Article January 23, 1937 Issue

Bible Notes

"I will redeem you with a stretched out arm" (Ex. 6:6—In the Bible the word "arm" is constantly employed in a metaphorical sense, and, when thus used, it has been described as denoting "influence, power, means of support, or conquest" and especially "the power of God to redeem, judge, protect, punish" (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, p. 246); while in Hastings' Bible Dictionary it is referred to as "an expressive emblem of power, to direct, control, seize, overcome." Compare also II Kings 17:36, where the Lord is said to have brought the people out of Egypt "with great power and a stretched out arm." God's arm, we are told, affords eternal support (Deut. 33:27) and brings salvation (Isa. 59:16), at once ruling (Isa. 40:10) and judging (Isa. 51:5) the people. Moffatt, presupposing a slight variation in the text, translates: "I will deliver them by main force."

"Early will I seek thee" (Ps. 63:1)—The verb which is here rendered "seek early" means literally to "look for dawn" (cf. the reference in Ps. 130:6 to them "that watch for the morning"); hence, it was often used in the figurative sense of "to seek earnestly or eagerly" or "to yearn for" (Brown, Driver, Briggs: Hebrew Lexicon, p. 1007). Kent suggest the translation: "Earnestly I seek for thee;" and Moffatt: "I yearn for thee."

"In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is" (Ps. 63:1)—The word here translated "thirsty" means literally "weary" (cf. the margin of the Authorized Version), so Moffatt has: "Like a land without water, weary, dry."

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