an inflected "they," respectively), resulting in a slightly different translation:  "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they [all three forces!] beat on that house."  Like the polysyndeton and the inverted structure, this reading also highlights the intensity of the elements' assault on the houses.

[For what it's worth, I also wrote about this passage a few years ago.]

Matthew 7:17-19

A few weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Matthew 7:17-19:

17 οὕτως πᾶν δένδρον ἀγαθὸν καρποὺς καλοὺς ποιεῖ, τὸ δὲ σαπρὸν δένδρον καρποὺς πονηροὺς ποιεῖ.  18 οὐ δύναται δένδρον ἀγαθὸν καρποὺς πονηροὺς ποιεῖν οὐδὲ δένδρον σαπρὸν καρποὺς καλοὺς ποιεῖν.  19 πᾶν δένδρον μὴ ποιοῦν καρπὸν καλὸν ἐκκόπτεται καὶ εἰς πῦρ βάλλεται.

In the ESV, these verses are:

17 'So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.'

In each of these verses, the phrase "good fruit" alliterates and has a balanced number of syllables, even though it's plural in verses 17 and 18 (καρποὺς καλοὺς) but singular in verse 19 (καρπὸν καλὸν).  These features provide a euphony that matches the description "good."

Psalm 119:125

A few weeks ago, I read the Ayin section (verses 121-128) of Psalm 119.  I was thinking about the underlying Hebrew as I read, and I correctly deduced that part of verse 125 was inverted in translation and that in the original Hebrew, the word for servant (עֶ֫בֶד) comes first.  (Each verse in this section starts with an ayin.)

In the NKJV, the verse is

I am Your servant, give me understanding, that I may know Your testimonies.

In Hebrew, it's

עַבְדְּךָ־אָנִי הֲבִינֵנִי וְאֵדְעָה עֵדֹתֶֽיךָ׃

In the original word order, the first clause is something like "Your servant [am] I."

Then I realized that, perhaps coincidentally, the word order of the Hebrew matches the outlook of a good servant:  the word servant (עַבְדְּךָ, with the possessive suffix "your") comes before the pronoun I (אָנִי) in the same way that the duties of the position take precedence over personal interests.

I referenced the Latin Vulgate and found that it follows the Hebrew word order and thus also has this feature:

servus tuus ego instrue me et cognoscam testimonia tua

1 Chronicles 16:26, Psalm 96:5

About a month ago, I read some of 1 Chronicles 16 and noticed a couple contrasting features in verse 26:  "For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens."  In the first clause, there's only a stative verb, which is actually merely implied in the Hebrew (it's just "For all the gods of the peoples - idols":  כִּי כָּל־אֱלֹהֵי הָעַמִּים אֱלִילִים), but in the second clause, there's an active verb ("made" עָשָֽׂה).  The different qualities of these verbs (absent or present and stative or active) distinguish between the "idols" and "the Lord" and highlight the inactivity of the idols.

This verse seemed familiar to me, and after some searching, I discovered that it appears verbatim as Psalm 96:5.

The same features are present in the Vulgate, although there's a slight difference in that "idols" is translated as "idola" in 1 Chronicles but as "sculptilia" ("sculpted things") in the Psalm:

omnes enim dii populorum idola Dominus autem caelos fecit 

omnes enim dii populorum sculptilia Dominus autem caelos fecit

Matthew 7:3

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on Matthew 7:3:

"'Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?'" [ESV]

Even before Dr. Plummer mentioned it in the video, I noticed that the verse has a chiastic structure:

τί δὲ βλέπεις

τὸ κάρφος

τὸ ἐν τῷ ὀφθαλμῷ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου,

τὴν δὲ ἐν τῷ σῷ ὀφθαλμῷ

δοκὸν

οὐ κατανοεῖς;

Something like:

Why do you see

the speck

that is in your brother's eye,

but that is in your own eye

the log

you do not notice?

Since the words in the two clauses appear in an inverted order, this structure highlights the contrast between βλέπεις ("you do see") and οὐ κατανοεῖς ("you do not notice") and perhaps also between the sizes of τὸ κάρφος ("the speck") and τὴν δοκὸν ("the log").