Bible Notes

"Jesus straitly charged them" (Matt. 9:30)—In this context the somewhat uncommon verb rendered "straitly to charge" seems to mean "to charge with earnest admonition; sternly to charge" (Thayer: Greek Lexicon, p. 207) or "to admonish sternly" (Abbott-Smith: Greek Lexicon, p. 148). Goodspeed has: "Jesus warned them sternly;" Weymouth (5th edition): "Assuming a stern tone, Jesus said to them;" and Moffatt: "Jesus sternly charged them."

"He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad" (Matt. 9:36)—The term translated "fainted" comes from a verb meaning "to trouble oneself" (Thayer: op. cit., p. 580) or "to be harassed"; while the term rendered "scattered abroad" is literally "thrown down," and so "prostrated by hunger, fatigue, etc." (ibid., p. 563). Hence we find: "They were distracted and dejected" (Weymouth); "distressed and harassed" (Twentieth Century New Testament); "harassed and dejected" (Moffatt).

"We are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held" (Rom. 7:6)—A more literal rendering is, "having died to that wherein we were held" (compare the Revised Version). Moffatt translates: "We are done with the Law, we have died to what once held us;" and Goodspeed: "The Law no longer applies to us."

"I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Rom. 7:22)—Goodspeed well renders this: "My inner nature agrees with the divine law."

"I see another law in my members" (Rom. 7:23)—The Greek word translated "members" is the regular word used for the limbs or parts of the human body; hence the Twentieth Century New Testament suggests: "throughout my body"; while Goodspeed has: "All through my body I see another principle in conflict with the law of my reason." Weymouth reads: "I discover in my faculties a different law."

"The body of this death" (Rom. 7:24)—More literally this means, "this body subject to death" (Thayer: op. cit.). Moffatt suggests: "This body of death," as does Weymouth; while Goodspeed has: "This doomed body."

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord" (Ps. 37:23)—It may be noted that the word "good" is not represented in the original Hebrew. Then, too, the term rendered "ordered" is more literally "established," and scholars contend that the word "steps" is used figuaratively of a man's "course of life" (Brown, Driver, Briggs: Hebrew Lexicon, p. 857). The Revised Version suggests the translation: "A man's goings are established by the Lord;" while Moffatt translates the complete verse as follows: "When a man's life pleases the Eternal, he gives him a sure footing."

"Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die" (Hab. 1:12)—By the change of a single letter in the Hebrew, "we shall not die" would become "thou diest not," which, according to Jewish tradition, is the original reading (Stonehouse: Book of Habakkuk, p. 180). So Moffatt renders: "Art thou not the Eternal from of old, my God, my Majestic one? thou diest not;" and Smith: "Art thou not from of old, O Lord, my holy God? Thou diest not!"

"This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God" (John 11:4)—Moffatt suggests this interesting rendering: "This illness is not to end in death; the end of it is the glory of God."

"When the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall" (Isa. 25:4)—The word "against" is not represented in the original Hebrew text, and Smith suggests that the term here literally rendered "wall" was unintentionally substituted for a word meaning "winter," at some time in the history of the text. Hence he prefers to translate: "When the breath of the ruthless is like a storm in winter."

"He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering" (Isa. 25:7)—It may be inferred from Isaiah 24:23 that "this mountain" is the familiar Mount Zion at Jerusalem—as various commentators suggest. The word literally rendered "face" can also mean "surface" (Brown, etc., op. cit., p. 532), but need hardly be translated in English. Moffatt has: "On this mountain shall he strip away the mourning shroud from all mankind."

"He will swallow up death in victory" (Isa. 25:8)—A more literal translation of the Hebrew adverbial idiom "la-netsach" would be "forever" (cf. Feyerabend: Hebrew Dictionary, p. 221), and the verb may be read in the past owing to the ambiguity of the tenses in the original. This explains the rendering of the Revised Version: "He hath swallowed up death forever." Moffatt renders: "Displacing death for evermore;" and Smith: "He will destroy death forever." Nevertheless, the familiar translation, "in victory," may well be defended on the ground that it appears to summarize the various senses of the word "netsach," which include "perpetuity, splendour, glory, truth, power, firmness, confidence" (Feyerabend: loc. cit.).

"A sound mind" (II Tim. 1:7)—The Greek word "sophronismos" can also be rendered "self-control or self-discipline" (Moulton and Milligan: Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, p. 622; Thayer: op. cit., p. 613).

"Our Saviour Jesus Christ ... hath abolished death" (II Tim. 1:10)—The Greek verb "katargein," here rendered "abolish," means literally "to make inactive or inoperative," and is used in Luke 13:7 with reference to the barren fig tree which "cumbereth ... the ground"—in other words, makes the ground on which it stands useless (or inactive) (cf. Abbott-Smith: op. cit., p. 238). In I Corinthians 15:26 the same Greek verb is again used, but is there rendered "destroyed" in our Common Version.

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