From the About page: Wikipedia, the source of all truth, says that Nabal in 1 Samuel 25:25 is “euphemistically translated as fool.” So far as I can tell, it’s always translated as fool or something similar. I can’t seem to find a dirty meaning for “nabal” anywhere. Is that because mainstream scholarship is too prudish…
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Polycarp asks on the About page how “wonderful, counselor” of Isaiah 9:5 (9:6) should be translated. It’s a difficult question with a longer than usual answer. But here goes. As with “Prince of Peace,” we assume that the title “wonderful, counselor” — whatever it means — describes God after whom the child in Isaiah 9…
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From the About page comes this question: Mark 1:2 and Isaiah 40:3 — is the idea that crooked paths need to be straightened, or that obstacles need to be removed? Neither, actually. Isaiah 40:3 is a variation on classic Hebrew parallel poetry. We have two parallel phrases, each with four words. For example, from the…
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From the About page comes a question about the last verb in Isaiah 28:16: His [Dietrich Boenhoffer’s] reading said that “he that believes does not flee”. Is that what this says? No. The Hebrew verb at the end (yachish) clearly means “hurry,” — compare Isaiah 5:19 and Psalm 119:60 — so the phrase should mean:…
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From the About page: As a grammar lesson, I tried parsing Psalm 117. There is a possible usage of a ‘he’ marking the use of the vocative (BDB 1.i) but the article is missing on the first colon kol goyim and present on the second shavxuhu col ha’umim. It seems to me that ‘praise the…
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From the About page: Still working on he and vav and I came across this pair of words in Ruth vatishtachu artza. Two questions — why the vav at the end of the first word? And why the he at the end of the second? KJV translates it as if it were hithpael — she…
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Here’s another question from the About page: Should English translations seek to retain subtle distinctions, such as the difference between dying and perishing? Much to my surprise, the (T)NIV chose to say “those who live by the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Since I grew up reading NIV, but have since become…
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From the About comes this great question: I have a question about the gender of nations. It seems like nations can be referred with both masculine and feminine pronouns. Is there any significance with this change? For example, Moab is “he” in Isa 16:12, Israel is “he” in Jer 2:14; 50:17 but “herself” in Jer…
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From the About page comes this question: The NET Bible does not render imperatives in Psalm 97:7, while others do. Their footnote is helpful, but not enough for me to opine on which is right. What light can you shed on this? The phrase here is hishtachavu lo kol elohim. The last three words mean,…
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Another great question from the About page: I have a question about Matthew 27:54. The centurion and the rest of the detachment set to guard Jesus body cried out and said “truly he was the Son of God!” — or is that really what they said? Since it lacks the articles in Greek, and Latin…
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