Article April 4, 1936 Issue

Bible Notes

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3)—The idiom of the original suggests an even more definite prohibition, which is well rendered by Moffatt: "You shall have no gods but me." Both the Septuagint and the Revised Version (margin) translate: "beside me."

"Who redeemeth thy life from destruction" (Ps. 103:4)—A literal rendering of the Hebrew would be "from the pit" (that is, the supposed subterranean abode of the departed), or, as moderns would put it, "from the grave," or "from death" (cf. Brown, Driver, Briggs: Hebrew Lexicon). The 16th Century Genevan Version had: "which redeemeth thy life from the grave;" while Moffatt renders: "He saves your life from death;" and Smith: "who rescues my life from the pit."

"Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" (James 3:11)—The words translated "at the same place" mean literally "from the same opening," and that is the rendering preferred by Weymouth (5th edition) and the Revised Version. Moffatt suggests: "Does a fountain pour out fresh water and brackish from the same hole?"

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