James 1:1

Last month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from the 23rd:

The reading was James 1:1-12.  I was following along in the Vulgate and noticed a small feature in the first verse, specifically in the phrase "Iacobus Dei et Domini nostri Iesu Christi servus."  In the ESV, this is translated as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ," and every other translation I lookt at has a similar rendering in terms of word order.  In the Latin, though, the word for "servant" ("servus") comes last in the phrase, and this mirrors a servant's subordinate position.  This is also true of the Greek:  Ἰάκωβος θεοῦ καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ δοῦλος.

Amos 5:12

About a month ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 17 October:

The reading was Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, and I noticed a small feature that I'd missed earlier that week when the same reading was on Worship Anew.

Here's Amos 5:12:  "For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins - you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate."

There's parallelism between "how many are your transgressions" and "how great are your sins," and this provides a sense of that large amount.

For what it's worth:  I noticed a similar feature in Psalm 49:6 earlier this year.

Matthew 6:30, Luke 12:28

A few weeks ago, I finally got back to my practice of reading the whole chapter of any Biblical citations I run across, after having neglected it for months.  In catching up, I read Matthew 6 because of a reference to it in a C.S. Lewis letter (writing to Owen Barfield in September 1945, Lewis alludes to verse 3).  Jesus' comment "'will he not much more clothe you'" (in verse 30) caught my attention, and I realized that it may have a wider scope than I'd originally thought (also the parallel in Luke 12:28).

In its immediate context, the comment refers merely to physical clothing.  I hadn't considered before that what God does for Adam and Eve at the end of Genesis 3 (verse 21:  "And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them") is a specific example of this, probably the epitome.  The phrase "'much more clothe you'" reminded me of 2 Corinthians 5:4, though, which seems to refer to clothing in a different way:  "For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened - not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."  In light of that context, I think the clothing in Matthew 6:30 and Luke 12:28 can also be viewed more metaphorically, as it is in Isaiah 61:10:  "He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness."  God clothes us physically, as He does the lilies of the field, but He also clothes us metaphorically by giving us that salvation and righteousness.

Matthew 10:39

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Greek went over Matthew 10:39:

I noticed that there's a chiastic structure, and that this highlights the opposites "find" and "lose."

ὁ εὑρὼν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ

ἀπολέσει αὐτὴν

καὶ ὁ ἀπολέσας τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ

εὑρήσει αὐτήν.

Here's the ESV translation:

'Whoever finds his life

will lose it,

and whoever loses his life for my sake

will find it.'

This structure is also in the Latin Vulgate:

Qui invenit animam suam

perdet illam

et qui perdiderit animam suam propter me

inveniet eam

My German New Testament:

Wer sein Leben findet,

der wird's verlieren;

und wer sein Leben verliert um meinetwillen,

der wird's finden.

And my French New Testament:

Celui qui conservera sa vie

la perdre,

et celui qui perdra sa vie à cause de moi

la retrouvera.

Mark 10:21

A couple weeks ago (13 October, Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost), the Gospel reading was Mark 10:17-22.  While watching Worship Anew, I was following along in the Latin Vulgate and noticed a significant difference in verse 21.  In the ESV, Jesus tells the rich young man, "You lack one thing" (the NIV and NKJV simply invert this:  "One thing you lack"), but in the Vulgate, He says, "Unum tibi deest" ("One thing is lacking from you," although technically, "tibi" is in the dative case).  The Greek is similar:  ἕν σε ὑστερεῖ.

The rich young man is too concerned about his own efforts in acquiring eternal life, apparently not understanding that whatever they are, they would be insufficient and that eternal life is given to him freely (just like an earthly inheritance).  The accusative σε in the Greek (and dative "tibi" in the Latin) stands in contrast to the nominative "you" in the English translations, and, coincidentally, this matches the lesson (or a lesson) that the man needs to learn:  he doesn't have to be the subject or the one doing the action.  It's done for him.  

For what it's worth:  in my German New Testament, this clause is "Eines fehlt dir" (with the dative "dir"), and in my French New Testament, it's "Il te manque une chose" (with the accusative "te").

2 Samuel 11-12

Lately, I've been reading 2 Samuel in the NIV, and I noticed an interesting feature about how Bathsheba is referred to in chapters 11 and 12.  She's introduced in 2 Samuel 11:3:  "and David sent someone to find out about her.  The man said, 'Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?'"  She's not called Bathsheba again until 12:24.  Aside from pronouns and one instance of "the woman" (in 11:5), she's called various forms of "Uriah's wife" (11:26, 12:9, 12:10, 12:15).  By repeatedly referring to her this way, the text emphasizes Bathsheba's existing marriage to Uriah and the adulterous nature of the relationship that she and David have.

Matthew 10:28

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Greek went over Matthew 10:28:

καὶ μὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶμα, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι· φοβεῖσθε δὲ μᾶλλον τὸν δυνάμενον καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα ἀπολέσαι ἐν γεέννῃ.

'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.'  [ESV]

I noticed that there's a chiastic structure between ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶμα (in which the direct object comes last) and τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι (in which the direct object comes first), and this inversion highlights the sort of opposite nature of "killing" and "not being able to kill."

This same structure is also in the Latin Vulgate:  "et nolite timere eos qui occidunt corpus animam autem non possunt occidere sed potius eum timete qui potest et animam et corpus perdere in gehennam."

Matthew 6:21

A couple weeks ago, I happened to read Matthew 6:21 in Middle English:  "For where thi tresoure is, there also thin herte is."  In Greek, it's ὅπου γάρ ἐστιν ὁ θησαυρός σου, ἐκεῖ ἔσται καὶ ἡ καρδία σου, and in the ESV, it's "'For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.'"  In the Middle English version, ἔσται is translated in the present tense ("is") rather than the future ("will be"), but maybe it was because of this that I realized that structurally, the two clauses have much in common.  In the Greek, it's:

[form of "to be"] [article] [noun] [possessive pronoun]

ἐστιν ὁ θησαυρός σου ("is the treasure of you")

ἔσται... ἡ καρδία σου ("will be... the heart of you")

The sort of parallelism between ἐστιν and ἔσται isn't as clear in Modern English because the single word is doesn't correspond to the two-word phrase "will be" as neatly.

To some degree, this structural similarity mirrors the meaning; the treasure and heart are in the same place, and the clauses have a parity, too.

This feature is also present in the Latin Vulgate, perhaps even a bit more strongly, since the relative pronoun ubi ("where") is only one letter different from the adverb ibi ("there"):

Ubi enim est thesaurus tuus ibi est et cor tuum

And in my French New Testament:

Car là où est ton trésor, là aussi sera ton cœur.

Ephesians 3:17-19

A couple weeks ago, I was looking at Ephesians 3:17-19:  "17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." [ESV]

I noticed that there are a number of rhetorical effects in the phrase "the breadth and length and height and depth" (τὸ πλάτος καὶ μῆκος καὶ ὕψος καὶ βάθος).  The list of various dimensions is something of a rhetorical catalogue; the dimensions all go in different directions, forming a sort of three-dimensional merism; and all of the elements are linked with polysyndeton.  Even just one of these effects would provide a sense of this vastness, but because there are multiple effects, the sense is compounded.

I also noticed that the phrase "filled with all the fullness of God" (πληρωθῆτε εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ) is somewhat redundant, not only in "filled with... fullness" but also in "all the fullness."  As in Psalm 65:11, though, which I wrote about last month, these redundancies mirror this abundance.

John 10:9

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Latin went over John 10:9:

ego sum ostium per me si quis introierit salvabitur et ingredietur et egredietur et pascua inveniet

"I am the door.  If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture." [ESV]

The foreignness of "ingredietur et egredietur" caught my attention, and I realized that there's an echo of Psalm 121 here.  Although the order is reversed, "go in and out" also appears in Psalm 121:8:  "The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore" [ESV].  There's also a similarity between "be[ing] saved" and the repeated יִשְׁמֹר in the last two verses of Psalm 121, which the NKJV translates as "shall preserve":  "7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.  8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore."

Psalm 69

Last month, I read Psalm 69 in the ESV and noticed a few features.  The Psalm starts with some water imagery that recurs in later verses:

1 Save me, O God!  For the waters have come up to my neck.  2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.  3 I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

14 Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.  15 Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.

There are waters both above and below the Psalmist, so there's something of the same effect as a merism here, and the degree of the Psalmist's peril is emphasized.

There's a similar effect with the wetness of the water that threatens to drown him and the dryness of his throat as he calls out for help.  Both qualities cause him discomfort.

Verse 8 exhibits a sort of parallelism:

I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons.

While "my brothers" and "my mother's sons" refer to the same people, the second expression describes the relationship in more distant terms, so even in the language, there's a sense of this ostracism.

Isaiah 40:30-31

A couple weeks ago, I read Isaiah 40:30-31:  "30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." [ESV]

I noticed that the contrast between the faltering strength of the "youths" and "young men" and the sustained strength of "they who wait for the LORD" is highlighted by the different number of verbs used to describe them.  The first group has three ("shall faint," "[shall] be weary," and "shall fall exhausted"), but the second group has four ("shall renew their strength," "shall mount up," "shall run," and "shall walk") (plus a further two if you include the negated "not be weary" and "not faint").  That those in the second group are able to do more illustrates the greater strength that they have because they "wait for the LORD."