Proverbs 27:6

Last month, I read Proverbs 27 in the NKJV and noticed some significance in the structure of verse 6:

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

The clauses' structures are inversions of each other:  [adjective][implied copulative verb][noun + prepositional phrase] in the first but [noun + prepositional phrase][implied copulative verb][adjective] in the second.  This inversion highlights the opposites "faithful" and "deceitful," "wounds" and "kisses," and "friend" and "enemy."

None of the other translations I referenced have this structure, though, and some even differ in meaning, which I can't account for.  My German translation of Proverbs and the Latin Vulgate have the same basic meaning as the NKJV, but the ESV and NIV go in an-other direction.  In the ESV, this verse is:  "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy," and in the NIV:  "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

Proverbs 24:11

Last month, I read Proverbs 24 in the NKJV and noticed some interesting features in verse 11:

Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.

There's parallelism (of both structure and meaning) between "drawn toward death" and "stumbling to the slaughter," and this is highlighted by the alliteration in each phrase and by the balanced number of syllables in the principal words within each phrase ("drawn" and "death" have one syllable each; "stumbling" and "slaughter" two).

I referenced some other translations and the Hebrew text, but these features seem specific to the NKJV.

Matthew 8:27, Mark 4:41

When I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on Matthew 8:27 last month, I remembered my comments on Mark 4:41, which is a very similar verse, and I had a few more thoughts.

Οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι ἐθαύμασαν λέγοντες· ποταπός ἐστιν οὗτος ὅτι καὶ οἱ ἄνεμοι καὶ ἡ θάλασσα αὐτῷ ὑπακούουσιν;

And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?" [ESV]

Because καὶ... καὶ... can also be the correlative "both... and..." (as in Matthew 10:28:  καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα, "both body and soul"), the last part of the verse could be translated as "What sort of man is this that both the winds and the sea obey him?" which provides a sense of the breadth of Jesus' command over nature.  (I'll reiterate what I said about Mark 4:41, though:  "Even the winds and the sea" is probably a better translation.)

This may be (and probably is) overanalyzing the text, but there's an additional sense of breadth because there's a variety in the grammatical gender and number of the direct objects:  ἄνεμοι is masculine plural, and θάλασσα is feminine singular.  Of course, there's also a range just because the sea is beneath and the winds are around and above.

Nearly all the same can be said for this text in the Latin Vulgate:  "porro homines mirati sunt dicentes qualis est hic quia et venti et mare oboediunt ei."  "Et... et..." can be the correlative "both... and..." or even and and individually; venti (winds) is masculine plural; but mare (sea) is neuter singular.

Of what features I noted, the German text has only different grammatical genders for wind (masculine Wind) and sea (neuter Meer):  "Die Menschen aber verwunderten sich und sprachen:  Was ist das für ein Mann, daß ihm Wind und Meer gehorsam sind?"

In French, there's something of a sense of breadth between masculine plural vents (winds) and feminine singular mer (sea):  "Ces hommes furent saisis d'étonnement:  Quel est celui-ci, disaient-ils, à qui obéissent même les vents et la mer?"

John 10:4-5

About a month ago, I read John 10 in the ESV after having run across a reference to it in The Heath Anthology of American Literature, and I noticed a contrast between parts of verses 4 and 5.  Talking about a shepherd, Jesus says, "'the sheep follow him...  A stranger they will not follow.'"  The structure is inverted in the second clause (with the direct object coming first), emphasizing this difference.

I doubt that the word order in the original Greek holds this significance, though, because Greek is a more inflected language than English and word order doesn't matter as much.  In Greek, these clauses are:  τὰ πρόβατα αὐτῷ ἀκολουθεῖ (the sheep him follow) and ἀλλοτρίῳ δὲ οὐ μὴ ἀκολουθήσουσιν (a stranger but not they will follow).

The NIV and NKJV both translate these clauses with the same basic structure:  "his sheep follow him... they will never follow a stranger" and "the sheep follow him... they will by no means follow a stranger," respectively, but this inverted word order is present in my German New Testament, where these clauses are "die Schafe folgen ihm nach" and "Einem Fremden aber folgen sie nicht nach."

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.]