Article September 28, 1935 Issue

Bible Notes

"A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth" (Prov. 6:12)—"Naughty" is equivalent to our modern word "worthless." Moreover, a literal translation of the Hebrew equivalent of "a naughty person" would be "a man (in the sense of any human being) of worthlessness;" while the word rendered "froward" means literally "twisted, perverted, crooked" (cf. Brown, Driver, Briggs: Hebrew Lexicon). Moffatt translates: "A rascal, knave—he works with falsehood on his lips;" and Smith: "A knave, a villain, is he who deals in crooked speech;" while Kent suggests: "A depraved man, a bad character, goes about making false statements."

"Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind" (Isa. 17:13)—The Hebrew word "galgal," here rendered "a rolling thing," is used in several senses in the Old Testament, including "wheel, whirl, whirlwind," and various scholars consider that, as employed in this verse, the sense is "whirl"—of dust or chaff (Brown, etc., op. cit., p. 165f.). In the Revised Version we find the rendering; "like the whirling dust before the storm;" and Smith: "like whirling dust before the hurricane."

"Let us watch and be sober" (I Thess. 5:6)—The Greek verb here rendered "watch" is "gregorein," meaning "to be awake," "to give strict attention to; be cautious, active," and represents "a waking state as the result of some arousing effort" (Thayer: Greek Lexicon, pp. 9, 122); while the word rendered "be sober" is regularly used in the New Testament in its figurative sense of "to be calm and collected in spirit, to be temperate, dispassionate, circumspect" (ibid., p. 425). Goodspeed suggests: "We must be vigilant and composed;" and Weymouth (5th edition): "Let us keep awake and be sober;" while the Twentieth Century New Testament has: "Let us be watchful and self-controlled."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

I should like to take this opportunity to express my deep...